“Mail was a big thing and I saved the funny letters and postcards that I wrote and my parents, brothers and grandparents wrote to me with encouragement,” said Gail Schultheiss (1966) l, who said she begged for a Maqua sweatshirt and tee shirt in every piece of mail, which her family still laughs about to this day.

Sandy Indianer (1967+) said forming relationships was easy for her, but said if the internet had been invented back then, she probably would have stayed in touch with some of her cabin mates. The way she stayed in touch with family in those days was the weekly letter home—“not long or involved”, but she recalled asking her Mom to have her Dad PRINT her a letter, since he was a doctor and his writing was atrocious. And, he did!

Kim Wynne-Parry (1963-68) also loved getting mail from her parents and grandparents and loved sending postcards home. “I’m pretty sure I wrote in huge letters, so there could not have been much on those cards, but I threw them out a few years ago.”

Her sister Vicki also wrote home to her parents and still has her letter on birchbark. Kay Alcorn also wrote postcards on birch bark once a week.  “I don’t think anyone told us this was not a real good thing for the stately birch trees,” said Kay, who camped in the late forties.

“Basically, I told my Mom I was having a good time and the weather was great,” said sixties camper Deb Wilkinson, who bought her postcards at the same time she bought her ice cream and candy at the camp store.

Camp mail was a sentimental save in many famililes, including Cindy Rose (1968-70), but classic letters included Brooke Sauve’s (1949-51) daughter’s letter that begged her Mom to come get her and the letter Jan Bateson received from her crush (Roger) in 1952.

Jan decided to attend both sessions that second summer of camp and she thought a month sounded great, until Roger’s letter came. The day her Mom and Aunt came for a visit, Jan said she was all packed and waiting to go home. She wasn’t about to miss Roger’s party. “I had the best, most easygoing Mom. Fortunately she did not insist I stay. Roger and I stayed friends for years, but we never became boyfriend and girlfriend,” said Jan.

Jan did try to fix up her older brother, who was in the Air Force, wuth her counselor Suzie Jones. “I have a letter from her. She was so easy-going and quiet. She wrote us all letters when we went home from camp and I thought that was so impressive.”

The letter read: ”Dear Mrs. Bateson, As Sissy’s cabin counselor I am writing you to let you know how she got along in her various camp activities. She was a constant source of fun in the hut as she abounds with pep and good humor. She was well liked by the other girls and was really a joy to be with.  In her swimming class she did quite well, and I certainly enjoyed watching her advance so rapidly in horseback riding. She was always very neat about herself and her belongings and was eager to help in other things that had to be done. I certainly hope that Sissy will be back at Maqua next year as I felt that she profited greatly from her camping experience. Sincerely, Suzie Jones.”

“One year my brother broke his arm, “said Elaine Engibous (1961-63). “He had fallen out of a tree just before we went off to camp. We bribed him with our cookies not to tell our parents and we promised not to say he had been up in the tree, and he went around for a week with a broken arm and when we got the letters from home, we knew he finally got a cast on his arm, and we knew we were going to catch hell when we got home. Oh, how we loved getting those letters from our parents, aunts and uncles and cookies from Grandma.”

And then there were the young girls who did not get mail. ““I was never homesick. In fact, there were people who were there all summer and were there so long that they received mail. I was so jealous of them getting mail that the following year I even wrote myself a letter and had my Mom mail that and one from herself! Just so I would have mail,” laughed Jeananne Grego (1966+).

Were you one of the girls who wrote many letters, received many letters, or received nothing at all? How did it make you feel?