Morrison couple loves living a life of Adventures
A father and son reunion is only an ocean away for music makers
Gardener creates a healing commUnity in Tampico
IDEAL VENUE FOR FRIENDS & FAMILY GATHERINGS
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HISTORIC BARN
• BIRTHDAY PARTIES
• RECEPTIONS
• FAMILY REUNIONS
• GRADUATIONS
• HOLIDAY PARTIES
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18 Getting up to speed
Drag racing and Arnie Beswick were born around the same time — one in the dry lake beds of California and the other in Morrison — and they’ve both found fame through the years, with drag racing attracting legions of fans and “The Farmer” becoming a legend in his field.
Small Town
6 Family is on the same track
A father and child reunion is only an ocean away for a pair of Prophetstown natives who love getting together to make music.
12 Couple is hooked on traveling
A Morrison couple loves living a life of Adventures, hauling around their home away from home, and sharing their journeys with kindred wandering spirits.
Creating a healing
When it comes to our health, times have really changed — but a Tampico woman would like to change them back, to a time when nature would nurture us.
early 4,300 miles separate Timothy Morris from his father Steve, spanning half of the Pacific Ocean and two-thirds of the mainland United States.
But despite that distance they’re always just a drumbeat away from each other.
When the pair of Prophetstown natives get together, Timothy hits the right chord, Steve doesn’t miss a beat and the two are in their element. They’re also in their own two-man band, entertaining crowds at festivals and bars or spending hours in the studio working on their next record.
The son-and-father duo perform as the Timothy Morris Band, melding their musical influences into attention grabbing, dynamic sets of original
songs and covers. Timothy plays electric, bass and acoustic guitars, as well as keyboards; while Steve pounds on the drums and percussion. Timothy does most of the lead singing, but each backs the other up when the other’s on lead.
Timothy calls Nashville home these days, and Steve is enjoying the island life in Wailuku, Hawaii (on Maui), but they haven’t forgotten where they come from: They still fine tune and crank out their songs at a Prophetstown studio Steve owns before they set out on tours throughout the year.
The Morrises have performed at venues as large as Dixon’s annual Petunia Fest this past July to smaller club gigs in Maui in January. It’s a father-son relationship that’s music to their ears, and the kind of relationship on stage that not every band shares.
“I love it,” Timothy said. “I think that, musically, we both have the same DNA; a lot of people can’t even tell our voices apart. Since we’ve been playing together forever, I think we sing well together, and catch idiosyncrasies and little nuances in each other’s playing really well just from the chemistry of playing together for so long. All of that time pays off and goes into the music. Rather than start from scratch, we can understand each other where we’re going musically.”
MORRIS PHOTOS: ALEX T. PASCHAL/APSACHAL@SAUKVALLEY.COM
MORRIS cont’d to page 8
Prior to playing with Timothy, Steve’s best known gig, he said, was drumming for The Funnies, who performed locally for around 15 years. Steve has drummed for local bands both close to home and across the nation for nearly 40 years, and is happy to see his son shine in their act.
“For me, it’s incredible,” Steve said. “I’d say that even if he wasn’t my son — he’s the guitar player I would want to play with. His solos are great. There are bits of every guitar player that I grew up with that I liked to hear. Even if we weren’t related, I’d hire this guy. Then to have that father-son time, that I would say most don’t get to have, it’s precious to me. I’m very blessed.”
The musical DNA is strong in their family. Timothy’s brother Steffen Wade and sister Faith September Morris, both of whom also are musicians, grew up around their father’s band equipment and found themselves playing a few instruments.
MORRIS cont’d to page 9
waits!
“I always had a studio setup at the house and they would take in everything by osmosis,” Steve said. “I never really showed them anything, they just kind of picked everything up.”
It was during Steve’s time with The Funnies when a young Timothy made his musical debut during a concert at Tampico Days, briefly relieving Dad on the drum set.
“When we would play Tampico Days, Tim would get up and play with The Funnies on drums, and that was his beginnings,” Steve said.
