Ruth Storm

Item Data

  • Title:
  • Date Range: 1938-1944
  • Collection Summary:
  • Description: Three lesbian friends -- Ruth, Chennie, and Mabel -- enjoy Corea, Maine, c. 1938-1944.
  • Biographical/Historical Note: In the mid-1930s Ruth Storm & longtime friend Mabel Griffin invited violinist, artist & copywriter Chenoweth "Chennie" Hall to join their annual Maine vacation at a camp for single adults, mostly ministers & schoolteachers, on Lake Alamoosook in Orland, Maine. Chennie found the locale & the company dull and when the camp held its annual lobster picnic on the rocky coast of Corea, Chennie announced she was staying. For the remainder of the vacation, the trio rented a Corea cabin. All three returned summer after summer thereafter. Chennie became the life partner of Miriam Colwell who grew up in Corea, and Ruth Storm ultimately retired to her cabin where she edited these reels and spent the end of her life in the company of Almeda "Meda" Benoit, her last partner.
    In their early days in Corea the friends ate most of their meals at Katie Young's restaurant where Katie's daughter Louise Z Young waited tables. Louise thoroughly enjoyed the women from NYC and told her friend writer Miriam Colwell, then a teenager, that she had to come to the restaurant & meet them In the coming years, Mabel & Ruth bought adjoining lots on the water; Ruth built a cabin; and Chennie became romantically involved with Miriam Colwell. In 1938 Storm bought 1.5 acres in Corea & her friend Mabel Griffin bought 3 adjacent acres. Storm's earliest known footage -- "Maine I" -- documents the friends' early stays in Corea, siting the cabin & socializing as well as Chennie & Mimi's early days together.
    Sources: Interview, John Lord, 9-3-2014.
    Other interviews Miriam Colwell, Marianne New, Dale McCormick, Sheila McLaughlin, Tibby McCormick. Property records.
  • Genres: Amateur Films
  • Subjects: Maine, Lesbians, Lobstering
  • Places: Corea, Maine & environs
  • Creators: Ruth Huntington Storm (1888-1981)
  • Collaborators & Participants: Participants:
    Almeda "Meda" Benoit (1910-2007)
    Mabel Griffin (1891-1942)
    Chenoweth Hall (1908-1999)
    Maynard Wasgut
    Joe Young
    Louise Z. Young (1919-2004)
  • Primary Format:
  • Physical Length:
  • Arrangement:
  • Access & Use: Contact Lesbian Home Movie Project (LHMP) info@lesbianhomemovieproject.org. No re-use without permission.
  • Rights: Lesbian Home Movie Project (LHMP) holds all rights.
  • Related Links:
  • Preferred Citation: "Maine I," Reel 1, Ruth Storm Collection, Lesbian Home Movie Project (LHMP).