When Jo Patrick makes the turn off Arkansas Highway 59 South into the drive for Gypsy Camp, the decades slip away and time turns back to the summers she spent there as a girl.
"For me, when I turn down the lane, coming off the highway, the modern-day world stays behind and in my head, I hear all of us as kids, running up and down the stairs, hollering at each other across the hill, and swimming in the river, boating, archery, tennis, all of it, I hear it all in my head," Patrick said. "It is, for me, a mystical place. It's very magical, this is my go-to rejuvenation place and I'm so glad now that I live close."
Patrick, of Bella Vista, was back last weekend for the Gypsy Camp and Canoe family days with her lifelong friends from camp, Cynthia Walker Costilla of Dallas, Texas, and sisters Pam Miller of Richmond, Calif., and Beverly Miller of San Mateo, Calif.
The Gypsy Camp, located near the intersection of the Illinois River and Arkansas Highway 59, was a summer camp for girls operated by three generations of the same family from 1921 through 1978. The camp facility was listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. When Bob Coe, the grandson of the original founders, who operated the camp for many years with his late wife Daisy, died in the fall of 2017, the camp went up for sale.
Then a month later, almost 99 years after the original Gypsy Camp owners happened upon the property while on a fishing trip and fell in love with the bend of the river under sweeping bluffs, Jerrid Gelinas was also on a float trip when by chance he glanced over his shoulder and was instantly captivated by a glimpse of the camp.
He and his wife Tracie were eventually able to purchase the camp, first with two other couples, and now on their own, and turned it into Gypsy Camp and Canoe, which offers family-friendly float trips and primitive campsites.
But the couple also has a passion for the history of the camp. In the future, they hope to offer overnight stays in the cabins and provide an event venue for weddings and reunions.
In 2006, Gypsy Camp was listed on Preserve Arkansas' list of endangered historic properties. Gelinas said he received a permit from National Register for Historic Places to restore the buildings and has been given a five-year deadline to complete the work.
"I think that is one of those things we never really get back, that history, those buildings, those names on them, some of that stuff can never come back," he said. "It's pretty cool to have the opportunity to save it and preserve all that."
So far, he has cleaned out four of the buildings and cleared the bluff path. He also plans to turn one of the buildings into an informal museum with the photos the camp alumni have collected as well as artifacts from the camp.
During the family weekend, the Gypsy Camp alumni provided tours of the four buildings and the bluff path, and led children's activities such as treasure hunts and coloring. The four women decorated the buildings with framed photos from the years the camp was in operation and shared stories about what the camp was like. In the evening, they gathered around the campfire to sing original Gypsy Camp songs with visitors and tell stories.
Patrick recalled that campers spent a full month at Gypsy Camp, where they slept in the open screened-in cabins along the riverside. They spent their days outside doing activities such as swimming, playing tennis, water skiing and riding horses, and their evenings dressed in the gypsy costumes around the campfire.
Camp was a life-defining experience, Pam Miller said. At the first campfire, girls drew ribbons to join either the red or orange clan and spent their summers in a friendly competition to earn points through achievements such as keeping their cabins clean, doing chores or completing their daily swimming.
"They taught us way more than what we realized we were learning at the time," Patrick said. "They taught us a lot of good life lessons, that I'm sure we would have learned at home, but this is a whole lot more fun."
The area under the bluff, which has been used for storage or even horse stables over the years, was also a special place for campers, she said.
"It is kind of a magical, mystical place, because when we were campers, we would go up with our best friend and you know, and just sit and visit, or if you had a problem, you could talk to her, work it out, or you could just go up by yourself, and it really is a neat place," she said.
The girls formed such strong friendships that they clung to each other when it was time to leave at the end of the summer and cried all the way home, she said.
"It was crushing to go home," Beverly Miller said.
"It was the biggest crying fest you've ever seen," Walker Costilla added.
Today, the insides of the cabin walls are still lined with the names of the girls and the dates they spent their summers at the camp.
In 2012, Gypsy Campers began holding reunions at the camp during the last weekend in June. They find the friendships they formed as children are still just as strong, the four women said.
"Pam and I hadn't seen each other for 50 some years, and when we first got back together in the 2013 reunion, it was like we had never been apart," Patrick said. "There are a lot of special friendships that are just amazing. You can't beat 'em. I don't know that many people that have that kind of friendships today."
All four women said they are grateful and thankful that Jerrid and Tracie Gelinas bought the camp and plan to fully restore the buildings.
"This kid is a huge blessing to us, we can't believe it, we just can't believe it, because camp was going to die after Bob passed away," Walker Costilla said. "It's alive again. ... It really is the best blessing because his heart is just like ours, and he just gets it, I mean he's just a kid to us, we're twice his age and then some, and he gets it."
General News on 09/18/2019