About Us

Since 1993, Weaver’s Tale Retreat Center (WTRC) aka Weaver’s Tale Retreats (WTR) has been a non-profit, 501©3 organization welcoming and serving elders and their caregivers. Created in 1993 by healthcare professionals, artists and nature enthusiasts its mission is to help people honor the later stages of life through a celebration of the bonds between individuals, community and nature. Our goal is to offer elders affordable day-long programs at outdoor-indoor nature retreat centers within easy reach of metropolitan Portland, Oregon.

Programs are designed to address the social isolation and often times accompanying depression that many seniors encounter due to loss of family and friends, health, career, home, etc. Staff from participating facilities report that their seniors have shown an increased attention span, recall, laughter, relaxation, vitality, and social interaction from spending a day in nature with WTRC and with their caregivers. Staff also report that for the first time, they were able to experience their seniors as people rather as patients who have shared the same or similar life experiences. They leave WTRC with a new found friendship and an appreciation of their seniors on a deeper, life experience related level.

Edie Seyl Founder/Director

As a licensed massage therapist and occupational therapist in geriatrics, Edie Seyl Polson had a vision more than 25 years ago to create a retreat center for elders. The retreat center would provide ongoing life enrichment activities which would include continued access to nature, opportunities to be nurtured through music and touch, and to share life experiences in the company of other elders. As a former Activities Director in a skilled nursing facility, Edie kept hearing and seeing that the elder residents just wanted to be able to get outside to sit under a tree; to feel a connection to nature. In 1993 Weaver’s Tale Retreat Center was founded and formed as a non-profit 501c3. Edie continues to direct the organization.
Now in its 15th year of operation, elder residents living in assisted living, memory care units, skilled nursing, and retirement centers regularly participate at retreats all year round.
The name Weaver’s Tale Retreat Center(WTRC), now known as Weaver’s Tale Retreats(WTR), originated from two sources:
One of the goals of Weaver’s Tale is to promote the telling of elders’ life experiences. The book, Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer, includes tales told by a diverse group of professionals; i.e., The Knight’s Tale, Nun’s Priest Tale, Cook’s Tale, Miller’s Tale, etc. There is, alas and a lack, no tale told by a weaver.
Secondly, the founder and director, Edie Seyl Polson, takes great delight in weaving on Navajo, tapestry, and floor looms.
Combining these 2 elements determined the name Weaver’s Tale Retreat Center.
Shortly after the founding of WTR, Edie acquired a beautiful Australian Shepherd/ Airedale mix puppy. With a unanimous decision, she was named Weaver. Weaver became the retreat mascot and assisted whenever possible at fundraising events. The Weaver’s Tale community celebrated her passing on June 14th, 2007; she lived to be a ripe 13 1/2 years old.

Weaver’s Tale Retreat Staff and Volunteers

Weaver’s Tale relies on the services of contract staff which include: licensed massage therapists, music therapists, horticultural therapists, and others such as occupational and physical therapists, nature experts, and musicians. While we currently have a pool of staff to drawn upon, we are always seeking and welcoming new contract staff.

Board of Directors 2008-2009

Monica Billingsley
Treasurer
Licensed Massage Therapist
Accounting Specialist, Mary Catherine’s
Former Department Manager Standard Insurance
Finance Committee

Veronica Burnside
Retired Physical Therapy Assistant
Nature Specialist
Executive Committee
Program Committee

Patty Cassidy
Chair-Friends of the Portland Memory Garden
Therapeutic Horticulture Specialist
PR Committee
Program Committee

Lynn Kulongoski
Occupational Therapist Centennial School District
Finance Committee

Amy Long
Secretary
Licensed Massage Therapist
Admin. Assistant-Weaver's Tale Retreat Center, Inc.
Public Relations
Program Committee

Edie Seyl Polson
President
Executive Director, Weaver’s Tale Retreat Center, Inc.
Occupational Therapist Providence Home Health
Licensed Massage Therapist
Executive and Finance Committees
Public Relations Committee
Program Committee

Suzanne Webster
Long Term Care Insurance
Public Relations Committee

Jodi Winnwalker
Director Earthtones Music Therapy Services
President Elect 2010
Executive Committee
Program Committee

Staff and Volunteer Highlight

In Memory of Joan Andrews, licensed massage therapist for WTR

An Interview by Amy Long, Administrative Assistant

Joan Andrews was a massage therapist since December of 1995, and worked with Weaver’s Tale since 1996. She first found out about Weaver’s Tale through a mutual friend, Gail Murphy, who gave her name to Edie Seyl, the Executive Director. Soon thereafter, Joan participated in her first senior retreat at Menucha Retreat and was instantly hooked.