Both Timothy and Steve had solo careers before they teamed up in 2020, just before the coronavirus pandemic swept the globe. As public performances largely left the stage, they found themselves with a lot of free time, and in the studio recording. That’s when Steve came up with an idea to turn their strengths into a “week” moment.
cont’d to page 10
MORRIS
Timothy Morris (right) rehearses with dad Steve (facing page) on Jan. 9.
“I’m all over the place doing everything I can do to make sure you don’t look away from me,” Timothy said. “That’s what our show comes down to, and I think that’s key. We’re fun to watch, whether you listen to music or not. I hope they get joy out of it, whether it be from the lyrics, or taking your mind off of everything for a couple of hours with being bombarded with the world. On whatever level that I can help make somebody feel better, that’s what I want the music to do.”
Morris music
ALEXT.PASCHAL/APASCHAL@SAUKVALLEYMEDIA .COM
Find Timothy Morris Music on Facebook or go to timothymorrismusic.bandcamp.com for upcoming concert dates, to purchase music, or for more information about the Timothy Morris Band.
This year, the band has already played in Chicago, Clinton and Maui, and they’re working on putting together another string of shows during the summer, including stops in the Sauk Valley: tentatively, during late June and early July. Timothy and Steve also recently launched another act, Divided by 2, a tribute to U2, and Timothy has another solo album in the works, as well as another in collaboration with his sister. It’s shaping up to be a busy year, but it’s time well spent, Steve said.
“When it’s just the two of us out there — especially when we’re not playing a big show with a big sound system and stuff — you’re doing the sound, the lights, you do the [merchandise], and you drive yourselves there,” Steve said. “I wouldn’t be flying from Hawaii to play here if it wasn’t for my son. I know that time is short of being able to do this.”
Whether it’s plugging in an amp, plugging a family album, or plugging away in the studio, it’s all about making connections for Timothy and his dad — not just with each other, but with their audience.
“I don’t think there’s any better feeling than connecting with somebody through art,” Timothy said. “It’s just finding any possible road to that feeling. It’s fulfilling because that’s what we were put on this Earth to do, I truly believe that. I love connecting with people, and that’s what it’s all about. All of the challenges to get there are worth it.” n
Shaw Media reporter Cody Cutter can be reached at 815-632-2532 or ccutter@shawmedia.com.
TRAVEL cont’d to page 14
Lynn Crafts & Dan Dougherty,
Lynn Crafts and Dan Dougherty’s Scamp travel trailer, “Caboose.” SUBMITTED PHOTO
State parks, wineries, distilleries and places with unique natural history are among their favorite adventures, and sometimes they have no problem taking the long way to get to them. Traveling with a small trailer allows the couple to navigate along smaller roads that aren’t suitable for large trailers and RVs, leading them to hidden gems tucked away in towns and along country roads.
“The benefits of being in this neck of the woods is that there are a lot of off-the-beaten-path roads and smaller roads that we can travel on,” Crafts said.
Most recently, they explored sites such as Prophetstown State Park, Johnson-Sauk State Park north of Kewanee and Maquoketa Caves outside Maquoketa, Iowa.
“We’ve found we’re a good fit for a couple of kinds of places,” Crafts said. “One is state parks, and we prefer state parks over
“Northwest
a lot of the national parks because it’s less crowded, and we go to get away from people — saying that in the nicest way — preferring nature over people. We don’t need to plan too far in advance to go out, we can go at the last minute when we have a nice window of weather.”
Instead of booking hotels, their Scamp is all they need, and it doesn’t break the travel budget.
“Most of the state parks we’ve been to, camping is around $20 a night and that includes electric hookups, which is something we’ve really gotten used to,” Dougherty said. “Where can you stay for $20 a night? We’ve stayed at state parks and have had a great time.”
The couple’s Scamp adventures began in 2020 when they lived in Las Vegas. They had enjoyed traditional camping with tents for years, but when they laid eyes on a Scamp for the first time during a trip to Utah, they decided to make the step up from tent to travel trailer.
