Camp Panhellenic, located on Washington Island in Wisconsin’s Door County, celebrated its third year in the summer of 1922. “The venture is proving a boon to college women and alumnae as a place for rest and recreation as well as a place to promote a fine, broad, intercollegiate spirit. Over 28 colleges were represented last year from 18 different states. The camp is unique in the fact it is planned only for college women, graduate and undergraduate, and is the first of its kind,” according to an article in a 1922 women’s fraternity magazine, the Arrow of Pi Beta Phi.
Although the camp was open to members of National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) organizations, it was not affiliated with NPC and was privately run. A small ad in the back of a 1922 edition of Good Housekeeping gave all the particulars, “Camp Panhellenic for college women, Washington Island, Wisconsin, Director, Gladys R. Dixon, Blackwood Hotel, Chicago.”
An article in a 1921 Key of Kappa Kappa Gamma told of the great usefulness of Camp Panhellenic, “It affords for meeting women from other colleges and other fraternities. All the joy and beauty of the camp would be small if it were not shared with others of similar tastes and ideals. New lasting friendships are made quickly because the conventional bars are down. Lasting friendships are made because what is true and good in each is immediately recognized. One cannot camouflage in the heart of nature.” The article ends with this ditty:
Here’s to Kappa Alpha Theta.
Here’s to Alpha Phi,
Here’s to Kappa Kappa Gamma,
And the arrow of Pi Beta Phi,
Ring, ching, ching,
Here’s to Gamma Phi and Tri Delt,
And all girls’ fraternities,
But here’s to Panhellenic,
United are we.
After the 1921 Pi Beta Phi Convention at Charlevoix, Michigan, a group of 40 Pi Phis traveled on boat to Washington Harbor. From there, they were transported by automobiles to the camp. Campers included Grand President May Lansfield Keller and Leona Baumgartner, who would go on to earn a medical degree and from 1954-62, would serve as the first woman commissioner of New York City’s Department of Health. The Pi Phis spent two weeks at the camp, “The first week was too hot to live – out of the water – but we were too tired to care.” Things got better for the group’s second week, “much sleep, splendid meals, and a cool breeze made us feel like living and, when a local farmer called on the camp to save his cherry crop, there was unanimous response.” The group made ten cents per quart of cherries picked. One Pi Phi managed to pick 48 quarts. The group made $16 for the day’s efforts and it was donated to the Pi Beta Phi Settlement School in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
A 1921 ad in the Trident of Delta Delta Delta noted that the camp opened on June 19 and closed on November 1. College women “who are vagabonds for the summer will find a woodsy goal, free from the conventional summer resort — where they can store away their company manners with their ‘store clothes’ and tarry in the Heart of Nature, reviving the old college spirit around the campflre with the companionship of those who made college associations memorable, and cementing friendships through their greatest ally — NATURE.”
Olga Achtenhagen, an English Department faculty member at Lawrence University who would go on to serve as Kappa Delta’s President from 1931-35, was known as the “hiking professor.” She wrote a poem about the camp and it appeared in the October 1922 Lyre of Alpha Chi Omega:
I can feel the cool lake breezes from the harbor blowin’ free
I can hear the tent flap flappin’, and it’s there that I would be;
Where the campin’ ground’s a-callin’, I can hear it callin’ me—
To Wisconsin’s island forest, to Michigan’s blue sea.
Come ye north by road and sail,
Follow north the same old trail—
You will see the sky blue water dance and toss itself to spray—
Oh—the breezes laugh and play,
O’er the harbor, lake, and bay,
And the dawn comes up a promise o’er the lake at break of day.
I can see the campfire flicker, I can hear the banjo strum,
I can see the stars a-shining through the pine trees one by one;
I can hear the sound o’ singing, and the chorus comes to me—
‘We’ve come north to Camp Panhellenic—we are one fraternity.’
Oh, whate’er our emblems be,
We are one fraternity—
We are going to work together just as well as we can play
While the breezes laugh and stray,
O’er the harbor lake and bay,
And the sun goes down a glory o’er the hills at close o’day.
Not much was heard about Camp Panhellenic after the 1920s. One can imagine that it suffered from the economic downturn of the Great Depression. The women who enjoyed a week or two or perhaps an entire summer season at Camp Panhellenic are no longer with us. Today, the stone chimney and fireplace of the main camp-house is part of a private glass home. It is about all that remains of Camp Panhellenic.
Here is an article about how the property was renovated. As you have already realized from reading this, it was not a Pi Phi retreat, it was for all NPC members.
