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# 2025-05-11 - The Commune Comes To America
LIFE Vol 67, No. 3
July 18, 1969
Youthful pioneers leave society to seek, from the land and one
another, a new life.
Cover Image
Photographed by John Olson
Teepee Foundation
At a commune in the wilderness (above), a young man begins work on
his new home, a teepee. At right, in front of another teepee, he and
fellow members of the commune gather together for a group portrait.
Group Portrait
Their hair and dress, their pioneer spirit, even their Indian teepees
evoke the nation's frontier beginnings. These young people are
members of a commune, which they have created for themselves as a new
and radical way of living. Scores of these communes are springing up
all across the U.S. In the wilderness areas of the West, Southwest,
and New England, the new settlers build their own homes--adobe huts,
log cabins, geodesic domes--share their money and labor and legislate
their own laws and taboos.
The youthful pioneers, unlike the earlier Americans who went into the
wilderness to seek their fortunes, are refugees from affluence.
Though there have been previous such experiments in the U.S., the new
communes represent an evolution of the philosophy and life-style of
the hippie movement. Most members have fled the big cities--New
York's East Village, San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury--where they were
beset by crime, police harassment, squalor, and disillusionment.
They seek in the land, and in one another, meaningful work, mutual
love, and spiritual rebirth. Their religion is rooted in many
faiths--among them Christianity, Hinduism, and Zen Buddhism. Some
communes permit LSD and marijuana, but many now discourage their use
or even ban them. Some take a broad view of sexual morality, but in
many communes couples practice traditional American monogamy, and
sexual behavior is often surprisingly pristine. Young children,
however, are raised by all adults and by the older children in the
commune, which itself is often referred to as "the Family."
Many of the settlers dropped out of teaching and other professions
and are particularly ill-prepared to carve a living out of nature.
The winters are harsh, the earth hard. Often they resort to shopping
at the nearest stores. They also find that many of the constraints
they sought to escape are necessary--an orderly work routine,
community health regulations. They almost invariably encounter
hostility and even violence from local people. Another threat is
unwanted visitors--the sightseers from "straight" society and weekend
hippies who descend upon them to freeload. To protect their privacy,
members of the commune shown on these pages asked LIFE not to reveal
their location but to describe it merely as "somewhere in the woods."
Hexagonal Lodge
The focal point of the commune is the hexagonal lodge (above), which
includes a kitchen area with a cast-iron stove and a library with 500
well-read books, including volumes on the occult and crop raising.
Wood Splitting
A commune member, Will (above), splits logs to build up the 90-cord
stockpile of firewood needed for next winter. At right, two women
go into the two-acre garden to pick vegetables for the day's main
meal.
Garden
Shortly after dawn the sharp ring of a Buddhist gong starts the day
for the 41-member Family in the commune. Most of the day is devoted
to labor. They must plant, cultivate, and harvest vegetables,
supplement their diet with fishing trips (right), and split and store
logs for the long winter. The adults range from 17 to 32 and
represent widely diverse backgrounds. One was an actor, one an
office worker, another a welder. They started the commune 14 months
ago after making a down payment on 240 acres of woodland. They faced
problems from the start: they miscalculated the harshness of their
first winter and ran out of firewood. They still have not realized
their hope of becoming self-sufficient--members use their savings and
money from part-time work to pay off their mortgage and buy supplies
in town 20 miles away. Most of the 11 children are very young, and
there is as yet no provision for formal schooling. The older
children teach the younger ones, and they themselves are taught by
their parents when they express an interest. But soon, under state
law, several of the children will have to attend a licensed school.
Family Photo
Alone in their teepee at the end of a day of communal work,
meditation, and play, a family within the Family reads from a book of
fairy tales before the children's bedtime. Ron, 36, a former computer
programmer at a New York bank and his wife, Nancy, who went to
Radcliffe, brought their daughter and 4-year-old son to the commune a
year ago. Before they joined the commune their search for faith had
led them to become Quakers and to civil rights work... We chose to
devote our lives to God and the learn the lessons He teaches in the
earth.
Bible Reading
In the lodge, above, Nancy reads to herself from the Bible. The
children of the commune (below) are expected to help in occasional
chores in the garden and kitchen, but spend much of their time in the
surrounding woods hunting for berries or playing make-believe.
Children
Meal
Above, Sandoz and Twig serve themselves a midday meal of rice,
vegetables, and fruit. Most of the members do not eat meat. At
right, as the coolness of the night comes to the mountains, Ama sits
in silent meditation in the teepee he built last summer. He is
building a log cabin nearby where he plans to spend the winter with
his wife Evening Star and their expected child.
