Directors, Counselors, Staff

Why I Did Not Return To Camp #3

Published on by Kathy Baker

Camp was an escape from home on many levels for the girls who attended, but once they reached a certain age, other experiences, situations and relationships took precedence. Margot Homburger (1946-51) continued until she could no longer camp due to her age. For Nancy Keeler (1973-74, it was as simple as her friend Alice Pollock not wanting to return to camp for another year. Ann Meisel (1962-66),  felt the neighborhood kids became a more important activity.

“Camp was a very positive experience for me. I loved it and wanted to stay all summer. My father was an alcoholic and it was an escape for me and so wonderful to get away. It was a very happy thing for me, but my family didn’t support it. I cried so much when I left. They thought I was going to be a lesbian because I loved being with all the girls at camp. It was a remark that was thrown out and not talked about any further. I was desperate to go and wanted to go because I made such wonderful friendships. I did date and did have boyfriends later,” said Molly Olson (1946+), proving her parents wrong about the reasons for wanting to return each summer. She did not return when her Birmingham friends became more important to her.

Sharon Wilcox was born in 1936, but in the late forties and early fifties, she was a camper at Maqua in the second sessions. She reached a period in her life when she became more interested in boys, probably around the time she could have been a counselor. Wistful about never having had the chance to reside in Dutton, where the older girls stayed, she was always one of the youngest at camp.

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Why I Did Not Return To Camp #2

Published on by Kathy Baker

Camp Maqua had its own appeal, but some left to attend other camps for various reasons, and a few were disenchanted and returned to the happy camp. Marybeth Morton could not recall if it was finances or if she began babysitting, but she camped the summers of 1974-75, with all great memories.

Jeananne Jakobi came from a family that was not always financially able to afford Maqua, so she and her sister went to a Girl Scout camp. Sally Allen dreamt about becoming a counselor, but her mother was remarried to a man with children and it was cost prohibitive to send them all, although she did attend from 1968-73.

One camper attended Interlochen during her “piano phase” for one summer, but the distance and the cost for her parents prevented her from returning. She went back to Maqua for two weeks during the summer of 1961, a month in 1962 and finally as a kitchen aide in 1963.

When Sarah Smith was sixteen and seventeen, she had a hiatus from Maqua and attended Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, but came back to work as a waterfront counselor after high school graduation in 1974 and 1975. She was tired of being a camper and her swimming background and experience teaching swimming at the “Y” opened the door to her new role. Her family had beachfront property in Harbor Springs and she had grown up on the water.

Sue Schiller started at Maqua as an eight-year-old in 1946 and attended for two or three years, then attended another camp until she was twelve or thirteen, but her heart came back to Maqua. She ended up staying until she graduated from Michigan State in 1960.

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Why I Did Not Return To Camp #1

Published on by Kathy Baker

Many girls made a summer tradition of returning to Maqua, beginning at an early age, and aging out when they could no longer qualify. For others, it was not enough to be a camper, they aspired to be counselors, which extended their camp careers until college and beyond. Many just quit going and the reasons were as varied as their personalities!

“My Mom grew up in Bay City and she was a camper and a junior counselor. There is a photo somewhere of her with my Dad (when they were dating) on the lake. I went for two weeks the first time and after that, it was all summer,” said Cara Prieskorn (1966-71). “Susan, my Mom and I could never figure out why Matt and Becca didn’t like it as we did. My theory is that after they moved into the big house, the two of them didn’t want to leave their big house with their own rooms and bathrooms to go to an old camp.”

“I finally figured out my parents were taking really nice vacations while we were all at camp, so while my sisters were at Maqua and my brother was at Mahn-go-tah-see, they were off somewhere having fun without us,” said Julie Hutchins (1960). “I only went to Maqua one week that one summer and the rest of the time I was on vacation with my parents while my sisters were at camp! Years later when we all looked at the photo albums, my siblings wondered where I was in some of the photos, and I would say which state it was, and then remind them they were at camp.”

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What I Missed At Home #2

Published on by Kathy Baker

They missed family members, pets, and summers that continued on without them,  but those feelings were not so overwhelming that the girls wanted to return home. Some, like JoAnn Kern (1953,) said she was ready to go home after her two weeks at camp.  She always felt like she was missing out on her summer at Houghton Lake, where the rest of the family spent their time.

For Cara Prieskorn (1966-71), two weeks was an eternity. “I never felt like I missed anything while I was at camp, except maybe leaving a few boyfriends behind. Girlfriends moved in on them while I was gone. But, there was also a serial killer in Ann Arbor one summer and one of the girls had a sister at U of M. Supposedly she was asked if she wanted a ride by him and she turned him down.”

Funerals were missed. Nancy Keeler’s (1973-74) friend’s father died while she was at camp. Ann Meisel (1962-66) recalled a fellow camper whose brother died while she was at camp and she grieved with empathy, realizing he was the same age as her own brother.

Mary Jane Keschman (1944-55) and Linda Greenwald (1948-59) both lost their grandmothers while at camp. Linda hopped in her car around the 4th of July and drove home and back. Mary Jane’s family drove up in her last year and brought her home and back, so they were able to have closure with their funerals.

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Mixed Reactions–

Published on by Kathy Baker

 

Born in Flint, Sheryl Biesman was eight years old when she camped for the first time in 1973 and it closed before she could ever have a leadership position in 1978. Karen Selby was one counselor she could remember from that “wholesome camp” that closed with little fanfare to the campers who were there the last year, including Sheryl.

As part of the transformation from a girls’ camp to co-ed, Sheryl was thirteen and just becoming interested in boys. “My initial feeling was, they are invading my space,” said Sheryl, who recalled one drama girl moment when one of the boys liked someone else. “But, I don’t have strong memories of interacting with the boys at camp.”

“It was a very sad time for me. After the camp closed, I tried to go to another camp with my friend Diane. I remember I hated it. I only went one summer and it wasn’t Camp Maqua. We had to wear white. I was so distraught. I kept searching for something I had lost and was so disappointed. I am sad it didn’t work out. The experience taught me leadership. Many of my Jewish friends went to Jewish camps in Maine and elsewhere and had good experiences and ended up staying friends with people they met there. I guess I was just so emotionally attached at age thirteen to Maqua—“

“My Mom thinks I started going when I was eight, so that would be 1972, through the end, although she doesn’t remember me going that many years. I remember the last couple years were co-ed, “said Beth Phillips, who was disappointed that the boys were now a part of the camp, but admitted there were some cute counselors, and one in particular that took them on a nature hike in the woods.  “We took a trek through the backwoods that led to a secret area, which was off to the side of Chapel Hill. The counselors always tried to keep the boys and girls apart, and the boys had the cabins down the hill, while we were all up top. There were different activities when the boys came, but before that, we just used to sit at the campfire and holler at the boys across the lake.”

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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?