Tish Sommers
Tish Sommers, from a 1982 newspaper
Born	Letitia Gale Innes (1914-09-08)September 8, 1914 Cambria, California
Died	October 18, 1985(1985-10-18) (aged 71) Oakland, California
Other names	Letitia Burke, Letitia Sommers
Occupation(s)	Activist, writer

Letitia "Tish" Innes Sommers (September 8, 1914 – October 18, 1985) was an American author, women's rights activist, and the co-founder and first president of the Older Women's League (OWL). ^{[1] [2] [3]}

Letitia Gale Innes was born in Cambria, California and raised in San Francisco, the daughter of Murray Innes and Katherine Dorsch Innes. ^[3] Her father was a mining engineer, and her mother was a teacher. ^[4] She studied dance as a young woman, including three years in Germany in the 1930s. She attended the University of California, Los Angeles. ^[5]

During World War II, Innes worked in the parks department in Los Angeles. ^[5] In 1945 she directed a youth theatrical production in Los Angeles with over 150 youth participants, ^[6] and chaired the program for a "thanksgiving harvest festival" in the city. ^[7] In the 1950s, Sommers and her second husband worked for social and civil rights causes in the South. ^{[3] [8]}

In the 1970s, Sommers became focused on feminist issues, especially involving older women. ^[5] With the help of her friend Laurie Shields, she successfully lobbied 39 states and Congress to pass displaced homemaker laws, ^[9] which offered a network of job training and counseling centers for career housewives who went through divorce or the death of a husband. ^{[3] [8]} Sommers coined the phrase "displaced homemaker." ^{[2] [10] [11]}

Sommers chaired the National Organization for Women's task force on older women in the 1970s. ^[12] She was also a NOW board member and led the Jobs for Older Women Action Project. ^{[2] [3] [13]} She co-founded the Older Women's League with Laurie Shields in 1980, and was its first president. ^{[1] [8]}

Sommers was named one of the "Bay Area's Ten Most Distinguished Persons" by the San Francisco Chronicle in 1974. She testified before a Senate committee on aging and Social Security in 1975. ^[14] She won the Western Gerontological Society Award in 1979, and the Unitarian Universalist Women's Federation's Ministry to Women Award in 1981. In 1982, already facing a cancer diagnosis, she was keynote speaker at a conference on employment at Sonoma State University. ^[15] In 1983, she testified before a Congressional hearing on Medicare and aging. ^[16] In 1984, she once again spoke before a Congressional committee on aging and healthcare. ^[17]

• The not-so-helpless female: How to change the world even if you never thought you could; A step-by-step guide to social action (1973)
• "Freelance Agitator Argues for Hiring Changes: Look Out Job Market!" (1978) ^[18]
• "If We Could Write the Script..." (1980) ^[19]
• "If I Had a Billion..." (1981) ^[20]
• "Caregiving: A Woman's Issue" (1985) ^[21]
• "Three Caregivers Tell Their Stories: Seriously Near the Breaking Point" (1985) ^[22]
• Women Take Care: The Consequences of Caregiving in Today's Society (1987, with Laurie Shields) ^[23]

Innes married Sidney Arnold Burke in 1938; they later divorced. She married fellow activist Joseph Sommers in 1949; they adopted a son, and divorced in 1972. ^[5] "Undoubtedly the divorce was, in part, my own awakening," she later recalled. ^[24] Sommers died from cancer in 1985 at the age of 71, in Oakland. ^{[3] [25]} Some of her papers are held in the San Diego State University Libraries. ^[13] The Institute for Health and Aging at the University of California, San Francisco established the Tish Sommers Senior Scholars program to honor her; it supports the work of older graduate and postdoctoral students working to improve the lives of older women. ^[26] In 1991, a biography of her was published, titled Tish Sommers, Activist: and the Founding of the Older Women's League. ^[27]

• A 1982 video interview with Tish Sommers from KPBS television, on Internet Archive