“We were tent campers for a long time, and we were camping one time and saw a lady with a tiny trailer that was pulled by her Subaru,” Crafts said. “We found out that you don’t actually have to have a big truck to have some of the luxuries that are an upgrade from tent camping.”
They also found that the Scamp would be just the right fit for them: It was light enough to haul without having to upgrade to a bigger tow vehicle, and it would allow them to navigate different kinds of roads.
Scamps aren’t found at RV dealers; they’re made and sold exclusively by Eveland’s Inc. in Bacus, Minnesota, and the wait time to get one can be up to 18 months, Crafts said — but the coronavirus pandemic whittled down the wait time to just 3 weeks after someone cancelled their order when travel restrictions started going into place. They hooked up
with a 13-foot model and enjoyed the compact camper so much that they soon upgraded to their current one, which is 3 feet longer, buying it from a couple in the Albuquerque area.
The 16-foot model offers 13 feet of interior space, 7 feet wide and 8 feet tall, and features a kitchenette with microwave, sink, two-burner stove, dinette space, restroom and a sleeping area in the back.
Lynn and Dan’s Scamp has been the perfect partner for the couple’s road trips. It’s compact size allows more flexibility when traveling, and the floor plan has proven to be “really ideal for us,” says Lynn.
SUBMITTED PHOTO
“We found out quickly that the 13-foot one was very tight, and you couldn’t do a whole lot of walking in it,” Dougherty said. “You stepped in there and everything that was in there was within reach. The floor plan for the middle-sized one was looking to be really ideal for us, but it was hard to try to find one anywhere. These things at the time were really sought after.”
That same demand helped them when they put their first one on the market: It didn’t take long to find it a new home.
TRAVEL cont’d to page 16
TRAVEL cont’d from page 15
Since moving to Morrison, Dan and Lynn have enjoyed exploring the Midwest, especially state parks.
“We prefer state parks over a lot of the national parks because it’s less crowded,” says Lynn. Among their stops: Johnson-Sauk State Park near Kewanee (left) and Blue Mound State Park in Wisconsin
The first two-and-a-half years they owned a Scamp, the couple traveled throughout the southwestern United States, taking in historic sites and natural wonders, such as the ghost town of Bodie, California, LaMoille Canyon in Nevada’s Ruby Mountains, and Kershaw Ryan State Park north of Las Vegas, a place they discovered only after detouring from another destination, and one they immediately fell in love with — so much so that they decided to start filming their adventures on the road.
“It was just amazing, we probably went there five or six
Together We Inspire Wellness
times before we moved this way,” Dougherty said. “The scenery was just awesome. We were already taking photos and videos of our travels, but just weren’t putting them together. We talked a little bit and started putting them on a YouTube channel.”
Dougherty studied media arts at Columbia College in Chicago, and uses his expertise in filming to capture video of the voyages.
TRAVEL cont’d to page 17
• Treatment for mental illness
• Treatment for substance use
• Individual and family counseling
• Child and adolescent services
• Early childhood mental health
• Crisis services
• Many other services
Sinnissippi Centers
Crafts, who’s retired, is originally from San Diego, and Dougherty, who is semi-retired, was raised in the Chicago suburbs. They moved to Morrison about a year and a half ago to be closer to Dan’s family, but they didn’t leave their Scamp adventures behind; they now have new territory to explore and enjoy, learning about their new home’s history and heritage. On a trip to Bishop Hill in Henry County, a town rich in Swedish history, they visited on a day when there was a Civil War reenactment taking place.
Go along for the ride
The couple are also members of the Harvest Hosts traveling club, where members can travel to and camp at various places such as wineries, golf courses, farms and small businesses at no cost, outside of the club’s membership fee. Exploring local cuisine and spirits is another one of their interests, with recent trips to Lena Brewing Company in Lena and Hawk’s Mill Winery in Browntown, Wisconsin. They said they weren’t really wine drinkers until exploring the wineries, but have come to enjoy sweet reds, as well as a house blend from Hawk’s Mill.
