Independence—we all long for that feeling that we can do it on our own. Camp was the perfect place to try out new activities, learn new skills, and to leave home and enter a safe, nurturing environment.
“I wasn’t a girlie girl,” said seventies camper Helen McLogan,” and I was a rule-follower. I think going to camp made me much more independent. I was afraid to go at first and was unwilling to branch out of my comfortable world, but I have a strong memory of loving to master the skills and levels at camp. And when I worked in the kitchen, it was good for me. I think I was hysterical at the closing ceremony that first summer, even though I had not wanted to go to camp. Two weeks up there was just perfect for me.”
“I think Camp Maqua was a classic camp and the responsibilities helped build my character. When I send my kids to camp, I want them to go to the kind without air conditioning, with mosquitoes, and I want them to enjoy rustic camping. There was a very different tone to the camp when the boys were there. I was a little sentimental about just having all girls.”
Mary Beth Morton (1974-75) was off to General Motors Institute when she graduated. “I paid my own way and I was very independent. That experience at camp, I would have to say, helped me to become myself. At home, I just did not make waves, but I was biding my time. Somehow I had the insight to know I did not have to live like that. I became an engineer in the auto industry, which gave me a lot of security. Camp taught me that I was accepted and well regarded. It was an eye-opening time and it allowed me to become more confident.”
For fifties girl Jan Bateson (pictured above at the 2016 reunion with Marsha Immerman), camp gave her a sense of leaving home, but able to return with virtually nothing changed. “I found independence, bravery, and courage. It definitely influenced me. It reinforced my love of being outside with space to roam. To not know anybody at camp and to be okay, to be connected to other girls from other groups and different places after coming from the mostly Polish-German town of Salzburg was wonderful. I had never had a conversation with so many girls!”
Her love of camp also influenced her family and life. Jan’s family camped and canoed in Canada, she ran a Girl Scout troop, sent her daughters to Girl Scout camp, as well as becoming involved with kids in crisis in another camp.
“The whole experience solidified my values, “ said Nancy Neumyer (1975-78)- “I was a person of great faith and I place great value on family and children. It helped me to become a better Mom. I loved being surrounded by like-minded girls, which reinforced my values. It gave me a sense of independence. I enjoyed that time and was not easily homesick. I did have a summer with my sister there, but she was in a neighboring cabin, and there were always returnees. It was such a welcoming and nurturing place. It was a way for me to have something of my own since I was one of nine kids. I didn’t have to compete and the experience allowed me to be me. I was never jealous or competitive. There is a joke in my family that I raised myself.”
“I think camp helped me become more independent, “ said Debbie Hawkins, who camped in the sixties. “It was the first time away without my parents, except for nights at friend’s homes. I realized I could live by myself without my parents, and at that time it was a long time for a young person to be away. I just remember the deepness of the friendships I made at camp. I also remember my counselors Beanie and Frenchie. Beanie was funny as all get out.”
Sue West, back row in the middle, is seen below with her siblings at a family reunion in Maqua last summer and was a counselor in Primitive camping. Her brother Bill West (second from left) owns the home directly to the right of the campfire pit. She was the second youngest of eight kids and started at Camp Maqua in 1975. Her Mom had died two years earlier and she had gone to live with some of her siblings at aged seventeen. “Camp impacted my character. It made me stronger, more independent. I was always amazed that I got the job. I always knew I wanted to be a Home Ec. teacher because I loved working with kids. I knew it from this experience. I grew up camping and would summer in Canada with cousins and with five kids between my husband and me–we have camped, backpacked and hiked because we love the outdoors.”
