The Health Department Sanitation Record and Report form for the summer camp dated June 7,1960 listed Alice Bishop as the director. Under the toilet, lavatory and shower facilities heading, fourteen flush toilets were listed, with good ventilation, lighting and drainage.
The camp committee met in June 1963 and authorized the purchase of one more Bradley Basin, and repair the existing one. (The money from the nursery school donation paid for the sink.) The sink cost $265.63, with an installation fee for plumbers of $135.00. Mr. Watson, the caretaker, took care of all the details for hiring and installation.
Copies of the “Loon” were inserted into the back of a report in 1966 and one was titled “New Brownie Installed” and read: “On arriving at camp this year we found to our delight and surprise a new “Brownie” had been built down by Senior Village. Campers can now take hot showers for the first time this year. What a difference from our cold scrub dips in Loon Lake.”
The second period of the “Loon” or “Maqua Magpie” dated July10-23, 1966 headlined “Behold! Senior Village Has A New Brownie!” It was open in time for second session and it had hot showers. Of course, the girls were delighted! Mary Obey (1965-66), Marcia Michelson (1963-71) and Gail Schulthiess (1966) were all at camp that summer, and took advantage of the new facilities, as they had distinct memories of the bathrooms.
“That’s a lot better than scrub dips in Loon Lake. Except for the usual problems that occurred in the old “Brownie” (out of order signs), the new Brownie appears to be the best thing to happen to Maqua since Senior Village was built. The usual pranks have already taken place– including water fights and toothpaste on door handles. The Senior Village Brownie has relieved the crowd from the old one and also the problem of pushing to get water to brush your teeth,” stated the article.
Helen Thompson camped in 1968 when she was seven and said the Brownie had a distinct smell, but Randi Wynne-Parry (1969-73) had memories of a clean camp, even the bathroom! Kathleen Dworman (1966) recalled the camp was pretty run down and hated going to the bathroom because there was always an inch of water on the floor.
“The Brownies? Ugh, I had forgotten about that nickname. I had to use the bathroom a few times in the middle of the night. Every night,” said Anne Essau, who camped in the seventies’. “It was creepy, the flashlight walk to a nasty, dark, wet hole with spiders.spiders, but I survived.”
Most of the girls had more vivid memories of walking the litte trail to the camp bathrooms. “We would carry our little soap, and the sink was huge with a pedal that you pumped while everyone brushed their teeth,” said Jeri Smith (1965), “but cleanliness was never our top priority at camp.”
What are your childhood memories of the walk to the Brownie?
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