Reverse Homesickness–#3

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

Margot Homburger (1946-50) signed up for two weeks and asked for more. “At that time, I ended up moving into a different cabin with different girls and then I was just a little homesick, so maybe I was there just a little too long. But, every year I waited for that flyer to come and my friends and I would try to get into the same cabin, but we always made new friends. We used to leave camp in tears and cry all the way to Standish and couldn’t wait to get back the next year.”

Gretchen Jacques (1955) could not relate to the homesick girls and loved the woods and sleeping outside. Although her mother did not like to camp, the family used to rent places on Mullet Lake and continued with two of her sisters buying on the same lake. “As a kid, I hated to leave those places, too. My whole family felt like that. I loved it and hated to leave, just like camp. I called it reverse homesick.”

Pam Hartz (1966-75) loved camp and could not wait to go back each summer. “After eight weeks, I just did not want to leave at all, and I loved being a counselor. I liked that I could be a shoulder to cry on for the girls who were homesick, or had to have braces or whatever.”

“When we left, we would cry all the way home. My Mom called it camp sickness instead of homesickness,” said Betsy Falvey (1968-75). “I was never homesick. Instead I would sit in my room and write letters to my friends and counselors from camp. Honestly, I was more homesick when I went off to college!”

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.

Cabins And Tents–#1

Published on October 26, 2016February 21, 2017 by Kathy Baker

EPSON MFP image — “Thirty four years ago in the spring of 1924, Camp Maqua, the YWCA camp for girls on Loon Lake, near Hale, Michigan opened for the first time”, a press release dated February 5, 1958 read. “Sixty-two girls enrolled that first season, though camping facilities were meager and living was rustic as cabins were non-existent. Tents were standard shelter—for it was not until the following year on May 11, 1925 that eight cabins and the main lodge were completed and dedicated.”

Tents were also standard accommodations for the many girls who camped the previous years from 1916-1924 at Aplin Beach, Killarney Beach and Sand Lake locations. Notes from minutes in 1945 noted that a new hut was to be built with a $500 gift and “will house occupants of the worn out tent”.

The Aladdin Company of Bay City provided the many cabins over the years, building new ones as the demand for more space came with increased enrollment. The bare board cabins, sized 14 feet by 18 feet, were large enough to accommodate four bunk beds for the girls and one cot for the camper, footlockers and a meager walkabout. The wooden front door, screen door and eight screened windows with pulley windows kept out the elements or allowed for cross ventilation on hot summer days.

“I remember how the cabins were isolated and to use water, we had to walk to a separate building. I used a flashlight and I was uncomfortable and scared walking in the dark by myself. The cabins themselves were spartan, with bunk beds, and we had not reason to stay in the cabin except to sleep. I just remember a lot of brown inside and outside, dark and not much sunlight,” said one camper, whose description fit that of many.

Many of the girls had their favorite cabins, chosen for the proximity to the bathrooms or lodge, or chosen to be as far away from the counselors as possible. Beth Taylor could recall each hut and where they were located in the sixties. The younger girls stayed in huts 1,2 and 3 closest to the lodge; 4,5, and 6 were for middles and the older girls were in 7,8 and 9.

Arrival!

Published on October 10, 2016February 21, 2017 by Kathy Baker

An early copy of “The Loon” was found in the Girl Reserves scrapbook dating back to 1937 with an article entitled “Arrival Day”, which gave a great vignette of what it must have been like for the new girls to land at camp.

“About eleven o’clock Wednesday morning a few girls began to arrive one or two at a time, some with more courageous faces and others with frightened and apprehensive faces. At last about twelve fifteen the bus itself arrived. The new girls clambered out and many greetings could be heard thrown back and forth as a girl ran into an acquaintance of the year before. Also could be heard the many goodbyes from the girls leaving and the more lucky ones who were to stay. The faces of those leaving expressed alternately grief of desire as they viewed for the last time the familiar landmarks of Maqua. After a delicious dinner Miss Epple informed the new girls of the mode of living at camp. Then came physical and swimming examinations followed by the supper bell. After dinner a very delightful program was arranged and a jolly time was had around the campfire. At eight forty-five the girls prepared for the night and all hopped into bed tired but happy and well satisfied with their first, if rather strenuous day at camp.”

