subamuh.
On September 27, 1979, Janet Griesinger and her partner Mary Morgan purchased 151 acres of land in Millfield Township, Ohio, at a sealed bid auction from the Farmer’s Home Administration. That plot of land would soon become The Susan B. Anthony Memorial Unrest Home, or SuBAMUH for short. Jan and Mary created SuBAMUH to be a “Womyn’s Land,” a separatist community for women. Men were not allowed on the land and women were encouraged to visit, live on, and find peace within it.
​
Kaelyn Ferris, Elizabeth Elrod, Violet Franklin, Jolena Hansberger, and Loran Marsan chat during a Subamuh open house in September, 2019. Marsan, a Women and Gender Studies Professor at Ohio University and her partner Hansberger are members and live at Subamuh. After opening up membership and participation to LGBTQ+ folk several people come to visit the community.
“Today we usually describe SuBAMUH as a women's centered LGBTQ focused feminist nonprofit. So we focus on feminist education, so that can be anything from workshops about distillation to how to change a tire to feminist discussions. We also have a large portion that's focused on conservation and sort of reconnecting women and queer folk with the land and giving them a space that they feel safe in, when a lot of people do not feel that way out in the wilderness usually if they are female or queer”, says Loran Marsan, a current resident who has been at SuBAMUH for a year and a half.
When Jan and Mary acquired their plot there were only two structures standing on the property; a farmhouse and an accompanying outhouse. Within the next decade they developed a running water system, made two additions to the farmhouse, excavated a pond, built a cabin, constructed another house, and cleared campsites to create a campground for any women who wished to visit. They had also started multiple event series including sisterhood weekends, women’s only music festivals, automotive workshops, carpentry workshops, and potlucks whenever there was reason to celebrate or gather. SuBAMUH had become a safe place for women to reside, escape to, and enjoy.
* * *
jan + mary
purchase 151 acres
1979
1981
first official meeting
1982
campground developed
and opened
two bedroom addition
to farmhouse
1986
1987
womyns music
festival
construction of
cabins begin
1991
1992
subamuh board
forms
1994
amazon house
is erected
2015
mary passes away
jan leaves subamuh
2017
* * *
Subamuh. October, 2019.
As Jan got older, she started having health problems. Forgetfulness, struggling with stairs, having trouble walking, and eventually was diagnosed with arthritis in her foot. The arthritis would eventually rob her of her ability to walk without a walker, and her memory worsened still.
Mary passed away in 2015, 36 years after starting SuBAMUH.
Jan called SuBAMUH home for 38 years, until 2017, when she finally left for a more accessible apartment in Athens, Ohio. Jan now spends her days in her apartment on the sleepy Eastside of Athens with her cat Chili, who also used to roam the relatively vast acreage of the community land.
Jan at her apartment in Athens, Ohio.
Loran Marsan says the community and the work Jan and Mary did has impacted her life greatly. “I am very grateful to Jan for what she’s done...I’m glad for what she’s done for people like me. I would not have ever had this opportunity if her and Mary Morgan hadn’t bought this repossessed land in 1979. They’ve done some really awesome things over the years.”
Some of Jan’s best memories from SuBAMUH are of the everbearing strawberry patch on the land. They could harvest their strawberries three times a year, which allowed Jan to have her classic daily breakfast of fresh strawberries, granola, and yogurt. “One of the things I used to do in the strawberry patch was crawl on the ground to pull the weed to pick the strawberries. Can’t do that now, have to stay standing up,” she says. She now substitutes her strawberries with store bought fruit or farmer’s market produce, but sometimes new members still bring her fresh everbearing strawberries from the land she planted them on.
