Homesickness–#2

Published on November 21, 2016February 21, 2017 by Kathy Baker

Young girls who were on the receiving end of the kindnesses during their bouts of homesickness remember the methods that worked.

Sally Harris (late forties) had fallen and cut her leg very deeply and had to have stitches. “The nurse from camp was very nice and she let me be with her and was so kind to me since I couldn’t go swimming or do many of the activities. She really saved me with her kindness, since I was so lonesome.”

“I was very homesick”, said Mary Jo Rawlings, who camped in the late fifties. “I was a mess and couldn’t wait to go home. But, I had a very kind and accepting counselor nicknamed ‘Dodo” (Diane Dudley 1957-63), who was helpful and didn’t push me hard. I didn’t feel childish. Of course, in the end I couldn’t wait to go back, but when my parents came up after the first week and I begged them to take me home, they wouldn’t. It was the first time I had been homesick and I spent a lot of time crying.”

The busy-ness of camp kept Linda Greenwald (1948) and Carol Requadt (1945) from their moments of loneliness, but for eight year old Chris Lambert (first timer in 1958) it was more.

“I was homesick for two days until I realized it was a place of inclusiveness and there were so many activities that I forgot how homesick I was. It was scary because it was unfamiliar and I was doing something new and at that time I was not a huge risk taker. It was the little girl insecurities of fitting in.”

Janet Dixon had her moments of homesickness in 1951, but knew she just had to “stick it out”. She had a little of that fighting spirit as she admitted,” I would never think of going back home like some girls. That would be like giving up or admitting defeat. But, those lonely feelings were markedly offset by strong feelings of satisfaction and empowerment in being independent for the first time. All of those feelings had a great impact on my maturity.”

Homesickness–#1

Published on November 16, 2016February 21, 2017 by Kathy Baker

“We used to have homesick campers, but like everything else in the world, the words keep getting changed, so now the camper who used to be homesick is lonely”, wrote director Barbara Haggart in her report in the early seventies.

She suggested counselors look for these symptoms—poor appetite, wandering off alone, and stomach-aches and headaches that occurred at mealtimes and times of low activity and maintained the root cause of this situation was most often an over attachment between the camper and her parents. Many of the young girls felt like their parents wanted to get rid of them. Some believed they were missing something at home or their preconceived notion of what camp was going to be just did not meet their expectations.

The counselors were key to the issue of turning a girl’s feelings around to the idea that camp would be a great experience and were instructed to keep the girls busy, listen carefully without minimizing the young camper’s feelings and give her the attention she needed.

“I recognized there was a lot more payment than the financial reward and I think my campers felt it”, said Sue Wiegand (1966-67). “With the smaller kids, there was always a few traumatized by homesickness and some would go home, but the older kids were not that far removed in age from us. We knew to give them enough rein and they felt comfortable telling us their problems. The ability to relate as a counselor was so important. We realized that some of the fears they had as campers, we had as counselors. But, they knew we respected them and treated them with no judgement. Sometimes it was easier that you were not direct family. We cared and listened and it permeated Maqua.”

Boathouse Cabin Envy–

Published on November 14, 2016February 21, 2017 by Kathy Baker

Jan Mosier and Geraldine McDonald had memories of cabin three, which was renamed “Sleepy Hollow” in the fifties and although Senior Village was the furthest from the lodge and was a highly desirable spot, no cabin created envy more than the one atop the boathouse!

Carla Wilhelm, Helen Hasty, Yolanda Erickson and Sally Harris had all attended camp in the forties and were a bevy of campers who wistfully recalled the enchantment cabin nine had for them, but they never had the chance to stay.

Maureen Moore remembered being in the cabin down the stairs and to the left in the late sixties before her stay in Senior Village, but never got into the boathouse cabin. “The wood floors were always sandy and the beds were awful, but cool, and everyone wanted the top bunk with the area on the wall for our flashlight and personal things.”

“The big thing was to be in that hut above the boathouse, but the year I could be in it, we stayed in Senior Village” said Kerry Weber, who began in 1952. “It was the first year it was built and a group of girls from Essexville were in with me. We thought we were so grown up. I think we wrote on every board in there.”

