Buildings and Property

Families Who Felt Like Camp Was Theirs–Marilyn Watson

Published on by Kathy Baker

 

Marilyn, (daughter of Marney, granddaughter of William and Alma Watson) was eight or nine years old when her grandparents took over the care and maintenance of Maqua. “It was a super playground that we enjoyed at the end of summer in late August,” she said. “We used the canoes, rowboats, and swam out off the docks to the raft. We stayed in the lodge and the kids used the bunk beds in the bedrooms that faced the lake. Grandpa taught us to fish. He would throw down the anchor and we would fish Loon Lake. I have such fond childhood memories of all that.”

“We would ride in the old truck down the rutted roads with our grandfather and talk. He taught me to take the steep hills walking by taking three steps and inhaling and three steps and exhaling, so I wouldn’t run out of breath. While he was taking care of the buildings, we would help him move the mattresses and store them in two metal buildings, and take the garbage to Durham farm to feed to the pigs. The truck was a big old truck that was dark with old wood panels. He was really excited when he got a new truck. I think the sides rolled up on that old truck,” said Marilyn.

“We would do our own thing. If I was visiting, I would just tag along. I remember the homes all along the lakefront and when we got a motorboat, we would visit friends on the north end of the lake. There were loons on the lake and we were always aware of them.”

“My folks came down to stay with me in the winter, if they weren’t house sitting for people in Hale,” she said.

 

Families Who Felt Like Camp Was Theirs–Marney Watson

Published on by Kathy Baker

INTERVIEW WITH MARNEY WATSON 

Sister of Stewart Watson and daughter of William and Alma Watson

“My folks made a trip to California after my father retired as a carpenter and when he returned to Bay City in 1951 or 1952, he applied for the job as caretaker of Maqua and they hired him,” said Marney. “That started an adventure for our family for the next sixteen years. As far as I know, they had never hired caretakers, but they felt like they needed them. My Dad was the kind of man who loved to surprise his employers with whatever he was working on, so they could see how well it could be done. It would be his glory to do a great job and it was the way he approached every job.”

“My parents would start in the early spring and we would help them with the big jobs, even though they always told us they didn’t need any help. My sister and brother and all our kids would help with the cleaning. If the varnish was fading, my Dad would scrape the whole floor and re-varnish. He loved to surprise the counselors. He worked so hard.”

“In the fall we would empty the cabins and the mattresses were stored in two metal lined buildings, where we would pile them up to the ceiling so the critters wouldn’t get into them,” she said. “ We didn’t like to see them doing all the work by themselves, so we told them if we can bring our three kids up and stay in the lodge, then we would help them. We would stay there for two weeks and get the camp all closed up.”

“They were good kids and were close in age, so they never squabbled and were content to play outside. In the evenings, we would light a fire in the big fireplace and sing songs, play games, and roast marshmallows. We played the ribbon game, but I guess you have never heard of that.”

“Sometimes my Mom made homemade cinnamon rolls. My sister and I would dream up a hunt for the kids with a prize at the end. We went ahead and tied the cinnamon rolls in a cloth with a knot and the end result was the cinnamon rolls were the prize. We mostly worked, but we had fun, too,” said ninety-five year old Marney. “It was a special place.”

“My Mom made the curtains, cleaned the cupboards, varnished and painted and she was never the one to be idle. She put the woman’s touch on the camp. My husband was an electrician, so he helped with that. My brother built the fountain and my Dad was good with carpentry and all that needed to be fixed.”

“My daughter Marilyn and her cousins would take and sit in a rowboat on the water for hours. They spent time fishing and all were big fishermen. Back then they caught mostly Trout, but back in Maqua time, the Walleye were thick. These years I think the Walleye are fished out.”

“We loved swimming and so did our children. They had learned at the state park because we lived by the bay here, but the found new strokes at Maqua. They loved walking through the woods. We would look for trilliums, wild violets and wild raspberries. “

“I always thought the wealthier kids were the ones that went to Camp Maqua, but I know there were many from Ohio. There were no inland lakes in Ohio, so many of the counselors came up to Maqua. I know my Mom and Dad heard from counselors year after year. On the weekends of registration, they would plan a cookout and have home cooking with things like fried potatoes,” said Marney. “They always tried to do nice things for the counselors.”

Marney remembered Dutton was the place the director would stay and there was an outhouse with a path from Dutton. Her parents would stay in the lodge until the holidays, living in kitchen with the rest of the house basically closed off. She remembered buying them an electric blanket, but the roads were not good, especially in the spring when they turned muddy, so the Watsons would have to stay with Marney.

Marney’s sister Eleanor and her husband created “Deer Acres” and nephew Roger sold it to a pharmacist. The figures were carved by Eleanor.

