User:Wavewomanbook/sandbox/Betty Pembroke Heldreich Winstedt

Elizabeth “Betty” Pembroke Heldreich Windstedt (June 5, 1913 Salt Lake City, Utah - Sept. 7, 2011, Oahu, Hawaii) was a 1950’s pioneer surfer at Makaha Beach, Hawaii, a dental hygienist, pilot, builder, artist, and haiku poet. Called “Betty” by one and all, she was an adventurous combination of Amelia Earhart, Georgia O’Keefe, Esther Williams and poet Emily Dickinson. She was a 20th Century renaissance woman who lived well into the 21st and put her skilled hands to many things. Betty was descended from Mormon families who came to America from England by ship in the mid-1800’s, and then to Salt Lake City by wagon train. In the 1930s, Betty Pembroke went further west with her family to grow with the country, landing in southern California during the Depression - living in Santa Monica, Palos Verdes and later Chino. In the early 1950s, Betty, her husband Ron Heldreich and their daughters Vicky and Gloria were introduced to the island lifestyle of Hawaii, and that put the hook in them. They learned to surf at Waikiki during the Golden Era of the 1950s, and took to it. Betty Heldreich became one of the first women to charge the big surf at Makaha - on the west coast of Oahu. Betty finished second to Ethel Kukea at the third Makaha International Surfing Championships in 1956. That same year, Betty was on the first Hawaiian surf team invited to Lima Peru. The team included Rabbit Kekai, Ethel and Joe Kukea, Conrad Canha, and George and Anne Lamont. Betty won the women’s championship in Peru, and in 1960 traveled to Peru with her daughter Vicky, who won the Makaha Championships in 1957. The trophies were on display at the Lewers Street Malibu Shirts store in Waikiki where Betty and Vicky are store legends, along with Marge Calhoun, Peter Cole, Ricky Grigg, Rabbit Kekai and Clarence Maki..

Family Background
Betty’s grandparents the Pembrokes and Margetts both made their distinct marks on early Salt Lake and are written up in The History of Salt Lake and Its Founders. A talented and determined swimmer, Betty trained at the Los Angeles Athletic Club with aspirations for the 1936 Berlin Olympics. In 1935 her swimming career ended when she crashed one of Gus Brigleb’s gliders. Betty was in the second class to graduate in the new profession of Dental Hygiene at U.S.C. After working for several years as a dental hygienist she dreamed of becoming a dentist. While Betty attended night school at USC, a librarian friend introduced Betty to her brother - Ronald Heldreich - an abalone diver and manufacturing jeweler who, like Betty, liked to work with his hands. Betty and Ron married soon after, in May of 1937. That marriage produced two daughters: “They married in May 1937 only knowing each other for a few weeks” said Betty’s daughter Vicky. “a possible recipe for disaster.” Victoria was born 1940 and Gloria was born 1944. The marriage lasted until January of 1959 when Betty and Ron went their separate ways. Betty moved to Makaha and stayed single until she met Charlie Winstedt - who ran a construction business and was building his own 65-foot fishing boat. Charlie and Betty were married in 1968 and stayed married until Charlie’s death in 1989 Betty’s daughter Vicky had two daughters Marcie (9-26-61) and Rennie (11-2-62).

The Golden Era of Hawaiian Surfing: The 1950s
In the crime/surf movie Point Break, a young surf shop employee lays some philosophy on undercover FBI agent Johnny Utah: “Surfing’s the source, man. It will change your life. Swear to God.” That proved true for Betty Heldreich, who first visited Hawaii in 1954, and then found she couldn’t possibly live anywhere else, and moved there permanently in the same year with her husband Ron and both daughters. They rented a three-bedroom, two-story white house at 352 Royal Hawaiian Avenue, just a short walk to Waikiki Beach and the surf. Betty and Vicky became surf addicts after they learned from beach boy Charlie Amalu - during a time when the Hawaiian beach boys were some of the most famous, romantic characters on earth. In 1955 the family joined the Waikiki Surf Club - founded in 1948 - which gave them access to boards, storage space, aloha and camaraderie on the beach at Waikiki. Writing in The Betty Book, Vicky Durand remembered: “Every morning at dawn before starting her workday Mother, wearing only her white Linns bathing suit and a shirt, rode her bike down to Waikiki Surf Club where she kept her surfboard in a locker. Mother thought it was a thrill to travel across a wall of breaking water standing up on a surfboard. She was “bitten” by what she called the “surf bug” and started to love surfing more and more.” Betty and Vicky moved up to the bigger stuff at Makaha in 1957, learning to ride the wild surf alongside some of the pioneers of big-wave surfing: George Downing, Wally Froiseth, Fred VanDyke, Buzzy Trent and Peter Cole.

