Adams Creek Cohousing Community Member Bios

Becki Rawson, her husband, and our family made the Hood River Valley home 29 years ago. We have lived in various forms of community and look forward to continuing the exploration of an intentionally connected neighborhood with Adams Creek Cohousing.

We treasure the diversity of our area's people as well as relishing the many outdoor pursuits in this incredible location we call home.

I moved to Hood River in 2005 to live close to my daughter and her family shortly after my husband died.  I am grateful for my family here as well as the many friends I now have in the Columbia River Gorge.  But ever since I visited Sweden seven years ago I have wanted to live in Cohousing, an intentional community in which the members are consciously committed to live in community.  Earlier this year I had the privilege of living in a Cohousing community in Atlanta for more than three months where I shared meals in the Common House and learned to know several of the residents.  Even though I have lived in friendly neighborhoods where people reach out to each other, I look forward to living in Cohousing.

It’s Spring 2021 and I’ve been with Adams Creek Cohousing for just over a year. What a year it has been for us all! I sold my home in Colorado and moved close to the ACC Hood River location. It’s been a year of physical isolation and yet great connection building with all of the other members of ACC. Together via many Zoom meetings we’ve worked on details of our building and site designs, educated ourselves in the governance process for our community and enjoyed each others’ company on virtual Happy Hours. We also held socially distanced work parties to restore our creek habitat and had some outdoor kid-friendly activities; a favorite was making paper and willow lanterns decorated with autumn leaves

Cohousing was an entirely new concept to me a year ago but I’ve embraced the adventure of learning a new way to live, and new ways to connect. I seem to try to learn new things every twenty years or so. The last time it was as a career changer working in bakeries and restaurants learning OJT (on the job), going to culinary school and finally becoming a culinary teacher. Prior to that it was more OJT in various jobs in software and user support/training. In fact the only job I had formal education for was my first as a middle school teacher in the Sciences.

I’m fully retired now but that doesn’t mean a life any less busy. My husky rescue dog keeps me active with lots of walks and a few hikes. I hope to learn the trails local to Hood River, and do a little traveling to get familiar with my new Pacific Northwest region. I’m loving still having four seasons, but milder temperatures that allow me to get outdoors almost every day. And Portland is only an hour away where my two grandkids, ages 6 and 3, make me a happy grandma. Life really is good!

I moved to Hood River 26 years ago, partially because of the water and part due to the incredible agricultural resources.  The recreational offerings in this area are plentiful, with the water being my focus for paddling my kayak.   
 

I am a single woman, retired psychotherapist with a love of animals. The introduction to cohousing was exciting, as it was a solution to not wanting to live alone the rest of my life.  I tend to enjoy my own company and find community living to give me both privacy and social interaction I need. 
I love to travel and have lived in different parts of the world.  Being among different cultures, finding new and unusual people and customs is what has educated me.  I believe in giving back to my community so am involved in some local volunteering, including local art events and plays. 

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​Nutrition and health are essential to my wellbeing, as well as the daily practice of compassion.  I have always lived around the availability of products/produce straight off the local farms. This is very important to my plant-based food philosophy.  And, I love to cook.

Twenty five years ago, we dreamed of living in the country, far from town with enough land so that we did not hear or see our neighbors. What were we thinking? It was quiet, beautiful with lots of wildlife, and very lonely. Now we clearly understand and appreciate the value of community. Living within walking distance to town for the last ten years in beautiful Hood River brings a new appreciation for having a close connection with our friends, neighbors and community.
 

Realizing that we must live a more sustainable lifestyle, we look forward to our modest home in our cohousing community that incorporates solar energy and water saving features, gardens and sharing resources with our neighbors.
 

Having the privacy of our own modest home while having the luxury of a cozy common house where we can enjoy community meals, movie nights, and meeting spaces to hang out with our neighbors will be an ideal setting. We are excited to help make our Adams Creek Cohousing community a reality!

I was blessed to grow up in Berkeley California with parents who ran an alternative community school. Since those early years I have always felt most at home in communities and have yearned to find that again in a living situation. I have lived in Santa Cruz, NYC, London, Greece and Albania and most recently many years in Southern Oregon. I spent much of my career as a theatre and dance teacher for kids and teens. Currently I teach dance programs for Boomers and seniors. After raising my son I decided to set out to find a cohousing community. Searching all over the west coast I discovered Adams Creek and the undeniable pull of the warm welcoming community. I look forward to sharing meals, working to create something bigger than our individual selves and making deep friendships that feel like family. I am excited to start this new chapter of my life in beautiful Hood river with the most wonderful group of people who are so committed to this vision. And I have plans to get everyone up and dancing!

