North Minneapolis community center plans to restore summer camp, collect oral histories

INTERVIEWER: Show of hands if you went to summer camp as a kid. Yeah. That's what I figured, a lot of us did. This next story goes back to a special Minnesota summer camp, in the 1960s. Back then, a woman named Carrie Hoffman Wallace drove kids from north Minneapolis to Minnesota's only African-American owned summer camp.

Phillis Wheatley Community Center ran camp Catherine Parsons, in Watertown, Minnesota, for more than 40 years. It was a place for young folks to canoe and swim, learn outdoor skills, learn about nature. The camp closed in the early 2000, but the community center held onto the land.

Lawmakers this spring set aside $550,000 for the organization to restore the camp, which it plans to reopen by 2025. Here with us to talk about it, our camp organizer Anthony Taylor and Carrie Hoffman Wallace's granddaughter, Autumn Frazier. Anthony and Autumn, welcome to the program.

AUTUMN FRAZIER: Thank you

ANTHONY TAYLOR: Hi, Cathy. How are you?

INTERVIEWER: I'm great. Thank you so much, Anthony can you tell me about the history of camp Catherine Parsons? I vaguely remember it as a Minnesota native, a Minneapolis native. What made it so special?

ANTHONY TAYLOR: Well, what made it special, one, is it was really it was a Black-owned camp. It was part of Phillis Wheatley's strategy as really a settlement house, at a time where settlement houses were a progressive movement. And more importantly, they had a strategy dating back to 1928, actually, in Minnesota, where they were actively using camp, using nature, outdoors. And what's special about Minnesota as part of their strategy for growing families and taking care of children, not just in north Minneapolis but really throughout the Twin Cities.

INTERVIEWER: Autumn, your grandma, Carrie Hoffman Wallace, sounded like an amazing woman. I know she was a program director at the camp for many, many, many years. Tell me about her role at the camp and how your family played into all of it.

AUTUMN FRAZIER: Sure. So my grandmother worked there for about 36 years with Phillis Wheatley, and she wore many hats. So secretary in the off season, office manager, and then when camp was in season, she pretty much came up with the programs, taught kids how to build fires, outdoor skills for survival. We had certain recipes we'd make as a camper. She was really instrumental in serving hundreds, thousands of kids each summer.

INTERVIEWER: I'm assuming you were a camper as a kid.

AUTUMN FRAZIER: I was a camper as well.

INTERVIEWER: And I'm also assuming that that camp is really part of your family. Did everyone go to camp? Was it ingrained in your family?

AUTUMN FRAZIER: Yes, it was. My kids attended as campers as well, so it was very generational, lots of legacy there from grandma. Our family, pretty much, we thought we owned it.

So we went up almost every weekend, when it wasn't in session as well. And we pretty much lived there the whole weekend and just had balls, just a lot of fun with-- we'd bring up other families as well, and so it just would be our place.

INTERVIEWER: Anthony, I'm going to get back to you in just a second, but Autumn, how did spending all that time there as a kid affect you, maybe change, mold you to the person you are now?

AUTUMN FRAZIER: My grandma had a lot to do with that. I believe it I became a better person, because of the skills I learned, just with teamwork and kindness and I think just-- she was everything to me. So I give her credit for just simple things.

Like I love to sit outside, and I know that's because my grandma instilled that in me. It's not hard things. It's just I love nature because of her.

INTERVIEWER: Anthony, now this camp closed in the early 2000s. What happened there?

ANTHONY TAYLOR: Running a camp is hard business. I think that really everyone in the business would really would really say that, and in 2000, Phillis Wheatley just really didn't have their tentacles expanded, as many of the other camp organizations do. And also, because they had really been serving a community of families that themselves were challenged by systemic racism and all going on. So they really weren't actively building that community that was actively able to support it in the strength that many of other Minnesota camps have. And that is really foundational to why the camping community has been able to survive in other organizations that we all love and know.

So that was what happened, but simultaneously, the organization and the people around it understood the value of owning the land and someday bringing the camp back, and it is monumental for us to really understand. They never sold that camp. Even in the hardest times, they held on to the land, with a vision of coming back. And now we're there with new leadership and with the commitment from our state legislature, we're going to get this done.

