1950’s

Dog Food Sandwiches and Taffy Pulls

Published on by Kathy Baker

“There was one dessert with cherries on it that we would do anything for a second helping. Usually, if you worked in the kitchen, you could get that second piece,” said Pam Wintermute (1955-56), who also recalled she had to bring a folding drinking cup to camp.

Cynthia Gregory (1960-65) also brought her collapsible cup for snack time. “We would have milk and cookies in the lodge, but we didn’t wash the cups very well. Maybe we would bring them back to the Brownie and rinse them out. I guess I didn’t wash mine for a few days and the smell of soured milk had gone inbetween.”

Two of the campers remembered the best homemade ice cream they had ever tasted at camp, and for Elaine Levinsohn (1927-30), apple butter was her favorite new taste.

Business manager Rhonda Thayer (1974-77) said, “The girls loved the pizza burgers, which were hot dog and hamburger buns with a can of pizza sauce spread on them and ground beef with a handful of cheese. It took so much work though, making hundreds of them to be then toasted in the oven, bevause they wanted three or four of them! But, we did it anyway.”

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Potato Donuts and Creamed Eggs

Published on by Kathy Baker

Most of the campers felt that although the camp food was not fancy, it was warm and good. Running off calories during the days’ activities meant the meals were especially welcome for staff and campers alike, and the girls often learned to eat and enjoy food not found at home.

The girls learned to like new dishes like tuna noodle casserole for Kerry Weber‘s (1952) friend; Johnny Cakes for forties’/fifties’ camper Marcia Sherman; creamed eggs for Edna Young (1932), canned fruit for fifties’ camper Susan Alcorn; creamed corn with bacon for Barb Hale (1950); banana boats for sixties’ camper Coleen Gasta and desserts for everyone!

“The food was not fancy, but it was not like home either,” said MaryBeth Morton (1974-75), who recalled more of the rituals surroungding the food in the lodge. “It was served family style and someone would go to the counter to get it. There were call-outs for certain things while we were at the table. We said grace and we were all excused at the same time.”

Judy Crissey (1954) said she was not a finicky eater and thought the meals were good. “I never gave food a second thought,” she said, remembering the bell that rang for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

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Burnt Toast and Bug Juice–

Published on by Kathy Baker

 

In the early twenties’ each counselor brought a white enamel pitcher of milk and a plate of graham crackers to the hut. “—for it was a long time between meals and we were hungry by then. This helped us to hold off starvation overnight,” said Harriet Crumb.

Her friend Meg Dahlem remembered the hot chocolate in the morning and buscuits and butter with maple syrup as a treat. “They had good food three times a day and we ate a lot of beef, mashed potatoes and my favorite—raspberry pie,” said Meg.

The kitchen staff, and food in general, were an important component of camp life. Great care was taken to find the right staff, spend wisely and cook nutritiously for the campers and staff. In 1936, there were hints that local businesses were not happy with the amount of provisions that were purchased out of the local area, and buying in bulk from larger distributors was a common practice.

In 1943 Adelaide Macaulay left notes in a camp season report in the archives, referencing a Miss McCullough, who was affectionately nicknamed Mac, and served as the camp hostess. “I think the title is misleading—it should be housekeeper, for that is what it proved to be, and is far from an easy one. The duties start early in the morning and aren’t over until the last child has been served crackers and milk at bedtime.”

“This year was especially hard, because of the food situation, but we had exceptionally good meals, and in quantities so there was always enough for second and third servings. One Bay City mother of two girls who were given a reduction of $56 off her bill, has done a lot of criticizing, said her children did not get enough to eat, Mac was no good at her job and a lot of this kind of bunk.”

They weighed one of the children at the end of the first two weeks and she had gained five pounds! Miss Macauley noted that parents always had food complaints, and some years were justified, but this summer had not been one of them. Mac had served 23,836 meals, which included cakes, cookies and pies and the cooks were considered “treasures”, were clean and managed the budget.