John and Everley have lived in Hood River since 2005.

John is a retired clergy person of the United Church of Christ and has been an ecumenical/ interfaith leader throughout his career.  He is an organizer for the Columbia Gorge Climate Action Network and is active in the movement for immigrant justice.  Everley is now a freshman in High School.   She loves drama, sports and dance.  She is highly social and loves spending time with friends.

John has built a lifestyle that embraces community and works for social and environmental justice. He likes to spend time outdoors hiking and camping.  He also enjoys his E-bike.  He is a reader and loves socializing around the table — loves a full house.   John and Everley have a 6 year old ‘rescue’ dog named “Wilbur” and provide home to 5 hens in their backyard. They are committed to Co-Housing and the practice of living more intentionally to model for themselves a sustainable future.

We moved to Hood River 2 years ago to be closer to family and because of the incredible access to mountains and trails.  We spend our time bicycling, hiking, running, skiing, and playing in the forests of Mt.Hood and Mt.Adams. 

We have been interested in cohousing for 20 years and are thrilled to find a group here in Hood River!

We’re currently living in Redwood City, California (which we love) but the chance to live in community, with such an amazing group of wonderful people, in such a beautiful and lively town as Hood River, with spectacular views, and within walking distance to all the amenities anyone would ever need, has convinced us to take the leap.

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Peter is an IT manager in the field of sustainability, and Kate teaches ESL to adult immigrants.  Our son, Isaiah, is in his junior year of college at San Diego State University.

We’re looking forward to joining in making music, meals, and memories with the cool folks of Adams Creek Cohousing, and in living lightly in this beautiful part of the world.

We are excited to move back to the NW with our two kids. We’ve lived in Portland, Chicago, the UK and Colombia in South America. Hood River seems like an amazing place for our kids to grow up.

Cleo, 6, makes friends easily and loves art, constructing and is always up for a play and to chat. Zora, 9, enjoys music, drawing, dance and being in nature. Barnaby’s background is in theatre and circus. He’s British and grew up sailing, hiking and traveling. Molly’s background is in theatre, dance and wellness. Currently she is an embodiment coach and starting an online business called Move To Nourish.

Our long-term dream is to open an arts center for performance and self-development in a natural setting.

All the family are excited to live in community where the best of many talents are joined together and we can walk lightly on Earth during our lifetime.

I'm a retired union organizer, lawyer, and public policy geek with deep roots in Oregon and a love for its dirt—on the trail and in the garden. I look forward to living in a community that's not too big, not too small, but just right: Small enough that I'll bump into friends and acquaintances whenever I walk to the library and big enough to welcome a newcomer who's eager to participate in its civic and cultural life.  I look forward to reducing my carbon footprint a bit, giving up some of the frenzy of urban life, and sharing meals and getting into good trouble with my co-housing neighbors. 

I seem to be living my life in 20-year chunks!  I grew up in Seattle but ventured forth to live in several parts of this country and the world.  I spent 20 years as a pastor’s wife/school bus driver, and 20 years as a high school history and English teacher, and I am really looking forward to spending the next 20 years living in community with my newfound friends at Adams Creek Cohousing! I have three grown children and two wonderful grandsons.   While I love to wander and experience new places, people, and ideas, I will always consider the Northwest my home.

As I have gotten to know some of you in this community through zoom, I find that I have much in common with you and so look forward to the chance to live in community with you.  I am an active traveler, hiker, walker. I want to live lightly on the earth and will learn from all of you as we strive to cut out waste, consume less, and appreciate what we have.  I want to share meals, books, hikes, conversations, and laundry facilities with all of you!  I am hoping for homegrown concerts, art shows, and travel dialogs.  I want to practice “squad care”, as we actively care for each other, and help avoid the isolation that destroys our souls.

