Betty Pembroke Heldreich Winstedt’s Adventurous Life
Excerpt below from the April 19, 2020 article, “2 new authors to discuss their Hawaii-related books at da Shop’s online events,” by Mindy Pennybacker was reprinted with permission from the Honolulu Star Advertiser.
Vicky Durand’s new book, “Wave Woman: The Life and Struggles of a Surfing Pioneer” chronicles how her mother furthered women’s independence in athletics, the workplace and at home.
Surfing, which she began at age 40 in Waikiki, liberated Betty Pembroke Heldreich Winstedt: She divorced her domineering, unfaithful husband and moved to Makaha, where she rode big waves alongside George Downing, Buffalo Keaulana and Peter Cole, who became lifelong family friends.
She placed second in the first women’s competition at the Makaha International Surfing Championships, won the first women’s world title in Peru, worked full time, raised two daughters, remarried and, after her husband’s death, lived alone in her seaside cottage, making pottery and writing haiku, until she died in 2011 at age 98.
In the late 1950s, Winstedt also befriended 7-year-old Rell Sunn, the future surf champion and “Queen of Makaha” who, 40 years later, as she was dying from breast cancer, paid a farewell visit to Winstedt’s home.
“Women’s surfing has gotten so big and come so far; it’s wonderful Carissa Moore is going to represent Hawaii in the Olympics,” Durand said in an interview at Waikiki, where in 1952 she, her sister and mother shared a first surf lesson, as she swam in the clear, clean waters of a Queen’s Beach emptied by coronavirus park closure rules.
“When we surfed, there was no money in it,” added Durand, 79, who at age 17 beat both her mother and reigning champ Ethel Kukea to win the 1957 Makaha contest, “and today there’s no mention of Mother, Ethel or me; we’ve been forgotten by the history of surfing.”
Not anymore: “Wave Woman” is a timely wake-up call.
Click here to read the full article.
Read more about Windstedt’s early life and adventures in this 2005 Honolulu Advertiser article by Gwen Kekaula.