Ama Meditating
Although the commune may look like an early American frontier
establishment, it certainly doesn't sound like one. On the contrary,
the pronouncements of members seem to have little connection with the
realities of the world they have left behind.
"We are entering the time of tribal dance," one member of the Family
has written, "as we go to live in teepees, celebrate our joys
together, and learn to survive. We go to a virgin forest with no
need for the previously expensive media of electric technology. The
energy we perceive within ourselves is beyond electric; it is atomic,
it is cosmic, it is bliss."
All the members speak in such mystical jargon of their new experience
in the wilderness. Many say that taking LSD opened their eyes
originally. Now they do not forbid drugs but they frown on their
use. They regard chopping wood, planting seeds, and washing clothes
as acts of creative meditation which contribute as much to the
spiritual well-being of the workers as to the good of the commune.
They say that the hard work strips them of their city frustrations.
Members have written a commune credo: "Getting out of the cities
isn't hard, only concrete is. Get it together. This means on your
own, all alone, or with a few of your friends. Buy land. Don't
rent. Money manifests. Trust. Plant a garden, create a center.
Come together."
Each evening before dinner members join hands and stand in a silent
circle for two or three minutes. Then they chant the Hindu holy
syllable "Om" which trails off into the night sounds of the forest.
In such a ceremony last Thanksgiving, an ordained minister came to
the commune and married all the Family members to one another and
then united a number of couples in matrimony. "We were standing in a
big circle and a cold rain began to fall," a woman recalls. "It was
like being married and baptized too."
The commune has its share of everyday squabbling, and a little
incident can bring the loftiest ideals abruptly back to earth.
During a recent three-day fast by the group, one member whose spirit
was weakened walked seven miles to a gas station to buy a candy bar.
When the others spotted the empty wrapper sticking out of his back
pocket, they laughed--and then /everyone/ continued the fast.
A secluded creek (following page) used by the commune for swimming
also provides the opportunity for a mother to grab an unwilling
daughter and soap her hair.
Creek Bathing
* * *
# Happy Hippy of Days Past by Joan Momsen
A friend of JCHS brought us a collection of photos and papers from
the past. It will take weeks, maybe months before we can identify
the photos, if at all, and find a place to put the new collection. I
started to look through the papers and photos and found a LIFE
magazine from July 18, 1969. I immediately recognized the cover and
recalled the story from 53 years ago.
In 1969 one needed film to take a photo, then a lab to develop it.
Taking, developing, and printing photos was time consuming and
expensive. Many people did not even own a camera, far distance from
today where people use the camera on their cell phone on a regular
basis.
This old magazine recalled what part I had in the publishing of the
article, although nothing official but just being there and providing
a service. I was working at the Greyhound Depot which also handled
Western Union. The cover story was about a commune near Wolf Creek.
No mention of Wolf Creek or even Oregon is in the article. There are
just photos and words about a group of young Americans who gave up
what we might call a civilized life to move into the woods, form a
commune with other of like desires, and live off the land. Most of
us "normal folks" called them hippies and hippy settlements were all
around us in Southern Oregon. Some were not a problem, but others
were, or at least their neighbors thought they were a problem. These
"kids" usually under the age of 30 just wanted to get away from it
all. Some might have been getting away from the draft and the
Vietnam War. Only the individual hippy could tell you why and that
may have changed from day to day.
As an Agent for Western Union, we were basically sworn to secrecy,
and could not talk about what we had access to. I am not going to
divulge some things I remember about using Western Union telegraph
lines because I am not sure if there are any limits of time about
such things as destinations. I still laugh to myself when I think of
the abbreviations we used when sending many "wires" at the same time.
I remember sending dozens of "night letters" to Senator Wayne Morse
one night. I do not remember what the issue was, but lots of folks
sent wires to the Senator that night. The address was Senator Wayne
Morse, Senate Office Building, Washington D.C. which came out on a
single line as Senator Wayne Morse, SOB, WashDC.
For your information a "night letter" was a telegram that had more
words for a cheaper rate and was to be delivered the first thing the
next morning. Night letters were what I sent for the LIFE
photographer. He came in each night to send undeveloped film
canisters, 35mm, to Portland where they would be picked up at the
Portland Greyhound Depot and delivered to the airport and sent air
express to the final destination. In this case, I think it was New
York City which in night letter shorthand was NYC.
The photographer would come in just before the last northbound bus
would depart, around 8 in the evening. He would also drop off a few
hand written pages to be sent to NYC. This was the night letter and
it turned out to be the basis of the LIFE article. I got to read the
story before it was published. The photographer told me the things
written and photographed were in the Wolf Creek area but I was not to
tell anyone. I did not. After 53 years I remember reading and
typing the day's commentary, but do not remember if I kept an
original copy. He may have returned for it after he went and got
himself some non-hippy fast food.