Wave Woman The Life and Struggles of a Surfing Pioneer
Wave Woman The Life and Struggles of a Surfing Pioneer is a 2020 biography of Betty Pembroke Heldreich Winstedt written by her daughter Vicky Heldreich Durand. Wave Woman is a charming and and intimate biography, a love letter from a daughter to her progressive mother who broke glass ceilings with simple curiosity and desire. Betty trained to swim in the 1936 Olympic Games. She eloped on a hunch and learned the tough lessons of love. With an entrepreneurial creativity and a drive for self-sufficiency, Betty found meaning as a sculptor, a dental hygienist, a jeweler, a fisherwoman, a potter, and a poet. In Hawaii, the thrill of big waves crashing at Makaha Beach inspire the forty-one-year-old mother to pick up a surfboard, conquer her fears, and compete as a champion. Wave Woman speaks clearly to all women- and men- searching for self-confidence, fulfillment, and true happiness.

https://wavewomanbook.com/

Editorial Reviews
“There are some people who venture into uncharted territory. They are referred to as pioneers, and that they are. In the world of surfing, one such pioneer was Betty. She was prominent, accomplished, and a champion surfer when women were not supposed to surf. She also ventured into bigger waves when most others were content to watch. Every young woman enjoying surfing in contemporary times should remember and appreciate Betty Heldreich. She made it ‘happen.’”

―Fred Hemmings, author, keynote speaker, and former surfing champion

“Betty Heldreich Winstedt was a lover of the ocean and a true surfing pioneer whose experiences in California and Hawaii were exceptional for the mid-1950s. Wave Woman is daughter Vicky’s heartfelt tribute to this capable, gifted woman who taught those around her to live in the moment. ‘Wake up and be somebody,’ Betty would challenge―advice that resonates soundly today.”

―Jane Schmauss, historian and founding member of the California Surf Museum

“Morph together Amelia Earhart, Frida Kahlo, Emily Dickinson, and Esther Williams and you have Betty Pembroke Heldreich Winstedt―a twentieth-century water Wonder Woman.”

―Ben Marcus, former editor of Surfer Magazine

“I've known Vicky since she went on Rell Sunn’s paddling excursion down the north coast of Molokai, and I was delighted to hear that she’s written a book about her mother, Betty, a pioneering Makaha surfer. Wave Woman presents a life story that will inspire female adventurers today―and their male counterparts. Betty Pembroke Heldreich Winstedt was a true adventurer at a time when it was much harder to stake out that turf.”

―Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia and author of Let My People Go Surfing

“Betty Heldreich is not just the kind of surfer I admire―competitors whose happiness is defined not by winning big trophies but by the joy of experiencing incredible adventures alongside others. She is also the kind of person I admire―women and men who are 100 percent, authentically themselves. I’ve always said my biggest goal in life is to inspire people to chase their dreams, find happiness in the small things, and embrace all of who they are. Betty shared this goal and achieved it many times over, as her daughter Vicky shows in this surfing memoir. I am inspired by her positive resilience and passion for life.”

―Carissa Moore, professional surfer and 2011, 2013, and 2015 WSL Women’s World Tour Champion

“Wave Woman is a heartfelt tale about an inspiring surf pioneer. Betty Heldreich approached her life as a grand adventure, and Wave Woman captures her trailblazing triumphs and struggles.”

―David Davis, author of Waterman: The Life and Times of Duke Kahanamoku

“When Vicky Durand’s mother spurned 1950s America for the life of a surfer in Waikiki and then Makaha, she plunged her daughter Vicky into a world of wonder―the gracious, pre–jumbo jet, pre-high-rise Hawaii that still fuels the mythology of surfing around the world. Pick up Wave Woman and you’ll enter that dreamtime in such exquisite, evocative detail that it may cause painful surges of nostalgia for what’s been lost. But what you’ll gain by reading Vicky’s wise study of a painful marriage and a woman’s need to express herself in the ocean could also inform your own life and those you love. Reading it, I realized that the Hawaii lifeguard’s admonition, ‘Never turn your back on the sea,’ works even better as a reminder to those of us who, like Vicky and her mother, need the ocean as much as we do breath.

―Don Wallace, senior editor of Honolulu Magazine

“Reading Vicky Durand’s Wave Woman made me wish that I had met her mother, Betty, in person. But by the end of the book, I realized that I had met this extraordinary woman, because Betty’s gentle personality and fierce spirit come alive in this story. A surfing pioneer, Betty rode the turbulent waves of her life with grace and style. Wave Woman is a moving tribute to an amazing woman.”

―Stuart H. Coleman, award-winning author of Eddie Would Go, Fierce Heart, and Hawaiian Hero

About the Author
Vicky Heldreich Durand first fell in love with Hawaii at age twelve, when she spent a summer with her aunt and uncle on the island of Molokai. She returned home and talked her mother, Betty, into a trip the following summer, and by the following winter, Betty, Vicky, and Vicky’s sister had moved to Honolulu. Vicky spent her formative years surfing with her mother; they both competed in the Makaha International Surfing Contest in Hawaii, and they traveled as invited guests to Lima, Peru, on behalf of The Club Waikiki’s efforts to interest women in surfing. Over the years, Vicky has established and directed a cottage sportswear company, worked as a Title 1 high school teacher, collaborated with community groups to provide better services for her students, and successfully pursued grant funding for various programs to support teen parents. Today, she serves as a member of the Liljestrand Foundation Board with her husband, Bob Liljestrand. She is the mother of two grown daughters, six grandchildren, gardens avidly, and is passionately involved in animal rescue, working mainly with cats and dogs. Wave Woman is her first book.