Camping Life

Culture Of Change—

Published on by Kathy Baker

 

 

 

“I liked boys as a teen, and it wasn’t a dramatic change and it wasn’t better or worse, it was just changed. It had always been run by women and instead of strong, confident women, there were men in charge,” said Julie, who remembered Joe’s smile as he barked orders authoritatively.

Julie Bernard (1970-78) was not the first camper to talk about the change of culture at camp once it became a co-ed camp.  She recalled staff Joe Liberati, John Myers, and Ken Dike while she was there, who had positions as assistants or directors during this transitional time at camp. (When she looked back at those times with an adult eye, she viewed some of the behaviors by some of these young men as (perhaps) inappropriate, but did not go into detail.)

She described those last years at camp like the videos of today—instead of girls gone wild, it was campers gone wild. Couples sneaking off together; girls smoking in the Brownie–painting their nails after telling someone they were showering; and boys trying to “hook up” were a few of her memories of the changes from the uninhibited days of no bras and all girls. There were still dances with the boys, but they were not the boys from across the lake or Camp Iroquois, now they were at camp.

There was a huge uproar when one of the male directors (Ken or Joe) installed pins in the camp fireplace, by drilling holes into the rocks for rock climbing. Julie remembered the carabiners and ropes swinging from the beautiful lodge fireplace as they practiced their climbs and repelling.

“I have phenomenally good memories of Camp Maqua,” said Nancy Neumyer (1975-78), but, the dynamic of the camp changed when the boys came. It made me more self-conscious and I felt like I couldn’t be myself. At that time, I was at a Catholic all girls school and I was extremely shy, and it wasn’t that I felt negative about the boys there, but it was more difficult to be there when the boys were there. I never went back after my last year. I think the director’s name was Mel and there was a senior counselor from Chicago, and he was Hawaiian.”

“Even raising the flag in a mixed camp worried me. I was worried about my hair, blemishes, how I looked and if anyone would see me crying over a song we sang. I was fourteen and fifteen. I do remember that there was less structure that year and rules were more relaxed and we went down to the lake after hours, but there was no more freezing bras and sending them up the flagpole for pranks with boys around.”

Brooke Sauve (1949-51) sent her daughter to camp in the mid-seventies, and still has the letter she wrote begging to come home because she hated it so much. “When I was at camp, it was very organized and we were all kept busy with activities. She said all she did was lay around on her bunk. I guess you didn’t have to do activities if you did not want to. It was different. Everything had changed.”

What culture of change did you observe with the introduction of male staff and campers?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Separated By The Transition

Published on by Kathy Baker

 

Amy Falvey began camping at Maqua in 1970, when she was nine years old, and finished her last year in 1978 when the camp closed. Her big sister Betsy was her impetus for attending, and every year the sessions increased with her increased enjoyment of her experiences.

“The first year it was two weeks, then three weeks, then two weeks, then four weeks and then eight weeks,” she laughed, recalling that is how she remembered the years, by the amount of weeks she attended. Then their mother passed away and she skipped 1976 and 1977, returning in 1978 as a counselor.

“Both camps were struggling financially and Maqua had the better physical facility, so the two boards merged their camps, or that was my understanding. It started out badly from the minute we met at the Bay City YWCA building staging area to bus to camp. I thought this is not good. They kept changing the time we were to leave to bus up to camp and many of us had been to camp and knew the way. There must have been some internal problem, but we could see no reason why we were not on our way. It started off negatively and then when we all got to camp, we could see it hadn’t been taken care of,” said Amy.

“They hired an interesting bunch of guys and the rest were women. It was a goofy bunch. It felt like they were invading our space. It was just a weird dynamic. One director named Meg changed the colors of the staff shirts, so we were all separated in a way by our colors. Before it went co-ed all the staff wore white shirts with green trim. Now the administration wore red, the junior counselors were in navy and the counselors were in light blue. It felt splintered. There was no unity from day one. There were cliques of boys and cliques of girls and none of the girls wanted to hang out with the boys and the sense of family that we once enjoyed was lost. When I drove out of camp that last day, I was so glad to be gone and it was sad. I just thought get me out of here. The Karma was awful.”

“Nothing about it was the same. It had gone co-ed with Camp Iroquois from Sand Lake and the whole dynamic changed,” said Amy. ““I might have burned that shirt from my last year, but I still have the colored photo of all the co-ed campers and pristine copies of the “Loon” newsletters and every photo in my scrapbook.”

