By Anne E. Healy

Analyzing institutions such as the YWCA and Camp Westwind is difficult to do simply based on snapshots and scraps of evidence. There are so many voices to sort out, and sometimes the voices are muffled or confusing. Individual photographs can be misread, but maybe when taken as a whole the history becomes more clear. Adding staff manuals and interviews to the visual record gives further significance to pictures and voices that sometimes don’t go together as coherently as a researcher would like.

However, the evidence available does give an overall picture that can be read and partially deciphered. A definitive history might not be possible, but meaning can be attached to this evidence.

Concerns of Diversity

Like the downtown YWCA of Portland, Camp Westwind, despite its non-denominational position and commitment to drawing interracial campers, did not seem to have a great deal of integration or diversity. Although Camp Westwind was open to people of all races and religions, it had to struggle to be diverse and to remove itself from the Christian focus, and this is apparent in the photo collection, staff manuals, and oral history interviews.

For the YWCA, camping was never just about living and playing outdoors but was tied to a higher social purpose. In the early years the purpose involved reform-minded Christian women providing an escape for working class women. Outings such as hikes and picnics on holidays were centered on the idea that working women needed relief from "urban drudgery." In 1901 a summer cottage in Gearheart was purchased for added getaways, and in 1936 the land that would become Camp Westwind was bought. Volunteers erected the main building, Wilson Lodge, and built the cabins surrounding it.

A shift occurred after 1945 in their social mission. The national branch of the YWCA issued an interracial directive to all local groups. After this, the focus became centered on younger, more diverse girls (and finally, in 1974, boys as well). The staff manual from 1948 reflects this trend, with the list of campers including high school girls from Portland, Eugene, Astoria, and other communities, as well as "young employed women." Working women as a group are not listed in the 1952 staff manual; it could be that this demography ceased to require the services of Westwind, or maybe "employed women" were no longer seen as a separate group needing special protection and services. Another alternative is that working women themselves stopped going to Westwind, so the shift to high school age and younger girls took place partly out of monetary necessity as well.

Staff manuals seem to be much more telling than photographs, although both tell the same story in different ways. In the 1948 manual, the opening objective centers heavily on God. Not much changed fourteen years later, although in 1962 the objectives include vague "spiritual values" rather than direct reference to a Christian God. By 1984 this message was no longer part of the manual. Cabin areas had been changed after 1977 from "Heaven" to "Alpine Unit," and the individual cabins now used Native American tribe names (for instance, "Klickitat" rather than "Ezekial").

The visual evidence of Westwind’s struggle for religious diversity is somewhat similar in tone. The 1950’s and 60’s professional photographs include ones in which girls pray and sing in front of a wooden cross. This is the "Green Cathedral" advertised in their 1953 brochure. Not much can be said about religion later in the visual record, except that there is a distinct lack of crosses, cathedrals, and praying. While this isn’t to say that none of these things occurred at Westwind from the 1970s on, apparently none of it was considered important enough to keep in the archives, and reflects the secularized nature of the camp in these years.

Despite the 1945 interracial directive by the national YWCA, Westwind staff manuals do not deal with race until the 1960s, and then very little constructive is said. In a section of the 1965 manual titled "What YWCA Membership Means to Me," attention is brought to Polish, German, and Italian immigrants regarding their accents. Other groups are addressed rather insufficiently in general advice regarding discrimination based on the color of skin, but offer nothing concrete.

It seems one way Westwind dealt with race was by taking professional photographs during the 1950s and 60s. Posed multi-cultural photos are prevalent after 1945. Examples include girls of different races singing at the Green Cathedral, sweeping the cabin steps, and grinning from ear to ear over a totem pole. Not until the later years do the photos reflect all kids truly intermixing and naturally having fun together. This aspect of natural interaction does show up earlier, but a great many of the photographs with children of different races look forced or posed.

One interesting photo regarding Westwind’s attitude toward racism is one from the 1930s or 40s of Uncle Bliss, the camp’s beloved caretaker, in dark makeup. On the back is written, "Telling Injun stories with Injun face." One might presume from this that dressing up like another race was accepted in the camp, as other YWCA photographs of multicultural costumes indicate. Uncle Bliss’ Indian legends and stories were cherished as a part of what made the camp special. He shows up frequently in the visual record, which also reflects what they held to be important; photos include King and Queen of Uncle Bliss Day, hand-tinted photos, and the interior of his cabin. For someone as highly esteemed as Uncle Bliss to use the term "Injun" so casually seems to reflect an attitude of nonchalant disrespect for people of different ethnicities.

Many photos of the lodge exist, so many that they seem to be a day-by-day visual account of its progress. While this is tedious, it gives us a clear picture of how the lodge was rebuilt, what the cabins looked like, how they got the lumber in via helicopter, etc. This seems to tie in to the YWCA’s love of buildings to represent community. In addition, campers had to pay a fee to attend, but were often given "camperships" to help pay their way. Camperships might have been given indiscriminately, or only to girls who fit certain requirements. It is unknown how this affected who got to attend the camp. Other groups with similar social missions of helping young girls (such as the Girl Scouts) also attended.

