The Enterprise, White Salmon, WA., November 20, 1952, page 10
‘BOYS’ TOWN OF WEST’ GIVEN BOOST IN SEATTLE TIMES BY BY FISH
(by Byron Fish, staff writer, Seattle Times, of Oct. 1)
I imagine you and your wife living in an old, four-room farm-house with an
unfurnished attic. You already are taking care of three boys not related to
you, although you have no steady income.
Along comes a boy who needs a home, so you take him
in. You do the same for another boy, and another one. Whenever there is a boy
in danger of becoming a delinquent, and he's referred to you, you open the door.
That is the unorthodox manner in which Camp Columbia
was started by Maj. F. H. Blake and his wife, Gladys. Father Flanagan did it
the same way, 38 years ago, when he laid the foundation for Boys Town, Neb. The
major is supremely confident he can follow suit.
Father Flanagan had to go out and rustle food, clothes
and money from the neighborhood. That's how Blake gets along, too.
Of course the farm house soon was outgrown, and the
major began walling in porches and adding a dormitory wing. He got help in the
construction work from the commanding officer at Fort Lewis, who sent down three
soldiers from the 23rd Infantry, 2nd Division.
There were a private, a corporal and a sergeant. They
were willing carpenters. But, more, than that, they became enthused about the
camp and the philosophy behind it.
Then the Korean war work out in the soldiers were
recalled, to be sent overseas. Before he left, Segt. Jerry Capwell, a boy from
Mississippi, told Blake:
“I haven't got any family, I'm going to make out my G.I.
insurance to Camp Columbia.
Two months later, Sergeant Capwell was killed in
action. His $5,000 policy was paid to the boy’s home. That's how Camp Columbia
survived the first year.
It's been a constant struggle ever since, and sometimes
there hasn't been too much to eat. However, nobody has gone hungry. One of the
boys told me: “I eat better here than I did at home.”
During the past year, much of the actual monetary
support has come from donation cans placed in beer taverns in Columbia River
towns.
The game wardens in the territory give the camp any
deer they pick up, poached out of season or killed by cars. Various
sympathizers in the White Salmon and Bingen area have donated canned goods and
garden produce. A Safeway store in Hood River, Ore. supplies the camp with
day-old bread.
The camp has no hired help so far. Mrs. Blake, who is
called “Glad” by all the boys does all the cooking and a great deal of the
washing for the 23 youngsters.
The major, who is 63, has an amazingly tireless energy
in spite of being chronically short-changed on sleep. The major bustles from
Vancouver, Wash., to Walla Walla, and over into Oregon, selling juvenile
authorities on the camp and rounding up support for it from any organization
that will chip in.
Then Blake rushes back home as fast as he can, since it
is also a full-time job to be a father to so many boys.
As for Mrs. Blake, she patiently plays the mother role
for the whole crowd, many of whom are pathetically eager for a woman's
attention, never had having had it in their own families.
The way the camp has grown, through the major’s acting
first and worrying about ways and means afterwards, has disturbed many a tidy,
more conservative citizen in White Salmon. We’ll tell about that tomorrow.
The Enterprise, White Salmon, WA., November 27, 1952, page 10
‘BOYS’ TOWN OF WEST’ GIVEN BOOST IN SEATTLE TIMES BY BY FISH
(By Byron Fish, staff writer, Seattle Times, of Oct. 1)
If Camp Columbia were a state institution, its appearance would be a scandal.
The farm house is old and unpainted, and its plaster-board partitions are the
worst for wear. The dormitory and three or four “cottages” are unfinished frame
buildings, some without window glass.
There is no storage space for food, laundry and other
supplies, and they are stacked in corners and on furniture. Refrigerators and
washing machines, donated secondhand, are crammed onto a rickety porch.
Jerry-built sheds for the farm animals are scattered
here and there. And 13 goats, four dogs and nine cats, pets of the boys, wander
around the dirt yard.
Any mother of two or three boys knows what it is like
to pick up after them in a modern home. Mrs. Blake mothers 23 boys under
semi-private conditions, and there is no time left for the niceties of
housekeeping.
Everyone in White Salmon shakes his head over Mrs.
Blake's patience and physical endurance. “Don't see how the woman does it,”
they say. She has the whole-hearted admiration of the community.
HOWEVER, the community does not look with universal
favor upon the camp itself, nor the way the major goes about things.
Many disapprove of the hillbilly conditions. They
think the lack of neatness and order makes a poor atmosphere for a socially
maladjusted boy, and believe that Blake should have readied the camp before
taking the boys.