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Co-ed Dynamics–

Published on by Kathy Baker

The dynamics changed for Mardi Jo Link (1973-78) when Camp Maqua turned co-ed. “I never felt threatened, if anything I had a lot of friends. That time helped me form my open mindedness as a young woman with all girls around, but it went away when the boys arrived. No one felt as comfy anymore. There was an easiness to having all girls around.”

“Maqua was always my escape from the real world. When it went co-ed, it seemed like it was just like the rest of the world, even though I did have my first boyfriend at Camp Maqua when I was fifteen. Those camping years coincided with my teen years, but it certainly didn’t have the same vibes when it was co-ed. It wasn’t that” Women Can Do Anything” camp anymore. When it was just girls, it made me feel like my life was like a blank slate. I had ownership of my own life. Those years gave me a sense of permanence. Camp was really important to me. There were so many opportunities. I could ask for help and I could also help others. It was a place to show your best talents, regardless of your skills. It was a place you could be a story teller, an artist, a counselor and it was just a happy place for me.”

“I was at camp for seven years, starting when I was seven (as probably one of the youngest campers) until the year it was co-ed, “said Kellie Moore (1970-77). “Our cabin of girls that year was probably the oldest campers at the time and we were not eager to change our ways, so we spent (or were sent) off to “Primi” most of that last summer. I often wonder why they had to invite the boys!”

The girls ended up sleeping in the army tent on the raised platform off in the woods and cooked many of their own meals out there, hung out by themselves and walked to Hale Park or into town to buy candy. “We liked to do the tricks and with the boys there, it was just different. We weren’t willing to change. There were six or eight of us and we felt this sense of entitlement. We had earned our privileges as older campers and they expected us to do things a different way. It was not terrible, but we were always getting punished for our pranks. They would make us clean our cabins or some restrictions when we ran our bras up the flagpole. At that age we were really not that much into the guy dynamic and we were not happy to be part of the camp.”

Amy Johns (1967-78) was also there for the transition and agreed the dynamics changed and she hated the name change to Camp Maquois. “When there was the introduction of boys, there was all this drama about relationships. It was stressful. I think that it ruined it when the boys came into a camp that was all about girls and their relationships.  Turning co-ed meant a downturn to me. It did not become more popular. It trended downward overall. Camp changed over time, the world changed and we did, too. To me, Maqua was about the girls experience year after year.”

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The Boys Have Arrived!

Published on by Kathy Baker

Only one summer and two weeks at Maqua, but Mark Blumenthal had the distinction of being in the last group of campers to attend the camp before it closed permanently. It was the summer of 1978 and Dave McEvers had scheduled his cross-country team to utilize the camp and its  great surroundings for the team practices. His group were post-session, but the summer of 1978 had co-ed sessions.

“It was the summer between my 17th and 18th year. I remember staying in the wood- sided cabins with the bunk beds down the hill from the lodge. We would run Loon Lake, eat breakfast, hang out and eat lunch before our speed work in the afternoon. I think our high school added two girls to the team that year, but I only recall one at camp and I don’t know where they put her,” he laughed. “That summer we invited our rivals to come up to practice with us, which was probably unwise, as they bested us in regionals that year.”

Mark said the horses were there and the rowboats were still at the waterfront. The team did some swimming while they were at camp, but he learned to skim board on the flat shallow beach. There was time to also go into Tawas to the movies and play volleyball, but most of the equipment was put away.

The camp store was closed, but the boys could see camp tee shirts (white with green trim and the logo on it), so someone opened it and he still has the shirt. What he wished he had was the recipe for the pizza burgers the cook made them the summer he spent at camp! (He also has memories of listening to Bill Cosby comedy albums while they played board games in the lodge until lights out.)

The other male camper, besides staff, interviewed was Matthew Prieskorn. (His was mother is Geraldine Prieskorn, and sisters are Cara Prieskorn, Susan Prieskorn, and Rebecca Prieskorn—and all attended Maqua.

Matthew’s mother Geraldine, who had attended Camp Maqua in 1942, forced Matthew to go to camp the year it was co-ed in 1976 at the age of twelve. Unlike Mark, he was in the regular sessions. He hated it, didn’t know a soul, and left after a week. It was his first time away from home. His memories include one canoe trip, which was rained out and a pretty cool sail on the lake. He left without keeping in touch with any of his cabin mates.

What do you recall of the first arrival of the boys?

 

 

 

 

 

Camp Transportation–

Published on by Kathy Baker

Campers had several ways of getting to Camp Maqua, which included the bus that left from the Bay City YWCA or their parent’s vehicles. Once the girls arrived at camp, there was always a necessity to have a camp vehicle to provide transportation to and from overnight outings, emergency trips to the doctor or hospital, trips to church and shopping for supplies for camp.