Voices: Oral History

First-hand accounts by those that attended Westwind or who were part of its staff is a great way to understand the atmosphere and diversity of the camp. Although this is a tiny cross section of the population of the camp, their voices bring immediacy to research in a way that photographs and manuals can’t.

Sura Rubenstein attended from 1958 to 1962. Because she came from a Jewish immigrant family she was looking for a non-denominational camp, and received a campership (this helped out girls who couldn’t afford to go). Sura was surprised to find such a Christian focus, but she explains this by saying that prayer was held in schools at that time, so it isn’t too hard to believe that the camp would have such a religious nature. Although she had to sit through Sunday chapel service, her way of rebelling or staying true to her faith was to not say "amen." The camp was all-girl, but "not racially diverse" (although she allows that she wasn’t really looking for it at the time); she does remember that one counselor was married to "a man of color." Sura mentions that Camp WW created a love for nature in her, and she sent her daughter there in 1998.

Linda West was a counselor at Westwind from 1993 on, and also became camp director prior to 1998. She was attracted by the YWCA’s social mission to eliminate racism and to empower women. Linda tells campers the history, legends, and stories of indigenous tribes of the area. This helps the campers feel they are in a community or tribe themselves, and feel a connection to the land and part of the earth (this obviously hearkens back to the tradition of Uncle Bliss’ stories, although Linda doesn’t mention using dark face makeup). No competitive sports are allowed at camp, just like in the early days of the YWCA, although today it is more to achieve a community feel than because it is "useless" or unwomanly. Linda describes the effect of campers crossing the river as passing through a threshold of sorts; they escape the outside world and are then free to be themselves. Regarding the diversity, she feels the ethnic population of the campers is similar to that of Portland, and that the cultural differences might keep some campers from attending. She believes the types of families are more diverse, however, such as at the Mother/Child camp and campOUT, which is for children and their gay parents. (This reflects a marketing strategy and the need for reaching a wider audience, which led to the creation of more diverse types of camping experiences, such as single parent, senior, co-ed, Sand/Sea/Self [a self-discovery, meditation and yoga camp created in the late 1960s], environmental, computer, etc.) . Linda thinks the key to Westwind is sharing resources with others, and recreating that experience of living interdependently with others in the greater society.

April West was a camper from 1978 to 1980. She discovered Westwind through her youth group, and was given a scholarship to attend. At the camp she rode horses, sang songs she still remembers, and learned plant identification along with weaving, pottery, canoeing, and roasting marshmallows around the bonfire. April got to choose her own activities, and remembers counselors inspiring her to do better in school. She was glad to meet a diverse group of people who were so supportive of each other, but she had an "embarrassing situation" with the 2-year-old daughter of the cook. The little girl screamed when she saw April coming out of the bathroom; April tried to comfort the child, but the mother apologized saying that her daughter had never seen a black person before. Despite this incident, April felt peaceful and secure, and thought of Westwind as an island.

My Journey through the Visual Record

Historical meaning is difficult to glean from a closetful of archival records. I found myself struggling to impart significance to each staff manual objective, each memory in the oral histories, and each photograph of the cabins. The visual record is enormous, but it is mostly outdoor and cabin scenes. This is understandable considering the nature of camp, and especially considering the relation of Westwind to the downtown center as a commercial attraction.

Westwind has always been central to the mission of the YWCA, whether as a way to encourage the health and well being of young employed women or to foster diversity. As for the latter goal, Westwind may have got off on a rocky start in the early years, but it seems to be working this out as time goes on. I would agree with Linda West when she says that the types of families who attend seem to be more diverse. It certainly seems as though by offering many different camps (such as campOUT, which has quite a loyal following) a wider mix of people is drawn to attend. I won’t attempt to give a definitive answer to my concerns of diversity; the photographs and oral histories offer some clues, but the nature of this research seems to be that the more I try to dig the less I find I know.

My favorite photos turned out to be those that capture the individuality of various women and girls. Their strong personalities are another sort of record, whether taken posed in the 60’s or natural in the 80’s. One is of a young woman sitting on the porch, staring out confidently with a sly smile on her face. Now that my research is over, I guess this picture is sort of representative of all the information I came across in the archive. I could try to figure out the "right" answer to the puzzle, such as, who is she? What date was it taken? What thought put that assured smile on her face? Am I even sure she is confident, or smiling? But the little facts don’t matter as much compared to the overall message of the photo, which is that Westwind is a place where many girls were given the freedom to discover their own voices. An ongoing question for the camp might be, which girls were given that privilege and who will be allowed it in the future?