Aside from the wonderful experiences and skills the girls learned at camp, many were so enamored with their adventures, they made sure their kids attended a camp.
“Camp was definitely one of my top life highlights and memories that I have ever done, “ said sixties camper Holly Foss. “It was always the highlight of my year and I cried when I had to leave. There was so much bonding and it was a fun escape from living, just being outdoors and laughing so much. It was an absolute joy.”
“The confidence factor, not from the survival but the skills I learned—like sailing and canoeing and the backpack trips. I would never have done that otherwise. There was a sense of accomplishment. It is hard to know whether I would have felt that if I had not gone to camp. The girls made lifelong friendships. I know if there was a reunion right now that I would be instantly back to those days with the girls I went to camp with.”
“I live in Colorado now and there is not much of an environment for canoeing or kayaking, but when I am in Michigan, I try to fit that in. My daughter is thirteen and I send her to a Y camp in Michigan and I encourage her to do the overnight trips. I cannot wait for her to come home each summer and share those experiences with me. It is similar to Maqua, and had it been still open, she would be there.”
“I loved the arts and crafts and the decoupage boxes we made in the Craft Hut. We would beat them up and then decoupage them,” said Val Van Laan (1965-70). “I liked the whole experience at camp. Learning to swim, boat, singing “Leaving on a Jet Plane” and “Rise and Shine” with all the hand motions in the lodge. That’s why I sent my kids to camp and why I loved going to the scouting “Mom and Me” camps with them.”
Anne Shutt (1961-66) had one son and two daughters and admitted she tried to find a camp like Maqua to send her children to. One daughter was the assistant director for a Michigan camp for fifteen years. In addition to those lasting days influencing her life, she also continued her love of the outdoors with a cabin on the north branch of the Au Sable in Grayling. After camp, Anne attended an all-girls boarding school and had a great time. “You recognize who you are at camp. It was such a great time. Camp just let me be me!”
Kathy Krohn’s camping experiences at Maqua in the third through sixth grade (1965-1968) were so memorable, that she continues to this day reading books about camps, and even sent her son to a camp as natural as Maqua, so he could have similar good memories. “I needed to share what Camp Maqua was to me—a single gender camp where most people did not know who you were, or where you came from or what you had. I did not want him in a fancy camp. I wanted a campy camp, so he went to the same one my father attended as a child.”
The camp influenced Amy Falk’s love of nature in the seventies and the simple existence, which heightened the importance of camp so much so that she sent her kids to real camps to continue the outdoor fun. “I thought it was great to be thrown together with different kids to enjoy the same things and get away from our families.”
Some. Like Pat Rehmus, (1962-65) who had triplet boys, wanted them to go to camp, but they didn’t want to go. Finally, two of them attended a camp in Lake Tahoe and the third homebody stayed home, but she found the cost of camps out west were outrageous.
“In those days camp was different. It helped mold me for sure. Just getting away from home and not being homesick was formative. It gave me self-confidence, where I could make decisions in a larger community. We had to listen to our counselors, but we had a lot of freedom, even to choose our activities.”
Carla Schweinsberg decided to send both her girls to camp, since she had such a great time in the fifties. “Where else can you all get up as a group, eat as a group, and have fun as a group besides camp? It is a place where we all learned to get along with each other and I thought it was the greatest thing in the whole world.”
“All three of my girls went to camp there, but I had one who didn’t like it at all. I made her stay, but she did not go back again. The other two loved it. They were never there at the same time”, laughed Yolanda Erickson (1945-50).
“ My husband and girls laugh at me today, saying they have never met anyone who loved camp as much as I did! “ Yolanda said, “I had a floor in my basement one year and lost so much of my photos, but I thought it was the neatest and most wonderful camp there was.”
Deb Wilkinson blossomed at camp in the sixties and loved it so much that she sent both her daughters to a Christian camp and her granddaughter will be attending the same. Lori Fobear reversed her shyness at camp in the seventies and sent both her daughters. Mary Jane Keschman (1944-54) sent both her sons to camp, following in the footsteps of her brother and husband. Sixties campers Stephanie Patterson sent both her children to camps, as did Mary Grego, despite a solo summer of imperfect camping experiences.
Molly Olson (1946) sent her children to specialized camps, and friend Marsha Immerman sent her girls to a camp in Colorado, but only one enjoyed the experience. Carrie Norris, seventies camper, adopted a special needs child and although he had not attended a regular camp, she sent him to day camp. Fifties girl Susan Rawlings sent her daughter to a church camp north of Tampa and her son enjoyed both Boy Scout and a church camp.
Did you send your children to camp?