 

Families That Felt Camp Was Theirs–The Watson Family

Published on by Kathy Baker

INTERVIEW WITH STEWART WATSON

Stewart, Marney and Eleanor Watson felt like Camp Maqua was “Camp Watson” when the campers all went home for the summer.  “We stayed away in the summer, but when camp was closed, we could use all the buildings and property. Our main focus was the land between the lodge and Dutton,” said Stewart. “We had access to the rowboats for fishing and knew where to catch the pike. Many of the other buildings were in need of repair. We would roam the property, fish—even in winter with a shanty up, and one day I even shot a partridge from the porch on the west side, which wasn’t screened at that time. I had five kids within eleven years and my sister Eleanor had five and Marney had one, so we considered it our own camp.”

William and Alma, or “Ma and Pa Watson” moved to Hale from Bay City in the spring of 1952. William had saved all his dimes for a trip to California in 1951, and upon their return spotted the ad in the Bay City Times for caretakers for the camp. He had worked building P.T. boats in the shipyards as a finished carpenter for contractors and a “jack of all trades”—a perfect fit for whatever needed to be done at camp.

In the winter the Watsons lived mainly in the kitchen with a wood stove to keep them warm. During the camping season they lived in a twelve by twelve cabin past the infirmary. Stewart said you could see daylight through the slats of the cabin. The kids used to use the back two bedrooms on the east side, facing the lake, as their hunting cabin in the winter. “We were so cold! We would pile so many blankets on top of us that you could hardly see us,” he laughed. (The caretaker’s cabin or cook’s cabin is now located on the Gorman property.)

When the Watsons came to Maqua, the lodge was not level. It sagged so much that Mr. Watson jacked the entire building and strengthened the foundation. He was also responsible for the new road that came into the camp. The old road was on Putnam Road, but around the curve, and entrance was in the thickly wooded area on the right as you head to Long Lake. The original road followed the old railway tracks at the back of the property. Pa Watson planted White Pine trees along the new road coming into camp, and one of the same trees from those planting years still stands in the yard on Hillsdale Rd. where the Watson’s eventually built when the camp closed. Stewart and his wife Charlotte lived there for many years.

Stewart helped his father with the general maintenance at camp and around the summer of 1954 or 1955, Stewart built the Michigan fieldstone drinking fountain that still stands. He embedded three copper pennies in the top of the four-sided fountain, which stood for “Three Coins In The Fountain” after the movie of the same name, which was playing at the time of the construction.

Stewart graduated from Central High School in 1943, in the 12B session, which meant he had a January graduation. He recalled going back to school to get his report card and there was a session going on in the study room. “I followed the line that went in that door,” he said,” and they were taking a test. So, I sat down and took it, not knowing what it was for. I forgot about the test, and on August 8, 1943 I received a letter congratulating me for my 98/100 score. I had just been accepted into the USAF and it told me to report to Camp Custer. I had enlisted and did not even know it! Well, it was fine, since I had always wanted to fly. When I got out I went back to school on the G.I. Bill and had five years of college.”

“That last year I was in college there were four girls sitting at a table and we joined them. While I was sitting there, one of the girls introduced me to her friend that had just walked in the door. Charlotte and I have been married sixty two years.” (She has since passed away since this interview.)

Stewart had always gone to camps as a child. He and his two sisters attended Rainbow Lake Bible Camp near Stanton, Mich. Eventually, he would help start the Spring Hill Youth and Family Camp in Evart, which grew from 600-1,000 acres. He worked as President of the Board for five years and for eight years he was in charge of all the upkeep on the grounds. Having been involved in camps his whole life and as his father’s right hand man in his twenties, Stewart walked in the footsteps of his father until the camp closed.

His main career was with Dow Corning and Dow Chemical as an illustrator, creating all the audio visual aids, medical and patent drawings, including silicone breast implants, etc. Five years before he retired, he was “farmed out” to local artists, which was the beginning of the computer years. He retired in 1951.

What do you recall of the Watson family?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Others Who Rented Camp

Published on by Kathy Baker

A group of men and women were to go to camp June 11, 1934, to clean and open Maqua, according to minutes and ledgers of the camp committee. Following the opening, “The Cigar Factory Girls” were to spend a weekend vacation at camp with a lifeguard on June 18. Camp was to open on June 27, but the counselors and other staff were up there ahead of opening day on June 23 of that summer.

“The committee agreed to allow fifteen business girls to attend Camp Maqua as a weekend trip with a charge of twenty-five cents per girl”, noted the minutes from May 22, 1936. By February 1937, the camp committee discussed keeping the camp open for families after season.

Minutes stated the camp was used for a conference from Michigan Sate University in 1941. By 1957, the camp committee was pondering how to rent the camp to school groups off-season when the lodge and cabins were not winterized.

By 1958 the Bay City Council of Churches and the Sterling High School Band utilized the camp. The band was charged $225 and they had to provide their own Red Cross certified lifeguard and prepare their own meals. It was mentioned in 1959 that the profits were increased by renting to these extra groups, and the structures did not “lie dormant” with no-one using them, so it was in the best interest financially to figure out the best plan.