INTERVIEWER: OK. So I've never been to the camp. Friends have, though. You paint a picture for that for us about what it looks like now? How much work has to be done to restore it?

ANTHONY TAYLOR: Well, it's still really beautiful, and I think that the thing that's wonderful, it's less than 30 minutes from really from north Minneapolis. And so it's close in terms of proximity. It's on a peninsula, in Carver County. It is really overlooking a very quiet lake.

There's no direct access for outside boats to it. So really the community lives around there has really been supporting it, and so we really look at this as an opportunity to introduce young people to all those skills. And I love what Autumn said.

I think that what she's talked about was the fact that her family used these outdoor skills, the camping, the fires, the reliance, to build these human traits in them as young people around resilience and kindness and collaboration. And those are all the things we want, and those are the characteristics we want in our young people that really are going to save the world. So this idea that nature builds humanity is really foundational, and I know that the Phillis Wheatley community never forgot that.

INTERVIEWER: Say, Autumn, what do you think of this effort?

AUTUMN FRAZIER: Oh, I'm so pleased, because over the years, we've tried to get some things going to get it back, operational. We've been on certain boards with Phillis Wheatley and different leadership, and it just always seemed to fall through. So I am super, super excited now that this is really going to happen, and I'm thrilled, just thrilled.

INTERVIEWER: Now, I mentioned, Anthony, that I have had friends in my life that have gone to camp, when they were kids. I know you're having an event this evening. Right? To talk about maybe get some alumni back.

ANTHONY TAYLOR: Yeah. We'll be at the Sumner Library, right off of 55 there, in the Heritage Park area. And we are inviting community members to come back out looking for alumni. We're going to be sitting with Senator Bobby Joe Champion and everybody's favorite really outdoors uncle and artist [INAUDIBLE] Jones, really sharing stories of the community. And really asking people to share their story about their connection to camp Catherine Parsons, but also to really highlight the unique and wonderful ways that the nature and way that we revitalize nature outdoors in the community right around Phillis Wheatley.

So we really see this as an opportunity to connect to alumni, build awareness about the program, but also tell the story of this wonderful Black legacy owned property, of this organization, and their commitment to really serving this community for 100 years, and so this is really a great start for that.

INTERVIEWER: Of course, the camp wouldn't be a camp without songs. Right? Now, I understand that there's a songbook coming. Is that right?

[LAUGHTER]

ANTHONY TAYLOR: Yeah. One of the things that I think that the founders of the camp were always very intentional about was really this idea of the impact, particularly on Black youth that were coming there. And so we are being very intentional about thinking about a songbook. Songs and singing are foundational for camps, and so we really are looking at the idea of not just randomly collecting songs but building a songbook, working with local talent in the Twin Cities, to create a songbook tied to the songs related to Black liberation and freedom and really a struggle for civil rights and citizenship in this country.

And doing it in a way where that, rather than being stuck in the past, I think as many camps will say their songbooks have been, we want to build in an element where young people are always adding to the songbook and bringing forward. The songs are foundational to the experience of camp, and we want to be very intentional about that experience.

INTERVIEWER: Autumn, I'm thinking that your grandma, Carrie Hoffman Wallace, is smiling down wherever she is. It's probably very true that her spirit is still at that camp. Isn't it?

AUTUMN FRAZIER: It's very true. She's smiling, and your introduction almost had me crying, because I'm just so happy to be talking about Camp Parsons again. So thank you so much for--

INTERVIEWER: Well, it's been a pleasure. Absolutely. It's been a pleasure. Autumn and Anthony, thank you. I wish you all the best. We'll have to get back in touch with you to see how things are going.

ANTHONY TAYLOR: Yeah. Thank you, and families, please, come out and join us at the Sumner Library tonight. It's going to be a great event.

INTERVIEWER: Absolutely. Thank you. Appreciate your time. We've been talking to Anthony Taylor and Autumn Frazier. They'll be talking about Camp Parsons and hearing from camp alumni, as you heard, at an event, this evening, 6:00 PM. That's the start time at the Sumner Library.