Sheryl Beisman left bottom row, (1973-78) still has a family lake house on Lake Lobdell in Fenton, which was a huge part of her life and a natural extension of camp. Marsha Garber still owns a place on a lake in Glen Arbor, and developed a love for campfires and singing at camp in 1964. Pam Wintermute only attended two summers in 1955 and 1956 because her family owned a cottage on the Tittabawassee River. Minette Jacques(1955-57) still loves to go barefoot at her home on Mullet Lake. Marcia Michelson (1963-70) loves to visit her in-law’s summer home in Maine. “I just sit there and read a book and just the land around there reminds me of Maqua.”
“I always liked the outdoors and camp was a wonderful experience for me. I always felt sorry for the ones who were there all summer, thinking maybe they got dumped off by their parents, but on the other hand I was envious that they got to be up there all summer. We own a cottage up north on Intermediate Lake near Shanty Creek and I still walk, swim, boat and we water and snow ski as a family. I sent my daughter to Girl Scout camp and she hated it and was homesick, but my son went to Indian Guide camp and loved it, “ said Beverley Schlatter, who said Maqua made her more of a leader in the forties.
“At school, I was on the student council, was the editor of the yearbook and co-chaired the prom. I don’t think I would have done that without the leadership and training that headed me in that direction. I think the counselors pushed me forward. Camp Maqua was the groundwork. I majored in retail at college and did not work long in my field, but worked for the telephone company, the Michigan School for the Blind, had my family and ended up in the insurance industry.”
“We have a cabin in Tawas with a stone fireplace,” said Muriel Richert, who only camped one summer in the fifties. “It must have been tucked back into my subconscious somewhere in those Camp Maqua days that the fireplace was wonderful since the memories are remembrances,” said Muriel, who just retired from thirty-four years of teaching the same age child as the year she camped.
As a WMU grad in physical education, Tricia Sautter (1968-70) still remains active today and said exercise is still very important to her. After getting her Masters, she transferred her love of people into gerontology with a career in the Department of Aging, where she works with programming and activities for Jackson County. Her love for the outdoors stayed with her while she raised her family of four on a renovated farm and still has a cabin in the Michigan woods.
“I think camp taught me to get along with people and I also really learned to make square corners on my bed. Like the Army,” laughed Margot Homburger (1946-1952). “And no dust bunnies in our cabins. The cabins had to be spotless every day. I was shy as a child, but I loved being at camp. I didn’t learn any particular skill, but when I look back the skills were everyday skills and they left a mark. I loved camp and my brothers did not. I never had a problem going off to school after being at camp.”
She later became a counselor at a private co-ed camp, which she felt was not as strict. Her continuation of camp happened when she and her husband bought property on Walloon Lake in the early seventies. “It is the closest thing to Maqua. We go up every New Year and in the fall. I loved all those years at Maqua.”