I did not use Morse Code. We had what we called a teleprinter.
[Also known as a TTY.] It was like an electric typewriter, only
bigger and more foreboding. I hit certain keys to send to certain
areas and then I just typed out what was given to me. If a typo was
made, I put XXX behind the error and each time it came out on the
other end, the XXX and the word before it was eliminated. Where a
Western Union office had the message print out on a long, thin strip
of paper, they would just cut behind the XXX and glue the rest of the
message over it. If you remember telegrams, you understand and if
you don't, sorry about that.
So over a period of a couple of weeks, I would talk to the LIFE
photographer each night, write up the waybill for the film shipped to
Portland and then send his night letter. I knew what was happening
and so did many others in the area. Seems that many of us were aware
of what the hippies were doing. Those of us that were "in the loop"
knew about it when the magazine published, but I am not sure there
are still people that did not know it was so near to Grants Pass and
if they were to take a guess, they probably thought these particular
hippies were in the Illinois Valley.
The Editors' Note from the LIFE magazine of July 18, 1969 sums up the
situation:
# Two young men in a forest commune
> Our lead story this week, which depicts life in one of the new
> youth communes sprouting up around the country, is the work of two
> of the youngest members of our staff, John Stickney, 23, and
> Photographer John Olson, 22. Stickney, who covers the youth scene
> for us, looks as little like the conventional image of a reporter
> as Olson, who covers the White House, resembles the stereotyped
> elbows-and-flash-gun photographer. Both are coolly intense, well
> bethatched, bell-bottomed, and bespectacled.
>
> "I get in trouble all the time because I was too involved," says
> Stickney, slouching, with one boot resting on the ankle of the
> other, his Navajo necklace dangling down his navy blue shirt.
> "It's not supposed to be professional. But I felt I had to get
> involved in this story, or I wasn't going to get an accurate
> impression of the commune life."
>
> The commune dwellers are suspicious of journalists as they are of
> the rest of the society they have deliberately abandoned. Before
> Stickney and Olson could begin their coverage, they had to win the
> community's trust as individuals. Only after a solemn one-hour
> powwow in the community's pine-log lodge were Olson and Stickney
> accepted--and then solely on the condition that LIFE would not
> reveal the location of the commune.
>
> "It was the first time I have had to sleep on the ground since
> leaving Vietnam," says Olson, who covered the war first as
> soldier-photographer, then as a member of the LIFE staff. "But at
> least I didn't have to worry about being mortared." He reports a
> preference for C-rations over the commune diet of grain, rice, and
> lettuce. "We shipped our film every day just so I could get a
> cheeseburger--20 miles away." Stickney, a businessman's son who
> grew up in Columbus, Ohio and majored in art at Williams College,
> took time out from interviewing to learn how to chop wood and help
> tote logs out of the forest. Before Olson and Stickney had
> completed their coverage, the members of the commune accepted them
> as "brothers" and invited them to the family gathering known as
> "the meeting of the spirit."
>
> Both found themselves subtly changed by their stay in the commune.
> "I went there feeling very suspicious," Olson says, "and I still
> wouldn't drop out--but I can understand now how they would."
> Stickney, remembering the haunting notes of a flute that echoed in
> the midnight stillness, wants someday to go back. "Out there," he
> says, "you can see and breath, and smell things."
>
> Ralph Graves, Managing Editor
I suppose that tucked in the attics throughout Southern Oregon, one
can find a few copies of this particular edition. Storing a large
group of magazines can be tedious and I know because my father saved
LIFE magazine from 1936 to 1972 and stored them in our attic. When
Rogue Community College opened, we donated them all to their library.
I doubt if they still have them, but they were neatly stacked in the
library for a few years.
When the July 18, 1969 copy arrived at our research library, I
stopped what I was doing and read the article and looked at the
photos. I had not seen a copy since about 1972 and I just had to
share my memories.
* * *
This commune is referred to as FAMILY OF MYSTIC ARTS in the
LIST OF COMMUNES section on pages 47 and 48 of Steal This Book.
Steal This Book by Abbie Hoffman
The members of this commune played a pivotal role in Vortex I,
a psychedelic rock festival outside of Estacada, Oregon in 1970.
This rock festival was inspired by Woodstock. The participants
went on to organize the first Rainbow Gathering.
Vortex I (Wikipedia)
Vortex I gallery
Vortex I ebook (PDF)
Rainbow Family (Wikipedia)
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