Loraine Sumner

Item Data

  • Collection Title: Loraine Sumner Collection
  • Item Title: Loraine Sumner, Reel 2
  • ID Number: LS-002
  • Date Range: c. 1958-1963
  • Description: Referee & coach Loraine Sumner's 8mm bird's eye view of life before & after Title IX. Fast pitches, shot puts, camping trips, life as a lesbian mother, family weddings, and lots of horsing around. Includes minor footage of Hall of Famer Joan Joyce. Drugstore-jumbled 8mm footage.
  • Biographical/Historical Note: See collection level, Biographical/Historical Notes. Add cite on the prevalence of playing native american or foregrounding native american dancing in US and Canadian camps. When & how the tradition stopped. "Dances of Polynesia"
  • Genres: Home Movies
  • Places: Tower Day Camp, Sterling, Massachusetts; Hingham, Massachusetts; Washington, DC; Mt. Vernon, Virginia; Milton, Massachusetts; Plimouth Plantation, Plymouth, Massachusetts; Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Arlington, Virginia
  • Access & Use: Contact Lesbian Home Movie Project (LHMP) info@lesbianhomemovieproject.org. No re-use without permission. LHMP must contact film donor & participants with regard to any re-use.
  • Color or B&W: Color
  • Related Versions: Reel 2, Loraine Sumner Collection, Lesbian Home Movie Project (LHMP)
  • Running Time: 37:52
  • Rights: Lesbian Home Movie Project (LHMP) holds all rights. Donor must approve all uses.
  • Sound: Silent
  • Subjects: Lesbian mothers, Softball
  • Creators: Loraine Sumner
  • Collaborators & Participants: For further information or if you or friends took part in this event, be great if you emailed us at info@lesbianhomemovieproject.org & let us know. We'll share your input if that's okay, or just preserve it.
  • Source Format: 8mm
  • Format: 8mm
  • Viewing Log: Attempts at synchronized swimming, Tower Day Camp pool. Children in car backseat. Playing in a backyard. Black out. Indian dance. Campers watching, possibly including Sumner's daughter Debbie. Debbie running with Lucky, her dog, riding bike. Cats lying in grass. (Overexposed.) Pan of trophies & xmas cards. Loraine's teammates visiting. Young woman short brown hair looks kind of at home, drinks flirtily from small bottle. More playful wrestling. One getting under covers on the couch. One clothed in the bathtub. She turns over. Another rubs her back. Maybe Debbie in red and white dress with white yoke on scooter. Christmas tree. Debbie in glasses pets Lucky. A todler in Dr. Dentons. Dances of Polynesia (commercial film interpolated (runs about 3 1/2 minutes). Cut to school auditorium, some kind of international day that also included a Native American style dance. Short over exposed section, probably on Thacher St. DC. Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Statuary. Road signs: Memorial Bridge, Arlington Street. Quick shots of woman in blue coat, then woman sitting kicking her legs in a public bldg on a marble seat. Other DC sights. Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Cherry trees in bloom. Sightseers. Mt. Vernon. Swings. Back home, that mantle with trophies and holiday cards. Esquirette Faith Newcomb in blue jacket. Other team members horsing around. Lucky in colorful yarmulke. Party horn (for New Year's?) Football. Mobile home. Looks like a Studebaker in front. Woman with baby on lap in front of cabin. Dark. Mantle again. Faith Newcomb again. Maybe New Year's party with gay guys. Elder Sumner's dining room. Man at the head of the table gives child beer. Upside down holiday footage. Kids play in snow. Loraine's aunt approaches smiling in deep pink coat. Dapper man in fedora and brown coat approaches. Two young girls in Easter toppers and hats walk past snowy lawns. Teammates come out of restaurant, cross the street laughing. Sign, "Early pilgrim dwellings," possibly Plimouth Plantation. Pan of harbor. Muriel Hall, an early girlfriend of Loraine's, in red coat. More harbor pans. More pilgrim dwellings. Shore line pans. Forehead. Water. Twilight on water. Back to Thacher St. Loraine's dad mixing cement, working on the house. Hole in his pants? Matriarchs in lawn chairs. Pans of water. Stone wall. 27:03 Young woman roughousing, jumping off car fenders. Probably South Shore Equirettes. More green view. Exterior construction. Thacher Street dining room. Baby with orange wig on head (Debbie?) Family again outside in summer, women doing calisthenics, walking, dancing hip swinging, fooling around. Baby in red dress standing on older woman's lap. Clapboard houses, snowy lawns. Friends from the Esquirettes and Debbie now on a cement wall or bridge. Horsing around with a curved cement something, maybe in construction. Body of water in background. Harbor. Group of women on ship. Pans of city on shore. Ships. Rigs. Debbie walking in short sleeved dress on ground. Zoo? Teammates lean against iron fence. Elephant. Monkeys on two sides of a swing. On a slide. Walking on a rolling ball. World's Fair style trolley [fix word]. Woman trying to climb up on elephant. Debbie playing around elephant's legs. Two or three young women keep trying to climb the elephant. Camels.