How refreshing to spend time with a couple of women who are comfortable with who they are. I left Grethe Cammermeyer and Diane Divelbess’s Langley home feeling uplifted after spending two hours with them the last week of February.
The women—spouses with one another—are distinctly strong personalities. Grethe has a military bearing—reflecting the army colonel she once was—and Diane is an artist/retired art professor with a wide-ranging embracing viewpoint—and each one compliments the other.
The big news is Diane turns 90 this year on June 21. Plans are underway to celebrate her art with an exhibit at the Uprise Gallery in the South Whidbey Community Center June 1-27, and another at their home gallery, Saratoga View, June 14-22.
“If you want a trigger for your story, the focus is that she’ll be 90 in the summer and has to write a book on her art,” Grethe said before leaving me to talk with Diane, who was sitting in the couple’s light-filled dining room. “Diane likes to tell stories and she starts with Genesis.”
The biblical reference is to Diane’s tendency to tell long stories. For my chat with Diane, I learned right away that she once enjoyed peanut butter, mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato sandwiches while being raised in Arizona. After meeting Grethe and taking long road trips together, Diane learned to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Here’s how the conversation flowed once I sat down with Diane:
“With peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut in half, we could trade off drivers and never stop at a restaurant,” Diane explained. “To keep our energy we constantly ate peanut butter and jelly. They don’t dry out because of the jelly—which is perfect long-distance food. I’ve discovered my other taste for bread, mayo and sharp cheddar is beginning to return after having COVID, but I still begin my day with peanut butter and tomato on bread, which I get from Chris’ Bakery in Oak Harbor. Also after having COVID, my alto voice started cracking, and I sounded like a teenage boy. With COVID I had the sorest throat I’ve ever had. Now, when I sing…” she laughs, “…I have this old lady treble, I warble at a high level.”
Regarding organizing her art catalogue, Diane explained: “That’s the doing of Grethe. She’s a master mind in thinking of how to celebrate. She’s a retired colonel, a tough Norwegian, with the ability to organize things, and get people to work for them. This book, like I say, is from A to Izzerd (Z). It’s titled ‘A Life Time of Life.’ That’s a big fat clue!”
Letting me know where she is in writing the book Diane said, “I have completed through Chapter 5. The chapters go from kindergarten through all the years of education, years of employment, high school and Cal Poly Pomona. Chapter 5 actually covers a year when I took a leave of absence without pay from Cal Poly and went to Berkeley to do art, and found out I was becoming anxious watching my savings account go down. I took a part time job with an upscale department store in Berkeley working in the basement as a shipping clerk. I describe that. I have different strands—arcs that go out—some summers in Southeastern New Mexico, the summers I was there, were heady.”
Heady might describe July 4, 1988 when Diane, an artist and art professor, and Grethe first met in Lincoln, Oregon on the state’s wild coast.
Grethe was an Army colonel, and former Viet Nam combat nurse, currently working with the Washington National Guard and the VA hospital in Seattle at the time. To get a real sense of the women, watch Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story, a 1995 film starring Glen Close as Grethe, and Judy Davis as Diane. Her story is also told in her autobiography with Chris Fisher, Serving in Silence, is available on Amazon, updated in 2016.
Grethe recalled, “I was a nurse and earned a PhD from UW specializing in seizure disorders, sleep apnea, and cognition. In the military I was a clinician before going into administration. I was the chief nurse with the Washington National Guard before the shit hit the fan.”
In real life, Grethe faced a forced honorable discharge from the Army/National Guard for disclosing her orientation during an interview to upgrade her security clearance. What followed was her successful campaign to remain with the military in the face of a very public legal battle. She and Diane moved to Whidbey Island in 1995, and were the first gay couple to obtain a same sex marriage license in Island County following the repeal of Defense of Marriage Act in 2013.
Nowadays Grethe advocates for the trans community, currently targeted by the current presidential administration. She recalled the challenges faced by lesbians and gays 30-some years ago.
“Some years ago, Diane and I were invited to a youth workshop, maybe during Clinton’s time. In awe we both went,” Grethe said. “It was a gay youth workshop with a representative from the administration. It was making sure that people knew they were recognized and appreciated—that you could live in society. Afterwards the most salient thing was a mother came up to us and thanked us so she could see her child had a future.”
To Grethe, it is important “…that you live your truth openly.” Doing so helps dispel stereotypes that continue about ways people love one another or wish to identify.
“That is the importance of being visible,” Grethe added. “To be able to illustrate that the stereotypes that were perpetuated about gays in the military and gays in society; that we die of AIDS, that we would receive God’s wrath in the 90s and before. That needed to be changed in such a way that we were representative. That these were fabrications created to alienate us.
“Ironically we are in the same place today,” Grethe continued. “Gays and lesbians are not included in the target. If you’re trans you certainly are. To have a president who acts as if he is god and that there are only two genders, it is absurd. It is naively surprising that there is such a backlash in the United States of male misogyny, and their sense of not being worthy, so they have to resort to this aggressive behavior that was practiced by the Nazis prior to WWII.”
She mentioned joining a group meeting monthly called Pride Cafe. There she met a man who has pins, which read: “You are Safe With Me.”
“The pin has an all-encompassing meaning—whether you’re an immigrant, gay, abused, whatever, you’re making a statement about your acceptance of other people,” Grethe said, handing me a pin, which I now wear.
In addition to her support for the trans community, Grethe is involved with an “Engaging Aging” program held the second and third Thursdays at St. Augustine’s in the Woods from 1 PM to 2:30 PM. With an ongoing interest in aging, she ran an Adult Family Home for 15 years until 2019.
“For the past 14 months, we have monthly conversations,” Grethe said. “I met a woman, a nurse, who wrote a blog, ‘Engaging with Aging.’ My friend Stefani Christensen and I were absolutely infatuated by the blog. We liked it so much, we published two books.”
Doris Carnevali was 95 at the time she began writing the blog. “As we talked, we were in our 80s,” Grethe recalled of her conversation. “Doris said you need to fill in the gaps between 65 and 95, so we host the talks.”
Aging seemingly agrees with Grethe and Diane, each living their truth. Grethe, ever the colonel, continues to lead the way. As the interview drew to a close, Grethe stepped in to the dining room where Diane and I were chatting. Without saying anything, Grethe’s body language signaled my time to go. I drove home and told my husband Bill what an uplifting interview it was. We watched Serving in Silence that evening. We felt empowered as a result.
For more on Grethe’s motto of “Live Your Truth Openly,” visit her website.
1 Comment
loved your piece on Judy Lynn and this one is fantastic as well. You have become my new favorite writer. Thanks for these wonderful, important stories