Find Caboose Adventures on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram (@cabooseadventures) to follow Lynn and Dan’s trips.
during the winter months as they put their travel plans on pause — but not their planning. The Scamp’s winter nap gives them time to plan their next adventures when the weather starts to get nicer. Among the plans they’ve already made are trips through central and northern Wisconsin, and a gathering of fellow Scamp adventurers in Bacus, Minnesota. Their plans aren’t set in stone either. If they come across another place to explore during the trip, or meet someone along the way who suggests another stop, they might just shift gears and check it out.
“Northwest Illinois has a lot to offer,” Dougherty said. “There are a lot of cool places. There’s a bunch of state parks that we haven’t gotten to yet, but they’re on the list.”
The Midwest isn’t new to Dougherty, but it is to Crafts, and she’s enjoyed seeing the countryside, with its farms, wooded areas, rolling hills and stretches of prairie land. She said it’s given her a new way of life to learn about, far from the big cities.
Traveling during the winter months wasn’t much of an issue when the couple lived in the southwestern part of the country, but Midwest weather is a different story. Caboose hibernates
“When you’re in a city and it’s busy and it’s noisy, and life is chaotic when you’re go-go-going all of the time, to finding a place that is the opposite of that, it’s heaven for us,” Crafts said. n
Shaw Media reporter Cody Cutter can be reached at 815-632-2532 or ccutter@shawmedia.com.
Lumberjack
at Selmi’s Family Farm
Drag racing and ARNIE BESWICK were born around the same time
— one on the dry lake beds of California and the other in Morrison — and they’ve both found fame through the years, with drag racing attracting legions of fans and “THE FARMER” becoming a legend in his field
Arnie “The Farmer” Beswick was grand marshal of the 2021 World Series of Drag Racing at Cordova Dragway, a racing strip where he competed in its very first event on Labor Day weekend of 1956.
ALEX T. PASCHAL/ APASCHAL@SHAWMEDIA.COM
You can’t mention famous people from Morrison without mentioning Arnie Beswick.
Sure, the city has been home to other people who’ve made their mark in the world — in acting, entertainment, science, women’s rights — but there’s only one who’s made his mark like Beswick: on asphalt.
His roots run deep in this area. He was born and raised here and he found his passion for racing here, on the highways and country roads of the county that’s been his home for nearly a century, and even after nearly 70 years since finding national fame in the sport of drag racing, the racer known as “The Farmer” continues to be revered by generations of locals, whether they’re racing fans or simply proud to know a hometown boy who made a name for himself.
Beswick, 94, grew up on a farm a few miles west of Morrison, where he still lives. It’s there that he first developed a penchant for horsepower, a talent that would take him from PTOs to Pontiacs, fixing Case tractors as a kid to becoming an iconic part of Pontiac’s history. To this day, he remains a popular presence in the sport, with drag racing fans lining up to meet him at many national events. His accomplishments in cars such as the Tameless Tiger, Mystery Tornado, Super Judge, the Grocery Getter and several others, led to a wealth of trophies and recognition in many halls of fame.
BESWICK cont’d to page 20
Arnie Beswick was born May 7, 1930, to Raymond and Marie Beswick, the older brother to Jim, and he still lives on the farm he was raised on. Though he’s more hands-off these days, hiring out the farm work, “The Farmer” says the operation still produces excellent corn yields.
It was on that farm that a young Arnie would learn the value of hard work. A childhood injury limited the kind of work that Raymond could do on the farm, so Arnie and his mother had to help support the family early on, doing chores beyond his years, including hopping on the orange Case tractor that Raymond shared with his brother Taylor, who farmed nearby, and doing field and farm work.
“When the tractor was over at our house, I would use it to haul manure, and in those days we used to plow our ground with a furrow plow, and I did do that at a pretty young age using that old four-wheel tractor when I was about 10, 11, 12 years old,” Beswick said. “Dad didn’t let me run it unless I was in wide open spaces. He wouldn’t let me run it close to any buildings or anything like that — he figured I might not get a turn quick enough.”
out, and then this bolt has to come out.’ He was pretty good, mindwise, mechanically.
The mechanical skills Arnie picked up on the farm would serve him well later in life.