The major retorts that at least it IS a home, and that
a lots of boys can be saved during the years that long-term construction is
underway.
The major's viewpoint was supported by a juvenile
officer, who said: “The place isn't fancy, but it's serving its purpose. We
know one organization that has spent three or four years making fine plans and
prettying up a boys home, but hasn't yet taken a boy.”
Some of the businessman who helped by the farm for the
camp are not too pleased with what seems to them erratic business procedure.
For one thing, the camp has no regular source of income.
Blake could get welfare funds and other state support
if he would get the camp licensed. That would require meeting a list of
specifications for physical facilities, and conforming to certain regulations
about the care of his boys.
Blake asks, “Where would the boy's go while I was ways
raising funds to build them an ‘approved’ camp?”
He is just as stubborn about taking orders on how the
boys should be handled. He started the camp because he doesn't approve of
institutional treatment for potential delinquents.
Since accepting state funds means, to a considerable
extent, accepting state control, he prefers to scratch for the money from
private sources.
I talked to many persons around White Salmon, and not a
single one questioned the sincerity of the major. However, from a business
standpoint, some of them don't like the fact that they purchased the farm in
Blake's name, and he still owns title to it.
“So we put up permanent buildings,” they say, “and
something happens to Blake, who isn't a young man. Will his heirs carry on the
camp?”
Blake’s answer is that he will lease the farm for $ a
year to Camp Colombia, a nonprofit corporation, the lease to run as long as the
place is operated as a home for boys. That way, he hopes to cinch its
permanence.
The Enterprise, White Salmon, WA., December 11, 1952, page 6
‘BOYS’ TOWN OF THE WEST’ GIVEN BOOST IN SEATTLE TIMES BY BY FISH
By Byron Fish, staff writer, Seattle Times, of Oct.
Up until now in its two-year history, Camp Columbia has been the product of pure
zeal and doggedness on the part of its founder, Maj. F. H. Blake, and his wife,
Gladys.
The 23 boys, most of whom were sent there by their
parents because they were “unmanageable” or because of trouble that took them
into juvenile courts, stay only because of their attachments to the Blakes.
There is nothing to keep the boys from running away,
and no institutional discipline. They live as one large family, and like it.
Whatever readjustments the delinquents make -- and
there has been a miraculous change in some of the boys -- is due almost entirely
to their living happily in a home where they are wanted, and where they get
friendly guidance.
Those who are skeptical about Camp Columbia's future
point out that it depends too much upon to unusual individuals, Blake and his
wife. In coming years, who will be so devoted to the cause?
The major, who is 63, acknowledges that Father Flanagan
had more years to work to make Boys Town, Neb., a success. “But,” the major
says, “I have one advantage Father Flanagan didn't. I have a son who is just as
interested in carrying on as I am.”
John Blake, 31, is one of three sons, all of whom
served in the Royal Canadian Air Force. The middle brother was killed in the
air Battle of Britain, and the eldest lives in California.
John is a senior student in psychology at the
University of Washington, and has spent all his spare time at the camp. As a
veteran flier and athlete, he has won almost as much respect from the boys as
his father enjoys.
Through John's contacts at the University, several
graduates in psychology also have become interested in the new Boys Town, and
have taken turns lately in donating their services.
Howard Senter, John Felty and David Jepson are three
young men who now expect to make a career in such work. All are followers of
the Menninger-Pinel system, which depends heavily on the creation of a proper
environment during the treatment of the maladjusted person.
All, including the younger Blake, have worked at the
Pinel Foundation, a Seattle psychiatric hospital with a national reputation.
The major sees in these younger men the core of his
eventual dream -- not one large Camp Columbia, rivaling Boys Town in size, but a
chain of small homes, wherever they are needed.
Blake has looked to Boys Town as the model, in all but
one point. He believes it is humanly impossible to avoid an institutional
atmosphere, regardless of how big or competent the staff, when there are
hundreds of boys in the home.
Probably the intimate group feeling begins to lessen
after 40 or 50 residents. But, as a compromise to economy and the hard fact
that there are more boys than homes, Blake wants to set 150 as the absolute
maximum.
After that, Blake thinks, camps should be set up in
other counties. His goal, in the years he has left, is to make Camp Columbia
the model for others, and the practical training ground for younger men who will
head similar homes.
Blake is sure there are many service clubs, lodges and
other large organizations that could underwrite such small camps.
The Eagles are the first to see things the major’s way.