“I was somewhat aware and in denial at the same time, while I was at camp and in those college years, of my sexuality,” admitted L.D, who was at camp in the late sixties. “I had a boyfriend, but wasn’t really all that interested in him. One of the other counselors eventually made me talk about it, but she did it in a nice way. I think they all knew at camp, but I waited several years before I came out.”

For some, like K.M., who was just a hugger during the same era, and had no confusion, it was the summer of awareness for her. “I loved that I could walk around camp with my arms wrapped around another girl or arms linked, appropriately, and no one cared. I could hold hands swinging and feel comfortable. I don’t remember ever having any girl crushes, but I do remember the summer there was a rumor about another girl liking another girl and I just never knew anything about those things. We just never talked about sexuality.”

One woman in the early sixties had applied for the job as a college student from an ad in the Bay City Times. Having passed her water safety instruction classes through the Red Cross, she felt she could write her own ticket for a summer job, knowing WSI instructors “were hard to come by”. Her degree was in physical education from a college in Illinois and she had been a counselor at a Girl Scout camp and a Pioneer Girls camp in the Poconos.

She felt her summer with her waterfront job was fine until the last day, when she alleged her director made sexual advances toward her. She was to help with the last day’s closing-up of Camp Maqua, but told her she refused to help her and if she said one word about it, she would report the incident to the Bay City “Y”. In a second interview, she felt she did the right thing not reporting, as she had not noticed the director had ever been inappropriate with the young girls.

“I didn’t know about lesbianism at that time. I probably should have reported her to the school system in Detroit, where she worked as a physical education teacher, but I never did. She was a cold, strict woman who you could not talk to. I was OK with my decision not to report her.”

She spent six weeks at Camp Maqua and then walked away, but as a professed introvert, she stated she had never been close to any of the other counselors. “The best part of that summer was working with the kids. I lived above the boathouse and would wander around and talk to different groups of kids. It was okay until the last day.”

Another counselor during that time had differing stories, but nothing inappropriate.(M.G., although straight, did admit she had a girlhood crush on another counselor.) She did remember one of the counselors going crazy over another girl, leaving notes on her bed,which she found to be obnoxious. “She expected to find her behind trees following her”, she said.

As F.S. stated of the later years at camp, it was unspoken knowledge that many staff members were gay, although she was oblivious and uncaring.  “Why else would women who were not married spend most of their summer at a girls’ camp?”

*Although, these opinions reflect the many memories and vignettes of campers and staff, I personally believe many women truly enjoyed the company of other women without the drama of boys around. I attended an all girls’ college in the sixties and seventies, and it was a time of awareness and experimentation in light of the times. Women often excelled without the distraction of males, and I was one of those women. I chose to leave out names, although the women interviewed had no qualms about sharing their stories.” (author)