“I think that’s what kind of got me into the car thing.”
Though race fans would one day call him “Mr. Pontiac,” Beswick first drove around his corner of the USA in a Chevrolet. His first car was a black 1936 Chevrolet that he got from a neighbor friend; it came with a “Knee Action” front end, an early independent front suspension system designed to give drivers a smoother ride — but the car itself had had a rough ride before Arnie got it
“It had been beat up. He just drove the [hell] out of that car,” he said, and Arnie ended up keeping it for only a couple years.
Three-year-old Arnie is seen here with his father, Raymond Beswick. At right is a high school yearbook photo of Arnie.
Sometimes the tractor needed work, and in the days before tractors were high-tech, farmers like the Beswicks could tackle their own tune-ups. Arnie and his dad would do the repairs, with Arnie doing the hands-on part while his father, whose mobility was limited, would tell him what to do.
“If there was any way he could describe what had to be done to me, he would be right there with me,” Beswick said. “He wasn’t holding my hand, but was close to it, telling me, ‘This bolt has to come
Their son having a car was important to the Beswicks, who needed him to come home right away from high school to work on the farm.
“The minute school was out, they wanted me,” he said. Because of that, he didn’t participate in extracurricular activities in high school, and only attended one Mustangs basketball game during that time.
During his early years behind the wheel, Arnie started to develop his need for speed. Though he never raced side-by-side with his friends on roads during school days, he often took to the stretch of U.S. Route 30 from Morrison to the bluff near Fulton to see just how far he could move the needle.
His dark green 1937 Plymouth, which had belonged to his parents, was a popular ride with his fellow students at Morrison High School in the late 1940s, zipping around curves and barreling over bumps no seatbelts back then, just passengers bouncing up and down and sliding from side to side.
BESWICK cont’d to page 21
Division of BOGOTT Plumbing, Inc.
Wall Street in Morrison was a favorite spot for Arnie and his friends; it went from the former General Electric plant to Jackson Street and drivers would go over small humps on its cross streets — it was a lesson in gravity that many of his friends would learn first hand.
“As the north-south streets crossed Wall Street, there was quite a big raise in the street,” Beswick said. “If you could get up to a pretty good speed, which I was usually able to do, and if I had anybody in the front, or especially the back seat, they’d fly up high enough to hit the ceiling of the car.”
The hoots and hollers after the bonks of heads were something Beswick got a kick out of, he said.
“That kind of tripped my trigger,” he said. “The guys in the front seat didn’t bounce much because there was much to hold on, and usually whoever rode in the front seat had rode with me before and so they were a little more aware. So in my high school days, for grins or whatever you want to call it, I’d go up and down Wall Street just to give the guys in the back seat something to talk about.”
Another local spot that Arnie wouldn’t forget — and that he would learn from, the hard way — was a curve along a hill on Prairie Center Road, southwest of Morrison. Arnie was riding with a friend who didn’t
take the curve and rolled the car.
“I had a friend who was kind of lead foot, and I can remember riding with him and I guess he wanted to show us how fast he could make the curve, but he didn’t make it and the car slid and went into the ditch and rolled over a couple of times,” Beswick said. “We never got any broken bones or anything, but I’ll never forget rolling over in that car of his. He was over his head, and he hadn’t driven that much yet.”
Beswick, who graduated from high school in 1948, also recalls the long flat stretch of state Route 88 (now 40) south of Rock Falls being a place during the mid-1950s where local car enthusiasts would race. It was a short burst of speed — about an eighth-mile — near the current Cady Landing Strip near Bell Road.
Arnie Beswick is seen above outside Ebenezer Reformed Church in Morrison with his daughters Rhonda, Paula, Arnette and Michele. The family posed for the photo during an event honoring his drag racing career on Nov. 9, 2024. At left is a sticker in the window of his famous “Tameless Tiger,” honoring his late wife, Evelyn (right).