The camp committee agreed on June 20, 1962 to run a blind ad in the Bay City Times stating that the camp could be rented by responsible parties for groups during the month of August. Various churches used the camp for their retreats in the early sixties, as well as the Oscoda High School band, and the Young Adult Group (the Y-Teens) with payment around $380. There were also mentions of exchange students participating in camp activities though the Council of Churches in the later sixties.

The Camp Maqua committee met on January 15, 1964 and one of the main topics concerned “Family Camp”, which started August 15-24 and was limited to ten families. The fee structure was $50 for adults 17 and older; $30 for children 5-16 inclusive; and $10 for children 4 and under. The camp investigated the type of insurance required for this type of camping and medicals were required. At the end of this camp experience, a letter arrived to the camp committee from Wayne State University in August regarding the creation of a family camp at Maqua.

Other mentions of rental were in 1971, when the Live-Y’ers used the camp and Peace River Lutheran Chruch from Rhodes, Michigan used the property and facilities for $400 and $10 per cabin. The committee restricted the use of boats and campers were restricted to the field, most likely in part to liability with water safety.

The entries found in some of the archival scrapbooks at the Great Lakes Bay Region YWCA in Bay City held pages of articles referring to the Girl Reserves and Business and Emplyoyed girls who would rent Camp Maqua off-season, as well as many other organizations.

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Hut Happenings–

Published on by Kathy Baker

From the fifties to the seventies, the “Loon” newsletter included the activities each session from each hut. Each cabin would contribute a few sentences, and the compilation of the different years added up to a diary (of sorts ) for the camp experience.

There was backwards day, tin can stove making on the rifle range, a banquet with entertainment, a historical parade and bragging rights from Hut 7 in 1950 when the entire cabin earned their blue caps in swimming. One hut hosted a fortune telling booth at the camp carnival in the lodge during another session that summer, while another had the distinction of having no Bay City girls in their hut.

There were cracker box sessions, where you could ask the counselor anything, and pennants for neat tables, hours of canasta on rainy days, scavenger hunts and marshmallow roasts. Girls bemoaned the fact they couldn’t get fires started on their cookstoves, or laughed when they had to sidestep cows on the path to Hale Park for their outing.

Some huts that summer bragged about the fact they all took tap dancing or arrived on the same bus to camp. Others were sad that their frogs did not win the frog contest, due to not being in top shape. Rain spoiled some activities, but inside the chains were finished for the Christmas in July tree. Jean Robinson’s mother had a cake sent up for her birthday to share with her cabin mates, and Jan Mosier and Shirley Miller won prizes for being the best dressed babies on Baby Night.

Gab sessions, tales of the Moms who attended, singing, hut rearranging, and gossip about the girls who were on a diet, counselors who missed their beaus and the girls who fell asleep early were topics in the newsletters. The girls wrote about how well they made friends and how energetic and contented they were.

In 1951 two campers from a hut had to have shots at the doctor’s office and when they stepped outside one of their friends was spotted riding a spotted black and white mare named Belle! One hut never had to get acquainted with each other, as they already knew each other! Others wrote of eating dinner in their canoes. Another hut had seven counselors in training—Ann Gunn, Pat O’Tool, Pat Parsons, Karen Temple, Jean Robinson and Judy Miller—all involved in creating the 16-18 ft. birch front gate sign.

Hut 9 had a “Hate Hut 9 Day” in which they said nothing but nasty things to each other, followed by a “Love Hut 9 Day”, where they expressed nice things. One hut in 1952 could not get over their counselor nonchalantly picking up spiders. Hut 2 laughed about going home with Texas accents with Chris as their counselor, while Hut 10’s claim to fame was three CIT’s—Nan O’Tool, Marsha Immerman and Shirley Blunden.

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Weathering The Weather–

Published on by Kathy Baker

Camping in sunny weather was ideal. It meant no freezing or shivering when you went into the lake for waterfront activiites; sunny skies for boating; great days for overnight camping and canoeing, beautiful sunsets and starry skies for campfires and good sleeping weather inside the cabins whose only air conditioning was the breeze that blew through the screened windows. But, mix in cold air or rain and many activities were canceled, or worse than that—ruined!

“I also went on several of the overnight canoe trips and was even in charge of one of them. We never had tents, and just enjoyed the sun. If it rained, too bad, so sad,” said Susan Kiltie (1960-68) . “We probably had bad weather fifty percent of the time and if the weather was not conducive to sleeping outside, we would sleep under the canoes in our sleeping bags. We were young enough to think it was all one big adventure.”

As early as 1956, there were mentions of inclement weather in the minutes and ledgers from the camp committee. There was a note that parents were not happy that some of their daughters lived in the tents and not the cabins, especially during the wet and cold summer. The tents were also used for camp craft and other programs. There had been a tornado warning on July 1st and with no real plan in place for safety. It was suggested that they “get to the east side of the knoll by the rifle range”, but a Mrs. Brown underscored the amount of panic that involved and that that plan should only be a last resort.

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