Camp Influences

Families Who Felt Camp Was Theirs–The Emmett Williams Family

Published on by Kathy Baker

 

In 1957 Emmet and Florence Williams made the decision to search for a summer place within a reasonable distance from their Detroit home. They discovered their dream property that year, close to two national forests and an easy three-hour drive for their two daughters Denise and Sharon, who were two and five at the time.

The shell of the summer house was already built, with knotty pine inside, just waiting for installation. Ira Schofield had developed the property, known as Palisades Park, on Hillsdale Avenue, bordering Loon Lake. Emmet, his father and uncle built the first rustic home with a water heater under the sink. Florence remembered boiling water for hot baths.

The last of the knotty pine was taken down in 1986, and the old stove was removed when the family needed extra space. Emmet retired in 1986 and the renovation on the original home was completed in 1987 with heat, insulation, larger closets and an extra bath.

“We loved it,” said Florence. “My husband worked nights and my parents lived in Ohio. We spent three weekends up north and one weekend a month in Ohio. We had no car and no phone.”

Florence recalled the fence between their property and the camp, which stood about 6-7 feet and was of natural wood. The fence stood on the property line and was installed when the camp worried that boys would move in next door to the girls camp. “We could not see over the fence, but from our dock daughters Sharon and Denise learned to swim different strokes, kayak and canoe just from watching the instructors at camp!”

“There were five stations and two L-shaped docks with two rafts. Sharon and I would watch the girls with their instructors in the canoes or playing Marco Polo from our dock,” said Denise.

The Williams’ family could always hear the singing from the campers and counselors as they ate or sat around the campfire, but on rainy days songs could be heard with stomping feet and clapping hands with the children’s voices from the lodge. “We always enjoyed all the activities from our home and it was never too loud or annoying,” said Florence. “It always appeared to be a very well-run camp until the late seventies and it just wasn’t the same with the boys there.”

“The boys would come over from Camp Mahn-go-tah-see on a giant Viking ship, calling to the girls,” she laughed. “The counselors would act nonchalant, but they probably wished for them to leave.”

One day Denise was babysitting at her home and she spotted a huge albino skunk eating baby food out of a jar in the yard that had been left out. There had been reports that the same skunk had been spotted in camp by counselors and campers alike. Denise loved living next to Maqua, but she loved it more when they left and she could ride the horses up to Chapel Hill and walk around the property. “We knew every path like the back of our hands,” she said. “Mr. Watson, who took care of the property used to call us “My girl” and we called him “My man”.

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Awards And Ribbons–

Published on by Kathy Baker

 

Margaret Dahlem stopped on the lodge lawn in 1989, soon after we bought the property. Her trip down memory lane, as a first-time camper in 1925, included the awards when she camped.  Her friend Harriet Crumb, who wrote a letter to me soon after, mentioned the same award.

There were competitions between the huts, including a parade of decorated row boats. The winner was awarded the “Bracken Fern Award”. There was also a “Spirit of Maqua” competition, based on the girl who most typified the ideal Maqua camper, with friendly voting that took place to choose one.

The awards were important to many little girls who excelled in a sport or activity that they had never tried before. Many of them saved their awards, ribbons and certificates from camp, as proof positive of their achievements.

Mary Lou Winn camped in 1946 and 1947 and remembered all the awards were presented on parents’ night at the end of camp. For her, it always seemed that the older campers seemed to get more than their share, but looking back her memory might have been tinged with envy.

“We had a three-day canoe trip, which was wonderful. I just remember how exciting it was to do this canoeing and camping. There were girls who were bickering on that trip—just amongst themselves. It was hard for the counselors. The girls were difficult and I always felt my role in life was to keep peace. I was shocked and amazed when I got an award for the “Most Cooperative On The Canoe Trip”, said Ann Ward (1958-61). ““They had never given that award before. I guess I was just a peacemaker. I was never the type that gossiped.”

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Journey Of A Camper On Drugs

Published on by Kathy Baker

D had fond memories of her seven summers as a camper at Maqua in the mid-60’s. After the first few years, she would stay for all four sessions. Her last summer at camp was spent as a kitchen aid in the early 70’s. She described herself as mischievous back then, but she got along with everyone. She still had friends who were campers and could not wait to return the following year.

“For some reason, the new director took an instant dislike to me. I do not know if it was my personality or something else she had heard. During a break between sessions, ten of us went back to M’s cabin where we all smoked marijuana, some for the first time. I’d tried marijuana previously and even had some at camp with me, but never smoked it in camp.”

“When I applied to be a junior counselor for the following season, the director denied me. I was devastated. I adored going there. I had the best childhood and Maqua was a big part of it. The relationships were so great and even the staff didn’t snub us as kids. I loved that we were doing stuff all the time. I had wonderful relationships with Dorthe and Beanie and others, and stayed in touch with many of them. Those relationships were a uniting force.”

“Maqua was life transforming for me. It was like a little dream come true. Going to the reunion in 2012 was very healing for me. I realized then what a loss I’d been carrying around all these years. I had assumed I would be coming back as a junior counselor after the summer as a kitchen aid. When I was denied, I felt like my arm had been chopped off. We all had so much in common and it wasn’t anything to do with our parents being friends or our friendships back home. It was about the special camp relationships.”

“The denial of the junior counselor position coincided with the beginning of twenty-five years of active addiction. By the age of fifteen, besides marijuana, I had already experimented with many different types of drugs. When I told some of the staff at the reunion, they told me they wished they’d known, so they could have helped. But, no one could have helped at that time.”