STEVE SIEFKEN
Banking for Locals by Locals
PHOTO:
FOR SHAW MEDIA
Not everyone was a fan of the races. By that time, the term “hot-rodder” had entered the public conversation, and it wasn’t a term of endearment. The older generation looked at teens and their hot rods as trouble-makers, an image not helped by Hollywood and TV at the time, with their tales of teen terrorrs tearing up the streets.
“It was definitely looked at as taboo,” Beswick said, but for many “hot-rodders,” it wasn’t about causing trouble, it was simply trying to find a place where they could put their rides to the test.
Dirt and gravel roads wouldn’t cut it if you wanted to pick up some speed.
“It was getting a chance to compare your car against your friends’ cars,” Beswick said. “Who’s got the best car, and who’s going to beat who. You had to have some sort of blacktop surface or concrete.”
While racers could count on a few friends behind the badge in Whiteside County who would look the other way if they knew about a race, that wasn’t always the case when they crossed the county line. Beswick recalled one time when he and some fellow members of the Mississippi Modifieds auto club were racing north on state Route 78 into Carroll County and stopped at Argo Fay Road east of Argo Fay to do their thing.
“There was a very limited amount of travel out on that highway back then,” Beswick said. “As a group, we were known to go up there. After three or four times of
doing that, word got out by the farmers in the area that there would be some racing going on out there.”
That’s when Mount Carroll police decided to put the brakes on the race, but Arnie wasn’t there to see things screech to a halt; he had been running an errand at the time, which saved him a good chunk of money.
“Someone needed something for their car, and I had it at home,” Beswick said. “I went home when they were doing some racing up there, and while I was home, the cops came out there and managed to pick up several of them. A lot of them got away, because there were probably 20 to 30 of them out there, but some of them didn’t. Some of them got pretty good fines out of that deal.”
BESWICK cont’d to page 24
BESWICK cont’d from page 23
Beswick’s skills on the local roads eventually led him to going pro, and he launched his professional racing career in a Rocket, driving the first car he had bought with his own money: a 1950 dark blue Oldsmobile Rocket 88 purchased from McEleney Motors in
By that time, the sport of drag racing had made its way from the West Coast to the Midwest, its popularity arriving in Illinois in 1951 with early races taking place at the Half Day Naval Outlying Landing Field in present-day Vernon Hills, a suburb of Chicago. Beswick competed in the event and came away a winner in his class with his Rocket 88. From there, he just kept on going, and a racing career was born. After successes at the first World Series of Drag Racing in 1954 in Lawrenceville, and in 1955 at the first NHRA Nationals at Great Bend, Kansas, Beswick solidified himself as a top name in a growing sport. He began to race Pontiacs exclusively starting in 1958, and collected win after win at the most prestigious drag racing events in the nation for the next 14 years.
Beswick’s racing days out on the strips have come to a close, but he continues to make appearances nationwide at major race events and car shows. Many fans flock to him wherever he’s at, whether it’s far from home or close to it, for an autograph, a T-shirt, or to ask questions and hear stories from seven decade of racing. Next year will mark the 75th anniversary since Illinois’ first official drag race at Half Day.
As the calendar rolls around to spring, Beswick’s putting together his schedule of appearances for yet another race season, one that will see him turn 95 years young come May. One event he’s sure to include is the 71st World Series of Drag Racing on Aug. 21-24 in Cordova at Cordova Dragway, a strip he competed at when it first opened on Labor Day weekend of 1956.
One recent honor bestowed upon Beswick was a mayoral proclamation on Nov. 9 as “Ar-
nie Beswick Day” by Morrison Mayor Scott Vandermyde during a well-attended public celebration in his honor at Ebenezer Reformed Church. Friends and colleagues paid tribute to Beswick, and he shared a few memories of his own from his career. Beswick brought his Tameless Tiger II, as well as one of his vintage International Harvester Farmall H tractors.
“I was highly impressed with the number of people who showed up, the questions I was asked when it was over, the amount of people that were waiting in line for an autograph, the amount of people who showed and the conversations, and how they thanked me for being there and doing it,” Beswick said. “I can’t thank the ladies enough who came up with the idea and put it all together.”
