1960’s

The Music Is Tucked In My Heart–

Published on by Kathy Baker

Maqua scans_Aug73_1-2Sheryl Biesman, contacted me after googling Camp Maqua, ( after finding the article from the Bay City Times), and belongs to a writers’ group and has always been interested in writing. Some of her writings are centered on camp memories.

“I wrote about the music, because the camp songs were trapped inside my head. It was a time in my life that music influenced my life. I have been searching for a cassette tape that I captured as a twelve-year old at the final ceremony. I love to record everything. (Photos, music, etc.) When I listened to it, I realized someone had whispered in it—hope to see you next year,” said Sheryl, who realized that it would never happen since the camp closed. She carried the memories and songs and friendships in her mind, as well as her pen-pal relationships.

With her career in marketing and degree from U of M in communications, Sheryl was an early adopter of technology.  When camp closed in 1978, the internet was already in process, with e-mail not far behind in 1995, according to Sheryl. “There were twenty years with music in my head. Napster rolled around and I searched and found the songs from camp. It was my first experience hearing them since camp and it was incredible. With YouTube, I could see many of the songs being sung. Hundreds of camp songs. There was nothing I could not find on YouTube. It was a major revelation when I googled this wacky song by Tom Lehrer in 1962, who turned out to be a folk artist who sang this song “Rickity Tickity Tin”, It was also a revelation to me that all these songs we sang at camp were covers for popular songs like Peter, Paul and Mary’s songs. I can remember a Spiders Web song, but I can’t find the origin.”

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Even The Walls Sing!

Published on by Kathy Baker

553620_3521084516433_30991956_n“We were always singing,” said Kimela Peck (1966-74), who said she could still see “Beanie” with her guitar by the fireplace and the girls in their “whites” swaying back and forth to “High On Chapel Hill”.

“The lodge was filled with kids all summer long from Bay City, Saginaw, Flint and Detroit and everyone seemed to have a good time,” said Nancy Sautter (1968-70). “The staff worked hard to make it fun. Everyone sang. I played a guitar, but poorly, but I remember Barb (Haggart), her guitar and her ‘Montague” routine and singine “Adelina”. We had such fun!”

“I was not not a picky eater and I ate everything and I loved being in the lodge,” said Jenifer Penzien (1969-71). “I can still see the words to the songs on big pieces of paper on the wall and “Beanie” leading us in songs. Two songs I still remember are the “Ram Sam Sam” song and “Little Bunny FooFoo”.

“Beanie” (Barbara Haggart) made up all the activities, led the songs and played her guitar. “We sang after lunch and after dinner. I wrote out some of the songs on big poster boards and tacked them to the lodge walls. I later mimeographed them into a songbook for the staff. I think I still have them.”

“I was an only child. I went to camp late in life at age thirteen and was only supposed to stay for two weeks, but I called home and asked to stay the whole summer. I was always interested in sports, sang in church choirs and in college and learned the baritone ukulele while I was living in the dorm,” said Barbara.  It would turn out that her favorite interests would be what created the perfect counselor and director, where she would be remembered for her singing, her love of the sporting activities and her fairness as a director.

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Sing For Your Supper–

Published on by Kathy Baker

“The lodge and the food were wonderful,” said 529777_3521098916793_2124056752_nMinette Jacques, the skinny kid from the fifties’ who loved to eat. “I loved the backwards meal, where we ate dessert first and all the way back to our salad. And we sang our prayer and the chant of “able, able, get your arms off the table”, when someone had their elbows on the table. I also remember Billie singing “No Man Is An Island” and she led us in the “Johnny Appleseed” prayer.”

“I inherited a good speaking voice,” said Minette Immerman (1938-41), when I complimented her young sounding eighty-two year old voice. “I loved the singing and we sang a lot after dinner in the lodge. I can still remember the lyrics to the last one. Run along home and jump into bed. Say your prayers and cover your head. This very same thing I say unto you, you dream of me and I’ll dream of you.”

Missy Plambeck (1968-78) hated the announcements, but loved the singing after every meal and the song they all sang to Edna the cook. “There were songs on paper on the walls of the lodge, but some we didn’t sing because they were so old. I do remember singing one of them and my daughter asked me how I knew the song. I told her it was from camp and she said not else should know that, since it was a sorority song.”

