Camp Chonokis Records

Camp Chonokis was established in 1927 by Mabel Winter (later Whitney) and Ethel Pope as a summer and winter camp for girls, ages 8-18. The land for the camp was purchased from John H. Kimball of Berkeley with a contract of October 30, 1926 for $5600.00 and was located about one-half mile from the edge of Lake Tahoe at Stateline, South Lake Tahoe, California. The word "Chonokis" is an Indian (Washo tribe?) for sugar pine. Some splendid specimens of this unique tree can be seen on camp property.

Both Winter and Pope were teachers who believed that girls could benefit from a loosely structured outdoor experience after the more regimented program of their schools. The regular camp session was for six weeks during the summer; in 1945 a shorter four-week post session was offered at the urging of the government in an effort to remove children from the cities during World War II. The 1928 camp season hosted twelve campers, mostly from the San Francisco Bay area, and six counselors. By 1952, the last summer that Whitney ran the camp, there were 35 campers from all parts of California and the east coast of the U.S. The winter camps were much shorter, usually only one or two weeks, and attended by only a few campers during their Christmas vacations from school. The fee for six weeks of camp in 1927 was $275.00; the fee in 1952 was $425.00.

The camp was situated on twenty acres and consisted of a main lodge, shower house and tent cabins. In the early 1930s a log house was added. It was named "Tyschina," a Russian word meaning peace or calm. Winter built it with the idea that it would be her home after she retired from teaching. During the summer campers and counselors used it for reading, music, small parties, and meetings. A three-car garage with a craft loft on the second floor served the girls who were interested in learning hand crafts of all kinds.

Horseback riding played a major role in camp activities, as did drama, hiking, choral music (including Russian and Latvian songs), dancing, and water sports (at the lake, where Whitney owned beach property). Every year the camp put on a "rodeo" in one of the meadows and plays in the "open air theater" to which the public and parents were invited.

Miss Winter bought out Ethel Pope's interest in 1928 after only one summer of camp. By the season of 1930 she was joined by Miss Gladys G. Gorman with whom she taught high school in San Jose, California, site of a home they built in 1937. One of the most enduring traits of camp was the adoption of nicknames for one and all. Winter was known as Bliz (short for Blizzard); her business office in the main lodge was the "North Pole." Gorman was called G3 for her initials. Another counselor was Margaret McKenzie, "Mugs," who was a camper the first season, a counselor for three years thereafter, and never lost touch with camp through all its years.

Mabel Winter married Robert B. Whitney, widower of her sister Josephine (Jo) in 1948 and from then on lived during the off season with her new family in Amherst, Massachusetts. Apparently the demands of a large family made it too difficult to run a camp three thousand miles away because in 1953 Mrs. Whitney leased the facilities to J. Wendell Howe and Jimmee Dodson (a former camper and counselor). Camp Chonokis did not reopen after that year, although the Whitney family continued to drive across the country to spend their summers in the log house on the property. Camp Chonokis is now owned by the United States Forest Service.

Mabel Winter was born in Wisconsin on April 25, 1903 and was raised in Madison, Wisconsin where she graduated from high school in 1917. She received a special teacher's certificate that same year which allowed her to teach grammar school for one year before attending the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She received her B.A. from the University in 1922.

Winter, known as "Bliz" to all her friends, was interested in summer camps even before earning her degree. She was a camp counselor at Camp Meenahga, Wisconsin in 1921 and was a director of organized camps in that state for three years. She arrived in California by 1925 and was director of girls' physical education at Santa Maria (California) Union High School and Junior College. Her future partner at Chonokis, Ethel Pope, was also a teacher at the same school in Santa Maria. During the summer of 1926 Bliz taught swimming at the University of California, Berkeley and began making plans to open a camp of her own. Her sister Jo wrote letters in 1926 (now in Series 12) which were full of advice on what would be needed for a new camp. Jo wrote that her sister should contact Gladys Gorman, director at Camp Aga Wak, Wisconsin where Jo worked, suggesting that Gorman might have good advice for Bliz in starting her own camp. Four years later, Gorman and Bliz were partners in their own camp, Chonokis.

Winter's family was a large one. She was one of nine children of Jessie Southwell Winter (1862-1931) and William Henry Winter 1860-1923). Mabel was particularly close to her sisters Lillian Winter Reilly and Josephine Winter Whitney. Lillian was a major in the Women's Army Corp who died in 1944 (see series 12, folder 5). Jo, the youngest in the Winter family, was married to Robert (Bob) Whitney, a chemistry professor at Amherst College in Massachusetts. They had four children when she died in February, 1947 (the youngest was then six months old). Mabel and Bob married in October 1948; they then lived in Amherst during the school year, relocating to Lake Tahoe for the summer, even after 1952 when the camp ceased operations. Mabel Winter Whitney died in May, 1984.

Gladys Gertrude Gorman was remembered as devoted to her friends, Wellesley College, music, teaching, her San Jose ranch, the California mountains, and Camp Chonokis.

Gorman was born in Randolph, New York, on December 21, 1892. She was a 1914 graduate of Wellesley where she participated in choir, glee club, crew, baseball, Barnswallows (a dramatic club), and the Shakespeare Society. After graduation she returned for two years of study in Hygiene and Physical Education which provided background for teaching at Wellesley, a year with the Red Cross and Y.W.C.A. in Vladivostok, and three years of work with the Y.W.C.A. in Riga, Latvia. During the summers in Latvia she organized and directed a camp and during the winters taught afternoon and evening classes, speaking German for folk-dancing, volleyball, basketball, and baseball, and Russian for gymnastics. She also spent a year working under Herbert Hoover to raise money from schools and colleges for his European Student Relief Administration.

While swimming near Vladivostok she was stung by a jellyfish; the poison destroyed one kidney but didn't diminish her energies. Gorman rested a year after returning from Europe and then enrolled at Wisconsin University for her master's degree, studying and working full time at teaching. She moved first to Oregon, then to California where she taught three years at University of California, Los Angles, and finally to San Jose where she substitute taught and tutored during the school year. During the summers after 1930 she was co-director at Camp Chonokis with Ethel Winter, camp owner. G3 as she was known at camp, was noted for her selflessness and service to others, whether refugees, students, disadvantaged youth, or campers.

Gladys collected lullabies in the language of whatever country she visited and it was she who selected the Russian name "Tyschina" for the log house at Camp Chonokis. A Camp Chonokis camper wrote, "I remember most of all her singing voice. After going to bed (tents scattered over the mountainside) there was absolute quiet for ten or fifteen minutes save for the purring of the wind in the pines--then the rich voice of G3, strong, from the hilltop. Her Russian folk-songs were my favorites."

At the three-acre San Jose ranch of Gorman and Winter, Gorman planted every flower, shrub, and tree; and laid the hand-made bricks in the walls, walks, and patios. The harvest from her garden was shared with friends or sold, much of the proceeds going for the Wellesley College Development Program. Wellesley honored Gorman for her many years work for the Seven College Christmas Show Case, service to the Northern California Wellesley Club, and Personal Call Program, an alumni fund raising program. An alumna endowed a Faculty Salary Advancement Fund in her name. Gladys Gorman died on September 5, 1978.

*The Special Collections Department is grateful to Dr. Robert Whitney and to the Wellesley College Archives for helping to provide the biographical information on Camp Chonokis, Mabel Winter Whitney, and Gladys G. Gorman. Additional material about Miss Gorman is available in the Camp Chonokis donor file; please ask for assistance to examine these items.