Marsha Immerman (1947-53) loved the food and to this day when she smells burnt toast, it reminds her of camp. “I also loved to get those little boxes of Wheaties, because they were my favorite, but when some of my fellow campers found out, they would grab them. The girls in the kitchen were always singing and we were singing before, during and after our meals. We had a song we used to sing to the cook we called “Cookie”. The only thing I wasn’t crazy about was chipped beef on toast and my Mother complaining to the “Y” that the variety of food wasn’t good. They told her it was because I was there all summer!”

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Hoppers and Manners–

Published on by Kathy Baker

“I loved meal time with the chatter and clatter and how we all sat with our cabin at one table. We would take turns setting the table, clearing, gathering the dishes into the tub to wash and so much singing and prank playing,” laughed Chris Lambert (1958-65).

The food was unremarkable for Sue Augustyniak (1962-68), and she figured the kitchen would never pass health inspectors during her time there. “Everyone had a job. Each camper was paired with another camper and the counselors would mix us up. Two would set the tables, two would wait on the tables, and two would clean up. We took turns. After our meal, the kitchen staff would bring two buckets of water. One was soapy and one was rinse water. We would wash and rinse ours, plus those place settings from the kitchen staff. In retrospect, I KNOW it would never pass inspection.”

Sue Michelson (1963-73) said in the sixties’, she was still doing dishes in the tubs and a tongue depressor with jobs written on it were handed out to the girls. She believed the Health Dept. eventually enforced dishwashing in the kitchen, despite the fact that Randi Topping was always impressed with how scalding hot the water was.

(There was a mention of washing dishes in the minutes of the camp committee in 1959 criticizing the camp’s methods and for years a dishwasher was on the wish list.)

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Cooks In The Kitchen–

Published on by Kathy Baker

Meg Dahlem, camper from the early twenties’, recalled the kitchen extended across the entire front of the lodge. (When she stopped in 1987, she recognized the benches, tables, piano and porch swing were all from her time at camp.)

The camp bell rang for meals, and was located in different places during different years. It was the “core of our existence here at Maqua” read a caption under a news photo of Margaret Burr, counselor from Plymouth and a senior at Albion in 1957. “If the bell goes haywire, the camp would not know when to eat, sleep or play.”

“The lodge was very important because we ate every meal in it,” said Kayleen Jacques (1956-59). “There were picnic tables and benches that were not attached to them in the dining room. So, when we sang, we could pick up the bench and pound it on the floor for added effect. We sang before each meal and policed our own tables after we ate.”

(Jean Evans (1933-38) laughed as she related the lodge was only a place to eat and she avoided it at all costs because it was where the director and staff who could boss her around hung out.)

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Skinny Dipping!

Published on by Kathy Baker

“Having a boys’ camp across the lake did not stop the tradition of bathing in the lake in the forties’ and fifties’. Mary Jo Stegall camped in1933-41 and did just that. (I imagine the campers had been participating in this ritual when the camp was built in the twenties’ and kept it up until showers were installed.)

“I remember how silly we got when we got into the lake to bathe in our bathing suits,” said Shirley Colbert (1941). “Part of the suit would eventually come off, and although we never saw them, we always worried about those boys at the camp across the lake coming over.”

Back in the day, there were Saturday night baths and Bev Lemanski (1945). remembered Ivory was the requested soap because it floated. “There we all were in Loon Lake “au naturel” and then we would spot the canoes from the boys camp trying to get close enough to see us,” she laughed. The coldness of the lake and going in for the first time is a memory that stayed with Ellen Hydorn (1954), who had a special little soap dish she used for her lake baths.

Sally Harris, who camped in the late forties’ and early fifties’, could still remember taking those Saturday night baths, and the girls worried so much about the boys that they would run into the water as fast as they could.

Janice Moore (1953) laughed as she related an incident when some of the girls went for a walk off limits and close to the water. “There was poison ivy, so we went into the hut near the water and took off our shorts and washed off with soap in the lake in case we did get poison ivy on us. I guess there was a couple in a fishing boat that came by and saw this horrible display and we were all admonished for being off limits.”

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