Beswick meets fans of all ages during his appearances, some of whom weren’t around to have ever seen him race, but turn to the seasoned veteran of the strips for tips and tricks of the trade. He tells them the best place to start is under the hood, advice that mirrors the same road he took. Just start tinkering around with an older car. Get to know what makes them go — and what makes them go faster.
BESWICK cont’d to page 25
“It would be an education for someone to get their start, and then if they think they have the desire to learn the later motors and technology, you can make a more intelligent decision if you wanted to or not after you work with the old antique stuff,” Beswick said. “I would highly encourage them to work on the older antique stuff to start with, just to get a feel a little bit for what the challenges are.”
Who knows, maybe the next person to make a name on the drag strip could get their start on a tractor or under the hood, just like Beswick did nearly 85 years ago.
Who knows, maybe the next person to make a name for themselves on the drag strip will start their motor running just like Beswick did nearly 85 years ago: on a farm somewhere outside Morrison, tinkering with a tractor and warming up to hot rods on country roads that will pave the way for bigger and better — and faster — things to come. n
Shaw Media reporter Cody Cutter can be reached at 815-632-2532 or ccutter@shawmedia.com.
Go to facebook.com/arnie.beswick and pontiacpreservationassociation.org/inductees/2018/arniebeswick.html for more information about the historic drag racing career of Morrison’s Arnie “The Farmer” Beswick. A biography of Beswick, “Arnie ‘The Farmer’ Beswick” was published in 2021, written by Dean Fait. A preview copy of the book can be viewed at Google Books, and copies are still available at online retailers. Your local bookstore or library may also have copies; contact them for availability.
he health industry will tell you their remedies are grounded in research. Carol Camper will tell you her remedies are, well … just grounded.
For her, our health should be something that comes naturally. She’d rather see people turn to plants than pills when they can, and she’s doing her part to help teach people how to build a relationship with nature.
Camper owns Avalon Unity Garden, a 100-by-150-foot patch of land located just outside her Tampico home that’s open to visitors by appointment — but this isn’t your gramma’s garden: no neatly hoed rows of tomatoes and carrots and corn here. The five-year-old garden is a carefully crafted maze of plants and fruit trees, a gathering place for people to relax, meditate, and learn nature’s ways. It’s here that she offers classes on a host of plant-based topics — medicinal mints, flowers as food, plant identification, herbs for pets, and more — along with offering a space where people can gather for supportive ceremonies and events. Having grown up gardening with her father in Sterling, Camper has long been fascinated with Mother Earth’s offsprings and the health benefits they can offer, something that has fallen by the wayside in the past century as modern medicine has given us no shortage of concoctions and chemicals designed to cure what ails us.
GARDEN cont’d to page 28
Among the plants
Camper is a proponent of is lamb’s quarter, “It’s high in iron, and it can be used as a green. For example, if you’re making tacos, it can be a lettuce substitute
GARDEN cont’d from page 27
She’s constantly researching to get the most out of what plants have to offer, even ones people consider pesky, like dandelions and creeping Charlie. If it worked hundreds of years ago, it can work today, she said — it’s just a matter of learning.
That’s where Camper comes in.
“I feel like I’m that bridge between the past and the future,” she said. “People really are not taught. We haven’t been encouraged to eat healthy, to really look at ingredients, and we think that if it’s on the ground not to touch that. We’ve been conditioned to instant gratification and ‘I want it now.’ I come from a generation where Dad would pull a radish out of the ground, wipe the dirt off on his pants and eat the radish.
“Times have really changed.”
Camper considers the top four most nutritious herbs to be, in order, stinging nettle, lamb’s quarter, purslane and dandelion; each can be found in the garden. Stinging nettle, Camper said, “is the most nutritious herb that people can consume; it is like a multi vitamin that’s loaded with all kinds of minerals. In the body, it works with every organ.” That, along with dandelions, are rich in vitamins A and C and are popular ingredients in teas.
