Directors, Counselors, Staff

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.”

 

 

 

 

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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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 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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Mixing With Mahn-go-tah-see

Published on by Kathy Baker

Some years there was fraternization with the boys’ camp and other years there was no social activities between the two camps. Marge Hasty (1946) had memories of meeting the boys by sailboat in the middle of the lake to pass “sneaky mail”, and said many of the counselors had boyfriends across the lake and this is how they passed the mail to them.

Susan Ruterbusch (1947-52) had camped in Huts 3 and 10 and later in Dutton above the Infirmary, which had wonderful windows that overlooked the lake. “The girls would dance around by the lake outside that building and say–I wish the boys from the camp across the lake could see us, but it was all wishful thinking.”

Michele Butsch “Missy” (1969-76) said she and all her friends always wanted a social or a dance with the boys from camp, but it never happened while she was there, even though she had heard other years had done just that.  Karen Magidsohn recalled the older boys had mixers with the Maqua girls, but never any dances while she was there in the sixties.

Vague memories of a mixer at some point during Ruth Wiesen’s years (1957-59) triggered the joke that the girls always bet if the boys would even show up! When the boys were asked over, it was not always an ideal situation. Sue West (1975+) recalled director Carol Neiman getting into trouble for allowing the male staff to come to Maqua for an evening of fun with the counselors. Other years there were mixers for the counselors, which was considered a big deal, according to Susan Prieskorn (1966-72), and there were no consequences.

Cindy Knapp’s two brothers camped across the lake, so she had been there on Parents’ Day, but she laughed over a mixer with the boys one summer. “We tried to get all fancied up for the dance and they seemed pretty intimidated by us.”

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Viking Boats Across The Lake–

Published on by Kathy Baker

When Elaine Levinsohn (1927-30) camped at Maqua, there were no homes around, just a pretty lake with many trees. “All the girls knew there was a boys’ camp there,” she laughed, as she recalled a vague memory of boating over to the camp, like many before and after her years at camp.

As the boating director, Anne Pennington (1964-72) recalled some of the fun on the water on Hawaiian Day when the girls would decorate the canoes and rowboats. The boys across the lake would also decorate their large boat, which she said resembled a Viking ship. The boys tried to throw things from their boat onto the girls’ boat. One summer she was dating Larry Roberts, who was caretaker Homer Robert’s son from the boys’ camp and she enjoyed the mixers with the boy counselors in the pre-sessions the week before camp opened.

“I remember a beauty pageant in bathing suits with a Hawaiian theme’” said Tami Nagel, who camped in the sixties. “Although I can’t remember her name, she had blonde hair and she won something, and I remember the boys from Camp Mahn-go-tah-see coming over.”

Sarah Smith, whose camping years spanned the late sixties to the mid-seventies, had a vivid memory at the end of her camping experience when the boys came over from camp and she was chosen to be the Indian Maiden. “I had dark hair and dark skin, so that’s probably why I was chosen, but I was thrilled since I was a chubby kid.”

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