Joan described Weaver’s Tale as a wonderful organization, which provides touch and affirmation to elders, two ingredients missing in most elder’s lives. She experienced many wonderful moments during retreats, such as during a sharing circle led by Edie. Joan described a moment in which each person in the circle was affirmed and celebrated for who they are, sharing their unique life experiences. Joan also found that these retreats helped enlarge the seniors’ worldview and got their blood flowing, enhancing their emotional, physical and spiritual health.

Joan also loved the people connected with Weaver’s Tale. Although she had just turned 74 herself ( during this interview), she had the energy of someone about half her age, and loved the experience of meeting new people at retreats, working with elders, and keeping contact with the all the staff at Weaver’s Tale.

Over the years, Joan took on many roles with Weaver’s Tale, including staffing our summer day-long retreats at Alton Collins Center, providing individual massage sessions to seniors in their homes, and participating in our fundraisers. Joan led a monthly massage group for Weaver’s Tale Retreats at Willamette View Healthcare Center in Milwaukie, where she worked for 4 years with a group of residents in the memory care unit. Joan’s group included many residents with fairly advanced Alzheimer’s, so she strived to make one-on-one connections with each resident, knowing the connection would only last a moment, but that in that moment, she saw the eyes of each person light up and sparkle with the joy of attention and the comfort of gentle massage work. Joan often brought flowers from her yard, pictures of her family, or pictures of pets to share with residents at Willamette View, as a conversation starter and a memory tool.

Even though memories have slipped with this group of elders, she found over her 4 years at Willamette View that individuals did respond well to her presence as someone they trusted and found familiar, especially once they had experienced her touch each time. Joan described her work with this group as providing “mini relationships” with each participant. Grace is one woman in this group who Joan often found dozing her day away, but whose eyes lit up when Joan spent time with her and began her massage. Joan described Grace’s hands as long and beautiful despite the outward signs of age, imagining that she must have played piano when she was younger. Gladys often slipped back into her dozing and non-communicative state later on, but Joan knew that she had had a moment during her day in which Grace felt affirmed for who she was.

Joan worked for 20+ years as an RN, working primarily within a chronic pain program. She also trained and worked as a certified biofeedback therapist for 10 years, and was able to draw on this experience in working with seniors, suggesting techniques for stress-relief and relaxation. Joan loved to provide massage to seniors and to her own loved ones, as she felt it affirmed herself as someone who could be of help to others, a value she held since her early years of nursing.

Massage was certainly not Joan’s only interest, as she kept busy with making music and helping to raise her 2 granddaughters. Joan loved to sing and compose music. Ever since she was a child taking voice lessons, she said she’d been making up and singing her own melodies, and was told by a number of teachers that she had a knack for melodies. Joan took several classes at PSU such as 20th Century Harmony as well as composition for 9 years with local composer David York, who reviewed her pieces and offered critique. Joan said she was asked to come to class with some of her own melodies written down, because her brain was so full of ideas. All that brainstorming apparently paid off, as one of her pieces based on an Emily Dickinson poem about the river of life was published by Santa Barbara Music and has been performed by the local all-women’s vocal group, the Aurora Chorus, directed by Joan Szymko. In addition, the David York Ensemble recently released a CD that includes her composition, “O Burning Light”, lyrics of Hildegarde of Bingen.

Family is the other activity that kept Joan busy. Joan so loved her multi-generational living situation, sharing a home with her daughter Jenny and 2 granddaughters aged 8 and 11 for the past 5 years. Since her daughter went back to work full-time as an activity director at a local senior care facility, Joan helped provide childcare for her granddaughters as well as 2 other children in her home. She loved being in the role of mother and homemaker again later in life, taking the girls on shopping trips, to the library or a museum, swimming, or simply playing on the trampoline at home and keeping the hungry bellies of growing girls happy with a home-cooked meal.

Joan was not only a long-time dedicated staff member of Weaver’s Tale, she provided a great example of what healthy, active aging can look like-someone who can share her many gifts with others, continually meet new people and share her life experiences, and someone who stays connected with people of all ages in her community. Joan said she can’t wait to work at the next retreat at Alton Collins Center, our beautiful retreat facility in Eagle Creek, OR set in old-growth forest. We’ll always have a place in our hearts there for her. In remembrance, thanks for 10 years of service with Weaver’s Tale, Joan.