“Despite my addiction, I was always a good student. After receiving my Bachelor’s degree, I moved to California and tutored math at a community college for a while. Ultimately, I went to law school in California, still heavily into drugs, but I took the bar exam and passed it. I got high right after my swearing in.”

“Staying in school seemed like the easiest course since my parents were willing to continue paying for everything. I did use my law degree and ran a clinic for substance-abusing women, and also worked for the local Family Court restraining order clinic. I won awards for my pro bono work. I was telling myself I was a functioning addict until one day I realized I’d made an oversight in a situation that could have affected someone else’s life. So, I stopped practicing. My fallback was to return to school again for my Masters in Public Interest Law.”

“In the early 90’s, my father passed away. Because my Mom and I were so close, I moved back to Michigan. I was struggling, so I entered into grief therapy, which ultimately turned into substance abuse therapy. Eventually, I went to inpatient treatment at Hazelden and got clean. Now I am doing what I always wanted to do.”

“I have my masters in social work, work as a substance abuse therapist and most importantly, I’m in recovery. I just celebrated twenty years clean. Looking back over those twenty-five years of active addiction, there were many difficult times. I spent time in jail and came close to death several times. Basically, my life at that time was about using.”

“The trajectory of my life has been unusual, but I feel that I somehow landed on my feet. I believe I am more whole as a person and I understand that life is about relationships. It came full circle at the reunion and I realized the friendships I developed while at Maqua truly helped to shape my life.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Smoking–

Published on by Kathy Baker

 

Helen Hasty recalled the clouds of smoke that billowed around the big tent behind the lodge in the early forties.

(“Smoke virtually rolled out of the couselors’ smoking tent!”) Some years smoking was no big deal and other years, the directors warned the counselors about smoking on the premises.

Lucille Greenwald (1947-50) had the same memory of the counselors sleeping in the tent behind the lodge and the girls were never allowed to go back there. “We would see some of them with bandaid boxes in their pockets, which had cigarettes in them and we thought it was terribly risqué.”

“I do remember the counselors had a tent behind the screened porch at the back of the lodge, where they would smoke their cigarettes and talk about the “ugly” (uncooperative) campers,” said Geraldine Folkert (1942-47), who learned to smoke at camp at the age of sixteen and became a social smoker.

Carla Schweinsberg (1945-52) was relieved not to be part of the round-up of naughty girls who got caught smoking in the bushes. Anne Obey believed the walks she took to smoke cigarettes was the most scandalous thing she did in the sixties, but admitted she never wanted to disappoint her director and they never smoked on canoe trips.

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Confusions and Confessions–

Published on by Kathy Baker

 

“I was somewhat aware and in denial at the same time, while I was at camp and in those college years, of my sexuality,” admitted L.D, who was at camp in the late sixties. “I had a boyfriend, but wasn’t really all that interested in him. One of the other counselors eventually made me talk about it, but she did it in a nice way. I think they all knew at camp, but I waited several years before I came out.”

For some, like K.M., who was just a hugger during the same era, and had no confusion, it was the summer of awareness for her. “I loved that I could walk around camp with my arms wrapped around another girl or arms linked, appropriately, and no one cared. I could hold hands swinging and feel comfortable. I don’t remember ever having any girl crushes, but I do remember the summer there was a rumor about another girl liking another girl and I just never knew anything about those things. We just never talked about sexuality.”

One woman in the early sixties had applied for the job as a college student from an ad in the Bay City Times. Having passed her water safety instruction classes through the Red Cross, she felt she could write her own ticket for a summer job, knowing WSI instructors “were hard to come by”. Her degree was in physical education from a college in Illinois and she had been a counselor at a Girl Scout camp and a Pioneer Girls camp in the Poconos.

She felt her summer with her waterfront job was fine until the last day, when she alleged her director made sexual advances toward her. She was to help with the last day’s closing-up of Camp Maqua, but told her she refused to help her and if she said one word about it, she would report the incident to the Bay City “Y”. In a second interview, she felt she did the right thing not reporting, as she had not noticed the director had ever been inappropriate with the young girls.

“I didn’t know about lesbianism at that time. I probably should have reported her to the school system in Detroit, where she worked as a physical education teacher, but I never did. She was a cold, strict woman who you could not talk to. I was OK with my decision not to report her.”

She spent six weeks at Camp Maqua and then walked away, but as a professed introvert, she stated she had never been close to any of the other counselors. “The best part of that summer was working with the kids. I lived above the boathouse and would wander around and talk to different groups of kids. It was okay until the last day.”

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Gays And Girl Crushes—

Published on by Kathy Baker

K.W. knew there were crushes on counselors in the sixties and that many of the girls “would show you theirs if you showed them yours and they would giggle and dance around in their underwear, but it was a time when they didn’t talk about women liking women. My friend was a tomboy and there were many tomboys. We instinctively knew who they were and they were the ones we asked to climb the trees to get us things, just as we knew who the girly girls were. By the time I was in fifth grade, girls were popping boobs and getting their periods and we had our medical forms and our check ups and I’m pretty sure the camp nurse was a pretty important person.”

Alternately, J.B. was aware of the strong female friendships at camp, even during the co-ed years and realized looking back around 25% of the women might have been gay, which did not cause problems unless they broke up with each other. “It wasn’t a big deal and there was no sexual tension, but there were the tightest knit friendships made in the shortest amount of time at camp.”

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