Tessa Blake, my sister in law, is a writer and a director of film and TV. Today she shared her remembrance of an inspiring woman. (For background: Blakey was Tessa's father, an oil man, Sandy her mother. Muffet another of Blakey's wives. Tessa went to school in Scotland.) Tessa writes: Jane Ragsdale was tall. Taller than Muffet, for sure. And even taller than Sandy, who was the ideal height - enviable legs and looked great in clothes but not considered ungainly. Jane was taller than women were supposed to be. Jane was taller than men. Blakey sent me to Heart O' the Hills Summer Camp for Girls in Hunt, Texas when I was ten. I joked that he had six weeks of parenting every year, four of which he delegated to summer camp. But I mean, what the hell were Blakey and I going to do together for six weeks? Heart O' the Hills was a move of accidental genius. I think he wanted to send me to Camp Mystic. That was were all the Muffet-esque girls from Houston went. It was elite and feminine. But it was also expensive. Heart O' the Hills was the poor relation with a dumb name. I was embarrassed about not going to the place you could say with pride. I mean, Camp Mystic versus what sounded like a lyric of a sentimental country song ... But there weren't Jane Ragsdales at Mystic. She was 22 when I met her. She was already the a partial owner of the camp. Her parents owned Camp Stewart for boys up the river and she had been a camper and then counselor at Heart O' the Hills since she was she was nine. I don't know when she knew it was her life's work, her calling, but the camp was listed for sale when she was nineteen years old. She saved her money, convinced her siblings and her parents to put in 10% each and found investors for the other 50% percent. In 1988, when she was 31 years old, she became the sole owner and director. She's been there ever since. I started in 1980, the summer after I had come back from Scotland. I had a year of America under my belt by then, so I didn't stand out as an utter weirdo. But I wasn't from Texas in the way that everyone else was from Texas. Or so it seemed. But the longer I was there the more the seams showed. Sherri Godbe, my best camp friend, was a tall ginger, raised by musicians and educators in Pasadena, Texas. She sorta passed as a basic suburban kid but also her parents read Shakespeare aloud after dinner. And then there was Diane Levy, who was Jewish, and hated doing anything outdoors but didn't seem to mind singing all the Christian songs we were always having to sing. I loved camp more than I have maybe loved any thing else. We went from one incredibly hard and interesting activity to another. I raced barrels on a horse. I swam the backstroke across the Guadalupe. I did archery and fencing and cheerleading (part of my quest to become normal). It was hot and sticky and perfect. And for one magic hour, I hung out with Jane in the shade of the Live Oaks. She taught a few of us sign language. We sang - and signed - Day by Day from Jesus Christ Superstar while she played guitar. There was definitely a lot of Christ. But no one asked me to believe anything. We just sang the songs and recited the prayers as part of the rhythm of the day. Before lunch, we were given a inspirational saying or buddhist koan ... something like "Why do humans prefer the quick sand of certainty to the firm ground of change?" Or "a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step." We were meant to discuss in smaller groups and then have one person from our group share our thoughts to the whole camp before we went in for lunch. And, naturally, this is where I was a viking. We were standing in the sun, and hungry, so I was just an efficient choice. And while I loved thinking and talking and sharing ideas, I also knew eventually someone would shame me for it. For taking up too much space. Or thinking too much. Tall poppies get their heads chopped off. But not at bargain-basement Heart O' the Hills run by Jane Ragsdale. Jane would delight in whatever I would say that day. She never asked me to talk less. She never asked me to be smaller. She was tall. Taller than women are supposed to be and she showed me I could be tall too. -- On America's birthday, at 68 years old, Jane was swept away in the river she loved, the river on which she built her life, the river in which I swam every happy summer's day. https://www.hohcamp.com/flood-announcement