Friendly Pines ‘matriarch’ Bebe May dies, leaving behind legacy of kindness to generations

Bebe May, who died on May 19, 2021, was a mother figure for many of the young people growing up in Prescott in the 1970s and 1980s, including local business owner Greg Raskin, who recently posed with May at the Friendly Pines Camp in Groom Creek. (Christopher May/Courtesy)

Bebe May, who died on May 19, 2021, was a mother figure for many of the young people growing up in Prescott in the 1970s and 1980s, including local business owner Greg Raskin, who recently posed with May at the Friendly Pines Camp in Groom Creek. (Christopher May/Courtesy)

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Bebe May, who died May 19, 2021, grew up spending summers at her family’s Friendly Pines Camp in Groom Creek. In this photo from the early 1950s, the Brown siblings posed at the camp. They are, from left, Tim, Bebe, Francie, Teddy, and Peg Brown. (Christopher May/Courtesy)

For the tens of thousands of campers who have passed through the forested grounds of Friendly Pines Camp over the decades, Bebe May set an example that has endured through the generations.

May (born Beatrice Kathryne Brown in 1934) died on May 19, 2021, in Scottsdale at age 86. For most of her adult life, she was known as the “matriarch” of the venerable Friendly Pines Camp in Groom Creek, and also of the larger Prescott area.

When May’s health began to fail recently, her family put out a call to former campers, asking for their memories of Bebe.

“We got hundreds of cards talking about little things that people remembered about her,” May’s son Christopher May said. “They were so touching.”

He shared several of the messages that summed up his mother’s influence. One talked about how campers had referred to Bebe’s penchant for kindness as “Bebeism.”

“Like many, I remember you (and your hugs),” said the writer, who went on to say that several of the campers had worn pink bracelets with the word “Bebeism” on them.

“Originally, it was just the bracelet and asking, ‘would you do that if Bebe was here?’” the former camper wrote. “It evolved into us not only asking others, but ourselves … we became amazing people because of it. To this day, Bebeism keeps us in check and remains my favorite camp-wide inside joke.”

Another former camper wrote of attending Friendly Pines Camp years ago without speaking fluent English and knowing little about American culture.

“It didn’t take me long to see that I was in a very special place, with good people,” said the former camper. To Bebe, the writer said, “I’ll never forget you and how every year, you remembered my name. Thank you so much. I think of you dearly.”

Local business owner and jeweler Greg Raskin said that while he was never a camper at Friendly Pines, he knew Bebe well from growing up in Prescott.

“She was like a second mom to a lot of us kids growing up here in the ’70s and ’80s,” Raskin said this past week. “She was always concerned about families, and family came first.”

Raskin remembers Bebe sponsoring “senior nights” at Friendly Pines on Prescott High School’s graduation night. “She’d open up all of the cabins. That was just one more thing she did for the community.”

Raskin, who grew up with the May children, says Bebe was “the matriarch who was everybody’s mother.”

Christopher May also has memories of his mother reaching out to other young people in the community. “She really was the surrogate mom or grandma to so many,” he said.

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Bebe May and her husband, Jack, managed the Friendly Pines Camp in Groom Creek for decades from the 1960s through the early 2010s. The whole family posed on the porch of the “Tewa” cabin in 1985. They are, from left, F.V. Bud Brown, Isabelle Fuller Brown, Jack May, Bebe May, Rosemary May, and Chris May. (Christopher May/Courtesy)

Bebe’s long-time friends Marsha and Taylor Hicks Jr. say that both Bebe and her husband, Jack, were leaders in Prescott and gave freely to the community.

Of Bebe, Marsha Hicks said, “She offered so much of herself without expecting anything in return. We know she touched the lives of so many at Friendly Pines. She was a wonderful, loving and brilliant lady.”

Bebe and Jack May ran Friendly Pines Camp together until his death in 2012. She stepped back from management a few years later, but remained director emeritus in her later years. Her son said she stayed involved in the camp even when she could no longer serve as its director.

“They gave her a title as the ‘designated hugger,’” he said, noting that even though camp counselors were no longer encouraged to hug the campers in recent years, his mother steadfastly clung to her affectionate ways. “Mom said, ‘I am not going to stop hugging,’” he said.

He also remembers Bebe’s ability to consistently recall the names of the campers year after year, along with the names of the campers’ parents and, in some cases, grandparents who had attended Friendly Pines years ago.

She would sometimes tell young campers about their parents’ camping skills, he said, telling them things like “You should have seen how good she could ride a horse.”

Bebe herself was an excellent horsewoman, say Christopher and Bebe’s sister, Frances Whetten.

Whetten remembers the Brown family living at Friendly Pines during the summers, and always taking on “problem ponies” as projects. “We all started out with ponies, and we often fell heir to ponies that other people’s kids couldn’t manage,” she said.

Through that “steady stream of problem ponies that we were trying to straighten out,” Whetten said she and Bebe and their sister Peg (Margaret Kennedy) became skilled with horses.

Christopher said Friendly Pines Camp always had 40 to 50 horses on hand, and “My mom knew about horses inside and out.”

Bebe’s love of the camping life came naturally from her own mother, Isabelle Fuller Brown, who had come from a pioneer ranching family and had grown up riding horses and milking cows. “She passed that onto my mom,” Christopher said of his grandmother.

Friendly Pines has been in the Brown/May family since 1949, and it remains a family-owned and operated camp today. Although Christopher said he and his sister, Rosemary Taylor, were peripherally involved, he noted that his daughter (and Bebe’s granddaughter) Megan May serves as the current director.

“One of my mom’s greatest joys was that we kept it in the family,” Christopher said.

Jack and Bebe May took over management of the camp in the 1960s and worked to renovate and winterize the cabins. Over the years, Christopher said they have conducted mostly summer camps, but some winter events as well.

Through it all, Christopher said, kindness was the hallmark for Bebe. “She was perhaps the most good-hearted person I ever knew,” he said.

A memorial service for Bebe May is being planned at Friendly Pines at a later date, possibly in late September.

Follow Cindy Barks on Twitter @Cindy_Barks. Reach her at 928-445-3333, ext. 2034, or cbarks@prescottaz.com.


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