“I loved camp and went every year until 1941,” said Edna Young,” and my Mom couldn’t understand why I liked it. Every year I stayed longer. I got so I stayed six weeks! I was an only child, so it was fine to be there with girls my own age. There were many girls from Bay City and we would all leave for camp from the Bay City Y.W.C.A. In those days camp was considered expensive. I had many friends who could not go, since it was the Depression, but I got acquainted with many girls from Pontiac, Detroit and Royal Oak. I was also friends with Natalie Seaholm, who was the adopted daughter of the Seaholm family for which the school in Birmingham is named.”
“I was an extrovert, and embodied the song “Girls Just Want To Have Fun”, and I wanted to do everything I could possibly do at camp,” said Susan Bradford (1965). “I had just finished sixth grade and was a student leader and my Mom was a teacher. I had two brothers, one older and one younger. They all loved guns and hunting, so it was no big deal for me to pick up a gun at camp and learn riflery. I had friends who went to camp with me and I think I hung out more with people I knew, and I don’t remember any cliques—just the older girls shunned the younger ones to be cool and didn’t want to do any of the baby stuff,” she laughed.
Kerry Weber thinks she might have been one of the youngest girls to go to Camp Maqua in 1952, when her mother talked the powers-to-be into allowing her to attend. “I was seven and I wanted to go because some of my friends were going, but I ended up in a different cabin. I had no problems with homesickness, but some girls did. In fact, when they came to pick my up, I was down a the lake swimming and someone had dumped all my stuff outside the cabin, because the new girls were coming in.”
Barb Ballor was eight years old in 1951 when she first went to Camp Maqua and has strong memories of the three or four years that she camped. Her mother, Marian Buelow had attended, as well as cousins and sisters. “I didn’t go with my sisters because they were older, but I did go with a playmate from Royal Oak,” she said. “Her name was Judy Johnson and she was so homesick. It was the first time I had been away from home. Two weeks was a long time to be away from your family at that age, but I was HAPPY!”
A few years Vicki-Wynne Parry (1965-68) took friends from home and felt like it was a mistake. “When I took friends, it was a learning experience because sometimes having them there created a tension. But, in general, I felt like it was an unbelievable experience to get along with others, to compete without animosity and to learn to accept different people with different looks and different ways of keeping themselves. When you are forced to live with seven other girls, you learn what you have to do to become accepted. The broad spectrum of activities forced us young girls into things we would have never done and showed us the world was open to us. I never felt like there were any cliques or prejudices, but it wasn’t a real diverse group. Everybody liked me because I was small. I think they were protective of me. I never noticed anyone being mean except a girl named Janet and I think it was more of a competitive thing.”
Alice Pollack and Nancy Keeler went to Camp Maqua together in 1973 when they were in the eighth grade and were twelve or thirteen years old. “Crafty” (Sue Redford) was their counselor and they shared her hut that summer with Mary Lee, Lori Smith and Mary Leavette. Never homesick for a moment, Nancy was considered outgoing, but she felt having Alice there helped to keep her from feeling lonely, even though she made friends with other girls.
Carolyn Stanton (1947) was thrilled to leave strict parents and join her Washington School friends at camp. Mary Jo Stegall knew the girls from Bay City in the thirties, but could still remember making two new friends—Sheila McLaine and Martha McMillan. Audrey Graff was only ten when she went with her girlfriend in 1948, and although she missed her dog and family, she continued at camp until she became a CIT.
“I loved having my friend Cindy Raposa in my cabin with me and we still keep in touch. In fact, when my Dad died and her Mom died, our two parents hooked up and they have been “holding hands” for ten years now. Just another reason to stay in touch with my friend Cindy,” said Sue Kiltie (1960-68).
Anne Esau attended with Teresa Scollon and Andrea Barnes from Cass City in the early seventies, and stayed in the same cabin. Although shy and a bit homesick, she loved her time there and did make new friends that would become pen-pals after camp.
‘My Mom said I was difficult,” said Jan Bateson,, “but I liked people. I was a tomboy with two older brothers in the house and I think my Mom worried something would happen to me. I had no fear.” Jan attended with her friend Loni in 1951, but skipped 1952 when her friend did not go back, but decided to return in 1953.
Janice Moore had many of her childhood friends at camp in 1953, so in her quietness did not make new friends, but Val Van Laan did just the opposite. She went by herself, knew girls at camp and chose not to hang out with them. Sharon Wilcox shared the same hut in the late forties with her good friend Sally Grant, who talked about the camp until the day she died.
Were you interested in making new friends when you went to camp?