Located above the boathouse and reached only by a stairway, the larger cabin was situated on the shoreline of Loon Lake, next to the campfire pit and directly in front of the craft hut. When the windows were open, the waves lulled the girls to sleep and the plaintive cries of the Loons echoed under the stars. It was camping magic.

Dorothea Kelton was thirteen in 1940, when she left for Maqua for two weeks. As an only child, she loved camp and attended with friends. They stayed together and always preferred the cabin over the boathouse,

Walls That Talk–

Published on November 9, 2016February 21, 2017 by Kathy Baker

The walls did talk, or at least the girls felt like they did, as a tradition developed to write their names on the walls in toothpaste or lipstick. “My Mom always wondered why we wanted extra toothpaste”, laughed Kim Moore (1968-1972), “but you know we just had to write our names on the cabin walls!”

Priscilla Johns saved the little bit at the end of the tube, in the sixties, to end her session with her signature. Others wrote in lipstick. Some of the campers had no recollection of names written on the walls and were horrified at the thought of defacement, but others say the tradition developed early enough that their previous generations had left their calling card.

“I remember putting my stuff on the cross bars of the wall, but we would have never written our names or put graffiti on the walls. There would have been hell to pay”, said Mary Lou Goggin, who was a horseback riding instructor in the sixties and one of the artists who created the muslin wall map of the camp. (Her way of leaving a piece of history still hangs on the walls today.)

Honor Banner or Shame Flag?

Published on November 7, 2016February 21, 2017 by Kathy Baker

Harriet Crumb’s friend Margaret Dahlem,who had also been an inaugural camper on the Loon Lake site, stopped by in 1987 to see if the camp still existed. I took notes on her memories, which included cabin inspections.

“There were no counselors in the cabins, but there was always an inspection in the morning and beds had to be made with square corners. Fingernails were also inspected. If you did not make your bed, you received a demerit. It was not a good thing to have points off.”

In 1947 a new way to inspect the huts was instituted, with excellent, good and fair ratings. Inspections were conducted, in later years, by a camp nurse. Zoe McGrath, fifties camper, found herself on the other end of cleanliness as the camp nurse in 1967. An Honor Cabin banner was hung on the outside of the cleanest cabin.

Judy MacNichol’s memory from 1946 included an attempt to have the cleanest hut and win the contest for some extra privileges. “We took some girl’s washcloth and scrubbed the entire floor with it. I cannot imagine what that mother thought when she washed it.”

Rest Time=Quiet Time

Published on November 2, 2016February 21, 2017 by Kathy Baker

“Things ended up as any Sunday would, and I am thoroughly exhausted,” wrote an anonymous girl in an article in the “Loon” in 1947. “As I lay on my bunk, it is quiet except for the kids bellowing; it’s dark except for the flashing flashlights; and it’s peaceful, except for the individual under me, who is bouncing me.”

Dawn Kober (1977), who was in a cabin with all her friends, had the loudest cabin in 1977. “We were supposed to settle down at night, and we got in trouble for making so much noise.” The bunk beds with springs may not have been the most comfortable in the world, but at the end of an activity filled day, the girls should have cared only about sleep. (Well, nighttime foolishness with girls? Pranks and talking? Maybe not)

Kim Hartwig (1976) must have been in with Dawn in the cabin renamed “Potawatami” at the bottom of the hill as you headed to the lake. “We were loud in that cabin and when the counselors left us to go down to the campfire, we were close enough they could hear us and they would yell “Shut Up Potawatami”, she laughed.

There was a quiet time after lunch, when girls would rest from their morning activities and staff would have a break from giggling gaggles of girls. The rest period began in the early years, encouraging an hour to rest before swimming. “I heard all my growing up years that we had to wait a half hour at least after eating before we could go back in the water or we would get cramps and drown,” said Mary Jo Rawlings, who loved swimming in the fifties.

Gail Schultheiss had distinct memories of rest period after lunch in 1966, where the girls were instructed to stay on their bunks and read, write letters home or nap. “Our counselors knew if we were up to any shenanigans,” she laughed. Many girls, like Minette Jacques (1955-57), always had a book in her hand during rest time.

Girls of Camp Maqua

My Book ~ Your Story

1960’s