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Richard grew up in a very small town in Southeast Texas not many miles from the Gulf of Mexico. His mother's parents and his father's mother lived in walking distance and were a deep connection to family and community. He spent most of his first 31 years in and around Texas in his hometown of Angleton, Houston, Austin, and Galveston. He has lived on the West Coast for the last 40 years in Washington, California, and soon in Oregon. When he read about co-housing almost 25 years ago, it seemed to be a good fit. Having lived in a Buddhist monastic community, an Episcopal seminary, various archaeological field crew settings, and shipboard at sea, co-housing provides a balance for his rather solitary nature and his love of people.  

Kathleen grew up mostly in So. Cal. and has lived most of her adult life in No. Cal. and the Pacific Northwest.  She met her husband Richard in seminary and together they have served Episcopal churches for over thirty years.  She is excited to be part of a community committed to care for the Earth and mutual inter-generational support.  Richard and Kathleen have one adult son, Aidan and a mighty Chihuahua named Phannie.

Having grown up in the shadow of Mt Hood, living in Hood River is the right place for me.  My view will be switching from Mt. Hood to Mt Adams and that’s okay, sometimes it’s good to have a different point of view.  My formidable years (a kid) were spent “outdoors” and as an adult I lived and worked many years on small Forest Service compounds, so helping to design and live in a cohousing community was an easy decision for me. 
 

I’m enjoying life with my new yellow lab puppy, Ziggy.  You’ll probably see me out walking somewhere in town, the waterfront, the spit or some trail in the National Forests. I’m a stained glass/fused glass hobbiest, enjoying reading and I’m working on being a pickleball diva.

While cycle touring in the Columbia Gorge several years ago,  we fell in love with lively Hood River, its idyllic orchards draping the flanks of Mt. Hood, and forests and water all around.   “Heaven on Earth!” we thought.  Little did we imagine actually living in HR someday.  Then, in 2019  our son, daughter-in law and two young grandsons moved to Portland.  After many trips up and down I-5 from our home in California’s Central Valley, the lure of the Pacific Northwest won!  We started searching for a new home.  Finally, the news of Adams Creek Cohousing being built in our favorite little town was more than we ever hoped for - we had long ago been interested in cohousing.  The blessing from our daughter, who lives in the SF Bay Area, confirmed our decision.  Now, as both retired educators, it is time for us  to begin a new adventure!  We look forward to stepping onto trails within minutes of our front door, porch-sitting with neighbors, learning to grow vegetables in Oregon,  and engaging in music jams on ukelele. We consider our work from now on to be joining with others to nurture fellow humans and to spread the joy and care of creation.   Let’s go!

We joined Adams Creek Cohousing in the summer of 2020. Deb is a grant writer and Kevin is a retired physician. We want to live in an intentional community so we can deepen connections with our neighbors and have a smaller ecological footprint. We enjoy hiking and cycling in Hood River, and look forward to living in a multi-generational community. We feel lucky and grateful to be part of Adams Creek Cohousing!

I grew up in Oakland and attended Berkeley High and consider my youth there to have been wonderfully enriched by the extremely diverse community where I always felt safe, curious and welcome, and where being weird was practically normal.  After developing fluency in Spanish, thanks to a summer in Mexico at 16, a year abroad in Barcelona, and a BA in Spanish, I decided to do something really wacky and study agriculture education in grad school.  There, I met an irresistible Chilean and ran off with him to sell and service microclimate monitoring stations for farmers in South America. We eventually returned and settled down in Southern Oregon, got jobs at Harry and David, got married, and had kids. Later we moved to the Central Coast of California to work in the berry industry. Curiously, I’ve managed to make a career out of providing training and development for farm employees in Spanish. Currently, I work developing a Spanish language farm apprenticeship program for the Center for Land Based Learning.  

My kids, Misha (20) and Nina (18), may or may not live with me once the move to Adams Creek becomes reality, but they are both very stoked about visiting me there, when they’re not visiting their dad who has recently retired and returned to Chile after our divorce.  Misha has been working for the last couple of years as a field hand for a local organic specialty citrus grower here in Ojai, CA.  He loves few things more than backpacking and snowboarding, and he’s listened to anything and everything ever recorded by Alan Watts and Terrance McKenna, probably twice.  Nina is a freshman studying Plant Science at Cornell University, with a particular fondness for primitive carbon-fixing plants and botanical drawing.  She spent last summer working on a friend’s organic farm on the Big Island of Hawaii.  Both kids know how to cook real food from scratch, and are eager to get to play around Hood River, exploring the myriad outdoor opportunities (the water sports! the snow! the Cascades!  the PCT!), not to mention the exotic big-city thrills nearby in Portland (food trucks! public transit! the Goodwill bins!).  We are all supremely enthusiastic about becoming a part of this dynamic and down to earth community! 