She was one of many who remembered singing to “Cookie”. Debbie Tweedie (1965-72) said, ”We would make the cooks come out of the kitchen with this song and they would run around the table, and beg Beanie to play her songs and  I can still sing the “elbows on the table song”, but, we also had our table responsibilities in the lodge.”

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Music, Music, Music—

Published on by Kathy Baker

23505_115400755153605_1775792_nPicture a sheet music with notes, and then picture the notes of music leaving the page—floating over the camp, through the lodge dining hall, past the flagpole, down to the campfire, back up to Chapel Hill and down through the cabins of all the little campers. Music tied the camp together and those notes were not invisible. They poured forth from every girl who attended camp and they left lasting impressions. The piano, phonograph and music were at home in the lodge, and many girls learned their first tunes there.

The piano was a memory for Kerry Weber (1952), who decided no one knew any other song except “Chopsticks”, but the happy songs remain in her mind. When friends threw her a surprise party for her fiftieth birthday, someone mentioned Camp Maqua and ten girls stood up and proceeded to sing “We Are The Girls From Camp Maqua”.

Barb Ballor (1951-55) asked me to picture five elderly ladies singing as she and her four girlfriends met recently in Florida for a get-together– all in the kitchen singing the same song.

The rendition of one of the Camp Maqua songs came to me from Maribeth Morton (1974-75). “We welcome you to Camp Maqua, We’re mighty glad you’re here. We’ll send the air reverberating with our cheer. We’ll sing you in, we’ll sing you out, To you we raise a mighty shout: Hail, hail, the gangs all here, and you’re welcome to Camp Maqua”.

Mary Jane Keschman (1944-54) hated getting up early to raise the flag, but she loved the evenings at camp when the counselors would begin at the caretaker’s cottage and walk around to serenade all the cabins with slow, sad songs.

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You Can Never Have Enough—-

Published on by Kathy Baker

fullsizerender-20Many campers could trace their present day love for all things arts and crafts to their days at Maqua, including Maggie Young, who felt so fortunate to have the exposure during the sixties and seventies. Carol Requadt (1945) could still remember the cedar smell of the craft hut where she loved working with her hands.

Mary Hewes (1946) and MaryJane Keschman (1944-54) loved the traditions at camp, including the arts and crafts. “I remember making Gimp bracelets with four strands of plastic woven together and a leather lanyard that I gave to my brother. We also sanded wooden bowls until they were smooth, “ said Mary. For MaryJane, it was the wooden plate with her mother’s initials and the same Gimp bracelets that were her favorites.

“In the arts and crafts hut, there were work benches and tables in picnic table style”, said Caryl Sue Abendroth, who loved that they could work on their leather keychains, basket weaving or lanyards in the fifties, even on rainy days.

Lanterns and tile ashtrays were the craft of choice for Helen Thompson in 1968. A paperweight with a four- leaf clover embedded inside, formed with a regular three leaf and a single one added, pleased Bev Lemanski’s father in 1945. For Beverly Schlatter, who loved the craft hut in the forties, it did not matter what she brought home to her parents, she just liked working with flowers, stones, glue and scissors.

The little yellow painted bowl, with I LOVE YOU inscribed on it, is still in the possession of Maureen Moore’s mother from the sixties, as well as Patsy Walsh’s little leather woven purse in the shape of a triangle from 1938!

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Copper Enameling and Dippity Glass Flowers

Published on by Kathy Baker

EPSON003_1024 13“I remember arts and crafts, weaving the unfinished lanyards that we were making for our girl crushes, or sitting on the dock dipping the straw into the lake to wet the pieces down to make baskets that probably never got made,” said Cara Prieskorn (1966-71). There were also bracelets made from what appeared to be leather shoelaces that we tied in knots and wore on our wrists until they rotted off. But, I did make a copper enamel poodle pin for my Mom that was light blue with a dark eye and she still wears it. I just told her recently, OK Mom, you can stop wearing that pin now and she told me she likes to wear it!”

A kiln sat safely in a corner of the craft hut for copper enameling, but only staff were allowed to use it. Leslie Ciesielski and Kathy Allen were craft directors in 1970 and they handled about 12-15 students each hour. That year, along with copper enameling, beaded necklaces, Zodiac signs in plaster and Dippity glass flowers were popular.

“The Dippity Glass Flowers were simple, but not practical for a crafts class,” their activity report stated. “Many times, we had to dispose of half-full jars because they had thickened so rapidly.”

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