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Avalon Unity Gardens offers a relaxing retreat where guests can build a relationship with nature. Roaming around her Tampico garden can have peaceful and relaxing benefits, owner Carol Camper said. “People who have addiction issues or anxiety or high stress issues have come out and have said that the best part about it is that it’s peaceful,” Camper said. “It’s quiet. The things that seem to grab their attention aren’t here.”
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Lamb’s quarter, which is high in iron, and purslane also have health benefits and can be incorporated into our diets.
“Lamb’s quarter tastes good, and I really like it,” Camper said. “It’s high in iron, and it can be used as a green. For example, if you’re making tacos, it can be a lettuce substitute. I like to take purslane, dehydrate it, and make it into a cracker. That way, when you’re snacking, you’re eating something that’s healthy for you that can clear any issues from normal grain like glyphosate, that can bother people’s stomachs.”
Want to know more? Camper invites you to enroll in one of her classes where she shares information she’s learned from conferences she attends and deep dives into books and other credible publications that she takes in order to learn more about what grows in the ground and the role it plays in our health. Classes on medicinal mints (such as creeping Charlie), edible weeds, and flowers as food are offered, as well as those on plant identification and what herbs are good for dogs.
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Amaranth is a unique plant that has healthy effects for young women who are going through their menstrual cycle, Camper said; and while it can be a challenging time in their lives, Camper inspires them to embrace it. She can host puberty rites of passage ceremonies in the garden, to help girls understand that their transition into womanhood is a blessing and not a curse, she said.
Another ceremony Camper hosts is one for women entering their crone years — typically in their late 50s or early 60s — which celebrates the wisdom that the years have given them and helps instill confidence in them as they age.
“These rites of passage ceremonies, when you say that you are honoring a menstrual cycle, it changes the energy,” Camper said. “Right now we have a society that invalidates our young people and our old people. You’re honoring the intuitive messages you get. That is going to change that pain to enlightenment or power. It helps her go out and say that they can face the world.”
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Short-term stays for respite or rehabilitation Hospice care
Unit
Private and
Transportation for off-site appointments
Live entertainment, daily activities
Cable TV and Wi-Fi
Outpatient therapy services are available to the public
The garden’s embrace offers an oasis of serenity that welcomes people to step in and step back from the hustle and bustle. The space can be rented for special ceremonies, private women’s circles, meditation, yoga classes and more. Camper even welcomes campers, renting the space to overnight RV’ers.
Camper has also dressed up the garden with decorative pieces, incorporating recycled materials, including a trampoline frame used to create a large moon decorated with crystals, and a steel water pot hanging in a planting areas with inspirational messages on it. The garden also helps put the “art” in “earth,” with its an 18-foot-long piece called “Mother Earth,” sculpted from soil and covered in plants, and a dome-shaped Womb Room, a covered in-ground room.
At one corner of the garden is a circular area surrounded by a couple dozen willow trees, that, when fully grown, will come together in a shelter of leaves and branches to create an area where people can gather and relax.
“People who have addiction issues or anxiety or high stress issues have come out and have said that the best part about it is that it’s peaceful,” Camper said. “It’s quiet. The things that seem to grab their attention aren’t here. We have yoga mats and coloring books for the kids and they can just come sit in the garden and focus and let everything disappear. It’s a place that people are going to be able to gain the benefits of the plants.”
Feeding people, nourishing the air, keeping stuff out of the scrap pile, solar power, biodiversity, helping pollinators … they’re all roles the garden plays on the her own little corner of the world’s stage — important parts that help people connect with the planet and its plants. Those weeds we complain about can actually be greens that we snack on; it just all comes down to learning their benefits.
“When we find how valuable it is, it’s a game changer,” Camper said. “These plants are connecting you back to the food, the history, the connections that we once had with it.” n
Shaw Media reporter Cody Cutter can be reached at 815-632-2532 or ccutter@shawmedia.com.
YOUR GRASSHOPPER SERVICE DESTINATION.
Avalon Unity Garden, 107 S. Lincoln St. in Tampico, is open by appointment. Find it on YouTube, go to avalonunitygarden.com, email carolcamper444@ gmail.com or call or text 815-718-3331 for more information.
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