Jacqueline Hart Gibson, Gilpin County. Claudia Schauffler, owner of The Shop, a fabulous clothing store in Nederland’s Caribou Village, has a colorful story of love. Her personal story weaves through our collective history, gently illuminating events along the timeline we all share. 

Claudia, 69, shares her life today with her partner Mona Crowe, 62. They have lived in Gilpin County for 19 years. Mona is an artist who, according to Claudia, “Doesn’t create the kind of art you hang above your sofa.” She smiles proudly and adds, “It’s very political.” Mona’s work may be available in Nederland in the near future, for art enthusiasts who prefer pieces that make a statement.

Claudia’s lessons in love started in 1968, with her senior prom in Texas. “I was doing a work study program at a Sears store in downtown Houston.” She explained, “This was when Motown was rockin’ it and everybody loved their music.” Claudia and a young man she worked with, Sammy, bonded over their love of Motown music and would listen to it in the break room at work, along with her other co-workers. 

Because Claudia’s boyfriend was enlisted in the Army away from home, Claudia thought it would be fun to go to prom with her friend Sammy. She thought of it simply as a party where they could dance and have a good time. There was nothing simple about going to her prom with her friend in 1968, because Sammy was black. 

Although she attended a public school, Claudia was required to get permission from the dean of women, a woman whose primary responsibility was to measure the length of female students’ skirts, and after some deliberation, permission was granted for the pair to attend prom together. Claudia’s parents were concerned but supported her decision. 

As prom approached, Claudia says, “I came home from school one day and my mother said she had received a phone call from Sammy’s mother.” Her mother continued, “She said she could not allow Sammy to go to the prom with you because she can’t condone interracial dating.” Although the kids didn’t see the event as a date, the public would. 

Claudia said it was quite an eye opener for her as she had always associated issues with interracial dating to white people. “It had never occurred to me that black people would object. I only saw my perspective. Until that moment, I had never considered their perspective. All of the same things happening in my family, were happening in his family as well. There wasn’t integration in 1968, and so I had only been exposed to my world. That was my first experience with anything like that, and it was a great experience.” Claudia explained it was well worth it to miss the prom for an opportunity to look at her own blind spots regarding racism, especially since a lack of integration in her community didn’t offer such opportunities often.  

Her prom experience was so profound she was inspired to look into civil and women’s rights movements. While still living near Houston, Claudia was moved by powerful speaker Barbara Jordan, the first female black senator, best known for a powerful speech on Nixon’s impeachment in 1974. 

Claudia says moving to Atlanta, marriage, and caring for her two children, Daniel Totten and Jillian Sue, halted her activism for a few years. Her involvement was reignited when she met her local rep in Atlanta, Cynthia McKinney, an activist and the first black woman to represent Georgia in Congress, in the 1980s. Claudia helped organize some of the early King Day parades and became heavily involved with the group Sister to Sister in its earliest days, doing workshops and women’s support groups for single mothers and others needing assistance. Sister to Sister was a group that addressed issues within the gay community as well as the women’s community. The community of women in that area were predominantly black which is why, Claudia says, she had the opportunity to learn from so many amazing professional black women. 

A group within the Sister to Sister group decided, “We really should take our group on the road to DC.” Claudia was involved with that decision, leading her to be among the first groups of women to lobby in DC and present the issues of her community to their legislators. Health discrepancies and discrimination in the gay and women’s communities were among the issues they presented in the three trips she took with the Sister to Sister group, throughout the 80s and into the late 90s. Cynthia McKinney continued to set up meetings between the group and the state representatives. 

Claudia and her husband divorced in the early 90s, after 13 years of marriage, and again her personal relationship revealed opportunities for activism. “My divorce was contentious, but it wasn’t horrible. I met a lot of women though, who were in really bad situations.” Claudia says she witnessed father’s rights organizations at the time whose purpose was to teach men how to avoid child support, mostly by threatening their former spouses’ custody. “Many of the women in that era were not prepared to defend themselves from these attacks.” Claudia also says her ex-husband revealed his lawyer, familiar with father’s rights groups lessons, had counseled him to seek custody for the same reason. Thankfully, he didn’t follow through. Rather than count her blessings and move on, Claudia sought to connect the women attacked by father’s rights groups, with the feminist movement for help. 

Claudia can recall in her trips to the capital with Sister to Sister, they took a meeting with Newt Gingrich and she recalls disliking him immensely. Their conversations with the former speaker of the house involved prescription costs and lack of access for underserved communities who were struggling to afford insulin.  

 In 2001 her daughter Jillian, who was born with cystic fibrosis, passed away at only 18 years old. Claudia was in a relationship with a woman she met through her work in activism. The relationship was brief because her then partner was unfaithful. But the infidelity brought Claudia and Mona together, as their partners had cheated with each other. The newly formed pairs became committed couples, but only a year later, Mona and Claudia’s ex-partners died together in a car accident. To top off an already tumultuous era in their lives, soon after Claudia and her son Daniel, moved in with Mona in Atlanta, Mona’s house burned down. Deciding that was enough, the three of them moved here to Gilpin County. Daniel joined the army and still serves today in Texas. 

Mona and Claudia have been together since 2003 and living here in Gilpin County since 2004. They haven’t felt a need to get married, although Claudia says when the law passed legalizing gay marriage they said, “Oh, that’s cool we can do that now-and then we just didn’t.” 

Claudia has been involved with People’s Clinic in Boulder and locally she has worked with the population of campers to help them find resources and stay safe. Today she occupies her time with The Shop and the group for Nederland business owners, DDA. Claudia says she may be looking to get more involved in activism in the near future, but for now her store, and Mona’s artwork, are enough to keep the couple’s lives full, as they enjoy their retirement. 

(Originally published in the February 13, 2020, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)