“It is an amazing thing to look back and have those memories of those relationships, the counselors, the campers, the music—-as you can see from the online songbook that is now being retyped, singing was the thread,” said Pamela Hartz. “In the early years, there was a Christian message to many of the songs, but I recall one called “Watermelon Man”, which I am sure is a pretty prejudiced song. The songs at Maqua shifted naturally with the transitional changing values of society at that time. When I heard those camp songs in later life, the folk music like Peter, Paul and Mary, it was very central to my core. I taught my nephews those songs!”

“My taste in poetry and music was so influenced by my time at camp,” said Betsy Falvey (1968-75). “I still have my dog-eared books of e.e. cummings and “The Little Prince”. The music of Judy Collins was popular and the Moody Blues, but I could hardly stand to hear the song “Tuesday Afternoon” after helping Judy Engibous with her synchronized swimming students at the waterfront, hearing that song play over and over and over again.”

‘I loved singing and still do,” admitted Cindy Knapp. “There are so many of them I still remember and sang with my children and have always sung with my students.   One summer when I was back in Michigan, the family was roasting marshmallows over the fire.  My cousin Jane Woodworth was there too and I started singing some of the old songs.  It was like we were back there again, though I remembered more than Jane. We laughed a lot!”

Linda Greenwald (1948-49) taught music in college and still plays in an orchestra today. “I loved the group singing. We sang before meals, after meals, at bed, in line and at Chapel Hill.” Singing harmony and rounds was bonding time for Tally Cone in the sixties’, who said she would come home from camp singing all those songs in the car. “I probably drove my parents nuts,” she laughed.

Karen Kaunitz sang the song “We Are The Girls From Camp Maqua” over the phone.  Her parents bought a place in the Bay City Hunting and Fishing Club in Crawford County and named their log cabin “Tamarac” after the pines that surrounded their home. Her friends would spend time at the cabin in the forties’ and would change the words of that song to “Tamarack”.

The 1945 camp music remains an important part of Bev Lemanski’s life to this day and she has sung them so much, even her husband hums them! The girls at their high school in Bay City would sing the camp songs at the back of the bus with Sally Harris leading the rounds. At Bev’s high school reunion, about ten to fifteen girls assembled in the corner with their copies of the old camp songs, singing their hearts out.

As a music teacher and a skiing and sailing instructor, Jennifer Fenton’s days at Maqua in the seventies’ influenced her greatly. In our one on one interview, she sang the songs she loved, which included “Picolo Meanie”, the canoe song—(“we’re here, we’re here, because we’re here) and “Fried Ham”, which she loved because it began slow and sped up. For Penny Mitchell (1951-54), the two songs that stood out in her mind were the Purdue fight song and the tune that helped her learn the square root of Pi.

Pat Kula had memories of sitting around the campfire singing in the forties’, but not necessarily with good voices. “One of the girls had a cabin on a lake. One summer we had all matching shirts and we sat by that fire and sang all the camp songs we remembered. I still have the song sheets that survived some flooding in my house.”

Four campers, including Janice Moore, stopped by the lodge a few summers ago, after the 2012 reunion, and left with songbooks that were printed for the event. (They rent a place every year and meet, singing the camp songs from their years at Maqua in the fifties’.)

“Some day I would just like to go into a concert in Bay City and sing out the canoe call and see how many girls from Camp Maqua would answer me,” laughed Valerie Monto (1964-68), as she sang to me on the phone.

After two or three glasses of wine, Debbie Hawkins and friend Susan still break out into sixties’ camp songs, complete with hand motions. When was the last time you broke out into a camp song?