The notes and minutes from ledgers at the YWCA discussed trucks as early as April 1, 1932. The camp committe had the decision whether to pay a flat rate to the YMCA or hire a truck and that summer they hired a truck on a mileage basis.

May 10, 1935, there was a mention in the minutes that read; “Balcer Brothers Bus Company has agreed to furnish busses for our campers at twenty-seven dollars a trip from Bay City to Camp Maqua.” Members of the camp committee, Mrs. Ramsey and Mrs. Hewitt were given the job of interviewing automobile dealers to secure a loan of a car for the camp season. The result was Mrs. Stegall of Packard Cars made sure Mrs. Ramsey’s car was in good condition and she loaned it to camp, even after two members investigated the loan of a car from a local dealer.

In 1936, the camp committee again discussed a camp car and Mrs. Hewitt suggested a station wagon, which was needed and could be purchased cheaper in the spring. “It is especially needed for transporting the girls to and from church on Sundays,” she said. Minutes in March stated there was still no decision, so the old car was sent to the factory “to be put in first class condition”.

By 1937, a station wagon was to be purchased for $500 in Detroit, “if a satisfactory finance can be worked out”, stated a committee member in the minutes, who also suggested the old camp car be sold for whatever money it could bring, and the March minutes verified the financing was agreed upon and the car was sold.

No mentions of vehicles were made until May 21, 1943, when the first item of business was to repair the station wagon, presumably the one purchased in 1937. “Work on the motor of the wagon has been done by the Travelers Garage at a cost of $68.05. After trying several places to get the woodwork put in good condition, Mrs. Macaulay finally took it to Saginaw to the Wienecke Company. Mr. Wienecke has promised to do a good job on it, the cost around $22. This will consist of almost an entirely new top and woodwork,” the report stated.

In 1945, ideas were discussed by the committee on how best to come up with money for a new station wagon. (Borrow from the finance committee, raise money through teas, bridge parties or food sales, some other money making project or something with the Community Chest, of which the YWCA was a member.)

On October 13, 1953, the minutes stated a station wagon had been offered to camp by Mr. Harry Richard.

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Families Who Felt Like Camp Was Theirs—The William Evans Family

Published on by Kathy Baker

Delphine Evans was hired as the director for Camp Maqua for the summer of 1976 and was in the unique postion of directing with her two children Melinda and Billy living on the premises. Her husband William, a lawyer with the state, managed to drive up on weekends and help out with camp duties, while doing his own legal work in between. Delphine wrote;

“After accepting the position, we agreed that my children could go to camp with me and that instead of hiring 3 kitchen aides, I would hire
four and they would rotate between working in kitchen and watching the children.  (I would reimburse the “Y” for the salary of one of the kitchen aides)”

“The kids and I lived in the lodge and that seemed to work quite well.  I could be part of the evening activities and the after hours staff gatherings without worrying about the kids.  I remember the staff as being a hard working cohesive group with no major conflicts or issues-rare among camp staffs!”

“My first session at camp has been one of the most enjoyable ones I have ever spent as a director. Who will ever forget our 1950’s party and all the great costumes? Then the fourth of July brought us parades, campfires and Chris as the Maqua monster. All the campers up here were happy and excited about camp and I really hope to see all of you next week, or if not, then back next summer”, wrote Delphine in the “Loon”.

Billy and Melinda were interviewed the summer they stayed at camp and were featured in a copy of the “Loon” in 1976, presumably to Mary Toburen, who was the assistant at that time. What a wonderful summer the two siblings must have had, enjoying camp with the other kids!

Under the heading “Infirmary” Melinda dictated, “ First we came and moved in and then we went to see what the waterfront looked like. Next we looked at the lodge and everything else at camp. Then we had to go home again with Daddy. When we came back the staff was already here and the campers were going to be coming soon. Our first day we went swimming and got into area two. After the campers came, we started doing lots of things—like arts and crafts and playing all different kinds of games. The four kitchen aides are our babysitters and we have lots of fun every day. I think that camp is really good.”

Billy’s interview was just as delightful—“First we came up, then we looked around camp and we decided to go to the lodge. Then we went home for five days before coming back. On Sunday, the campers came and we played games. The next day camp started. We started doing all kinds of stuff, like arts and crafts and swimming. We had a big bonfire on the fourth of July. The people left to go canoeing and biking. We get to sing songs and have toasts at every meal. Our babysitters are Mary, Mo, Judy and Sue. They are K.A.’s.”