Couple Share Life Separately

`We date,” Randy Crowe says of his relationship with his wife Linda.

Randy, director of N-Sid-Sen, lives and works at the church-sponsored camp about halfway down the east side of Lake Coeur d’Alene.

The Rev. Linda Crowe, an ordained minister, lives in Spokane. She is pastor of Veradale’s United Church of Christ. During their work week, the couple live apart, he, working full-time to keep N-Sid-Sen running smoothly and she, ministering to her Spokane Valley congregation.

Many might wonder how a happily married couple in their middle years who have a daughter and grandson would find themselves living most of their lives apart. It wasn’t always so.

At the beginning of their marriage the couple lived in Seattle, where, for 18 years, Randy was vice president of a wholesale grocery firm. He then worked for five years in Spokane in the same industry.

Linda enjoyed a career as a professional graphic artist.

According to Randy, the transformation of their lives came about gradually, beginning when the couple volunteered as advisers to the junior high group in their church.

Then, in 1982, the Crowes attended a family camp at N-Sid-Sen, which in the Coeur d’Alene Indian language means point of inspiration.

The next step came when the couple initiated an Aqua Camp at N-Sid-Sen for junior high students. This camping experience centers on water activities and includes swimming, water safety and sailing. The couple had owned their own boat and had sailed on Puget Sound.

“I first felt the call at N-Sid-Sen,” Randy says. “We came to the realization that this (working with young people) was more important than what we had been doing.”

In 1991, Linda decided to study to become an ordained minister and entered the Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, Calif. She graduated in 1994 and began work at the Veradale church.

While their work with young people drew Randy to N-Sid-Sen, he says that today 50 percent of those who come are adults. He’s responsible for management, maintenance, and sometimes cooking.

Unlike other lakeside camps that operate only in the summer, N-Sid-Sen is open all year. Thanks to planning and the work of dedicated volunteers, N-Sid-Sen offers accommodations that are snug when snow falls and the temperature drops.

“We have had groups from the University of Idaho and Gonzaga University,” Randy says. “The Spokane Folklore Society comes each August for a dance camp. You can always tell when they are here because of the sign they set out next to the highway showing a pair of dancing shoes.”

These bookings - along with the regular rounds of family camps, youth camps and weekend retreats - keep Randy busy.

In addition, groups and organizations frequently schedule the large, rustic dining hall with its massive fireplace for buffet dinners.

After five years of sharing two full schedules and “dating,” how do the Crowes feel?

“It gets old sometimes, but not old enough to change what we are doing,” Randy says. He expresses their deep, shared belief that their work is important, satisfying and right for them.

He talks with enthusiasm about the Rev. Arthur Ford and his wife Margaret, who bought the property with its mile of beach during the depths of the Depression and who deeded it to the Washington-North Idaho Conference of the Church of Christ in 1939. He also explains that the founders wanted to give the site a name in keeping with the heritage of the region.

“There was something of the idea of the vision quest in the choice of the name,” he says.

As for pronunciation? Most people pronounce it “en-sid-sen.” However, the real pronunciation is closer to nnsid-sen without the “E” sound, Randy says.