Miss Elliott at the Wheel, circa 1920

     I can’t remember if I volunteered or if I was asked to help develop an exhibit on “Summer Camps on the North Beach Peninsula” for the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum.  Probably a little of both.  I was a summer camp kid here in the ’40s and ’50s and I loved every minute of it.  In fact (with apologies to Robert Fulgham), I think all I ever needed to know I learned at Camp Willapa.
     Several years ago I put together a double issue of the Sou’wester about Dorothy Elliott’s Camp Willapa for girls, her Camp Sherwood Forest for boys, and Alan and Barbie Greiner’s ‘next generation’ camp here on Willapa Bay.  Doing the research –pouring over eighty-year-old camp brochures and hundreds of fading pictures, talking to ex-campers, visiting the property with current stewards Gordie and Susie — was all an indescribable delight.
     Not only did I learn a lot, but I also had the immense pleasure of re-living nine or ten summers of my childhood and early teens when my time was divided between ‘camp’ and ‘Granny and Papa’s’ in Oysterville.   And then, as a sort of serendipity, I was treated to a behind-the-scenes look at the camping years of my own children who also spent summers there.
     Meanwhile, through other writing projects, I’ve learned about other peninsula camps – Camp Morehead in Nahcotta, Hill Summer Camp in Long Beach, and the Methodist Camp Meeting Association in Ocean Park.  During my years as a teacher, thanks to the delightful Watterberg and Holmes families, I became acquainted with the Dunes Bible Camp.  And I taught Elderhostel classes at the Ocean Park Methodist Camp and Retreat Center.
     But knowing about the camps and thinking “museum exhibit” are two different things.  Happily, forty years of planning classroom bulletin boards, dioramas, room environment, have provided the perfect cross-over experiences.  I might even be able to be helpful in this endeavor.  For sure, I’m having a great time trying!
     Oh… so the question is:  what do you get when you cross a writer-of-history with a classroom teacher?  Perhaps the answer will present itself by the opening of “Summer Camps on the North Beach Peninsula” on August 19th at the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum in Ilwaco.