Currently living in Whitefish, Montana, Lynn and Kim are looking forward to their move to Hood River, Oregon, to join the warm and welcoming folks at Adam’s Creek Cohousing. What a great bunch!!

Lynn and Kim ended up in Montana ten years ago, at the request of Lynn’s son, to help raise Lynn’s grandsons after the tragic death of their mother. Lynn and Kim have totally enjoyed involvement in both grandsons’ lives, but now both of those boys are leaving the nest, allowing Lynn and Kim to strike out on a new adventure. 

Lynn was born and raised in Seattle, and Kim in Southern California.  For twenty years they pursued their careers in Seattle, Kim as a nurse, and Lynn as a psychotherapist.   Kim is currently a nurse with the Montana Veteran’s Home in the area of palliative/hospice care. Lynn is semi-retired from a thirty-three career as a psychotherapist, specializing in helping people work through loss and grief with a plethora of modalities. They are both excited about moving back to the Pacific Northwest, and they have their grandsons’ blessing.

Kim loves art and birds and has many artistic compositions including anthropomorphized birds playing musical instruments, skiing, ice skating, and performing, and the two women have developed a bird sanctuary in their garden. They both love bird-watching while playing cards at their dining table.  Lynn and Kim love to cook together. Lynn calls herself a foodie who understands food is sharing love.  She peruses the New York Times cooking section for new recipes, which they frequently try out. Now the challenge will be to learn how scale those recipes up to feed fifty people. Can’t wait!

Joining the ACC community is a big transition for Isabelle and Gregg, for a few reasons. A native New Englander, Isabelle will be moving to live on the West coast for the first time in her life, while Gregg will be leaving Haystack Heights cohousing, in order to live with Isabelle. Ours is a cohousing love story, which started in Portland with a visit to the Japanese Gardens and continued with brunch at Cheryl’s and blossomed into becoming ACC community members. A new Bubbe, Isabelle looks forward to being babysitting distance away from JoHenri, who lives in Washougal, WA with her parents Celeste and Aaron.  And Gregg looks forward to long hikes and being not too far away from his daughter Hope in Olympia.

Mackenzie, Elix (2 yrs), and Indie (born in August, 2023) moved to Hood River in early 2023 to join ACC and enjoy the beauty of the Columbia River Gorge.  Mackenzie's earlier days of travel and backpacking have morphed into an equally thrilling adventure, called motherhood.  She now spends a majority of her time baby carrying, tandem nursing, and following Elix “out!” (outside) within ten minutes of him waking.  She looks forward to sharing the vibrancy of this phase of life with ACC folks, who have simultaneously left their footprints as guideposts and will be witness as she blazes her own path.  Mackenzie is a therapist seeing couples and individuals.

I have a vivid memory of the joy and sense of wonder I felt as I drove down the Columbia River Gorge for the first time in 1989. This was en route to a job interview for a family medicine physician position at La Clinica, Hood River's migrant and community health center. This could be my dream job, working in the clinic and hospital, delivering babies and getting to speak Spanish in a beautiful setting. I received a warm welcome from my future coworkers, got the job, and was thankful to call Hood River my home for the next 12 years. 

Hood River allowed me the opportunity to do many fun things that Hood River offers. I enjoy downhill and cross country skiing, sledding, hiking, camping, backpacking and cycling.  I even got to summit a few local peaks while I lived in the Hood. I cherish those busy years.  Marriage and parenthood were part of my Hood River experience.  I was blessed with two children who are the light of my life. 

Life's journey took us to AZ and eventually back to Portland, OR. I was able to continue my life's work with underserved medical communities, and recently retired. My children are grown and I am single since my family restructured several years ago .

Now a few decades later, Hood River is drawing me back. I am super excited about being a member and future resident of Adams Creek Cohousing. I love the idea of living and growing in a multigenerational community with others who are like minded in some ways and yet bring new gifts and perspectives in other ways. This community is full of welcoming, down to earth, interesting, fun, engaging, kind individuals with a wealth of diverse life experiences.