Laurie Cone (1962-68) recalled the caretakers helping with the arrival at camp. “Mel and Ollie were the couple who helped us. I can’t remember if Mel or Ollie was the man, but he drove the truck for the camp. The families would unload the girl’s luggage on the archery range beside the lodge. There would be a mark on the ground that signified which cabin the luggage and lockers would go and he would deliver it all. Getting down the hill in muddy conditions was a job!”

Melissa Plambeck (1968-78) still has her footlocker with her photos tucked inside. “I can still remember the truck that would take our footlockers to the cabin and whoever was on the truck would sing, “We Welcome You To Camp Maqua”.

Hop On The Bus!

Published on October 3, 2016February 21, 2017 by Kathy Baker

“Camp Goers Too Busy To Worry About Weather” read the headline from a local Bay City newspaper pasted into the archival scrapbook. “Grade School Registered At Maqua Today: 25 Travel By Bus” was the second headline.

“Too agog about going to camp to care about the gray weather, and too busy lugging crowded bags to bother about rain coats, twenty-five youngsters of grade school age were at the YWCA this morning to board the bus that took them to Loon Lake. Munching candy, and starting to sing before they were even out of town, the crowd made a merry invasion of Camp Maqua for the first camping period of the season”, read the piece from June 26, 1935.

“The girls usually arrived on a bus that left from the YWCA in Bay City”, wrote 1920’s camper Margaret Dahlem in a letter in 1988, “but one rich girl arrived on a white motorcycle.”

There were more ways to arrive in style, as her friend Harriet Crumb could attest to one summer as she stood on the lawn of the lodge. She also rode the bus through Pinconning, Standish, Twining, Turner and Whittemore and into Hale, singing camp songs the entire time and loved the attention she received from the locals as they arrived in town.

“Initially, we were all loaded onto a bus, which belonged to the Y,” recalled Beverly Schlatter (1944-1949), “in front of the old “Y” building. We would meet all our friends there, with our footlockers or trunks packed with clothes or bedding for two weeks. My Dad unloaded the footlocker from the car to the bus and all the parents waved to us. As the bus pulled away, the older girls who had been to camp before, started singing the Maqua camp songs and that’s how we learned them.”

Dutton and the Infirmary

Published on August 24, 2016February 21, 2017 by Kathy Baker

The farmhouse on the shores of Loon Lake was the first structure used as the main building in the summer of 1924 when the Camp Maqua property was purchased.

“Dutton was a farm house on the property, and this was used the first and second years and about twelve girls could be accommodated at one time, with a staff of three. The screened porch (which was added in 1940) was used for indoor activities, and the cooking was done in the same building”, according to a note in the archives.

There were a few discrepancies in the notes as to year the upstairs porch was added to Dutton, but it provided sleeping quarters for the director and the nurse and at one time the dietician.

A few tents were set up for the first campers. Miss Helen Graves, secretary of the Girl Reserve Department of the YWCA was the first camp director and Mrs. E.B. Perry was the camp chairman.

Margaret Dahlem was one of the original campers in the twenties and recalled the nurse’s first aid room was near the kitchen in the lodge during her stay. Beverly Schlatter, who had camped in the mid forties, recalled a tent/cabin, which appeared to be a temporary structure, and was located down the hill from the lodge. “It was used as the Infirmary and it was about 50-60 ft. from the lodge between the craft hut and the lodge. The nurse dispensed meds or we went there if we were ill. I remember I had to go twice a day to get my meds for some reason.”

Girls of Camp Maqua

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1920’s