Music, dance, song and instruments played a huge part of the camp experience during every era, from the early years up until the closing. One of the earliest memories belonged to a camper who stopped by the lodge in 1987. A flood of nostalgia swept over her, as she sat down at the original camp piano and played some of the old Maqua songs.
“One thing that attacted me from the start was that we sang most of the time,” said Meg Dahlem, twenties’ camper. “On the bus coming from Bay City, through Pinconning, Standish, Twining, Turner, Whittemore, and Hale, we sang loudly, so as to attract the attention of the townspeople, the same song over and over—from city limits to city limits. It was always, “Oh Camp Maqua, we sing to thee. The place where every girl longs to be. Among the girls and counselors gathered round. We are the CAMPERS. Are we a preppy crew? Well, yes, I guess! We are the same that put the aim and fame. Always game, in Camp Ma—qua!”
“We had some little blue covered songbooks, about the size of a checkbook, with the words to many of the songs we used, but of course, we knew most of them by heart after a few times around,” wrote Meg’s friend Harriet Crumb, twenties’ camper. “Most of them had hand, arm or body motions to accompany the singing. We sang at the table, and around the campfire, either on the beach or by the big fireplace.”
“As I attended other girls’ camps during those years, I learned that part of the criteria for a good camp was the quality of these camp songs that were used. They were not school songs, nor popular dance tunes. They were CAMP songs. One very popular one, adjustable to the year, was: “1—-9—-2—-9, At Maqua Camp, No other year the same. Every girl a comrade true. Whatever school or name or fame. 1—9—-2—-9. At Maqua Camp, Sunset and evening glow. But it’s the inspiration most, That makes us love it so.”
“During one of the first two years that I was at Maqua, we put on a show for our own entertainment. It was such a success—at least we thought so, that we went to Hale and put it on for the townspeople! I cannot remember much about it. I was, of course, one of the younger girls. (Save that it featured a long song that was a parody of “Among my Souvenirs”), she wrote.
A scrapbook from 1929 noted that separate camps took turns singing camp songs, and were entertained by different acts on a musical saw, harmonica, a violin and “taps” was featured.
Edna Young camped in 1932 and remembered singing by the fireplace in the lodge. “I remember a lot of singing and we sang Negro Spirituals. There were some college girls from Ohio, and even though I am a Michigan person, I sang their college song.”
In 1937, the camp put together an orchestra, featuring Mary Jane Norris with her clarinet, Margaret Winster and counselor Nadine Bell on harmonicas, and Mary Jane as the camp bugler, who was proficient with her clarinet, as well as the trumpet.
Meg Dahlem sat in the lodge in 1987 at the original camp piano and played a rendition of one of the camp songs, but she remembered the ballroom dancing in the evenings with the campers and counselors. Miss Schilling, who was a music major, would sing around the fireplace with girls and play her ukulele. “Follow The Gleam” was either the best song in the YWCA competition or was in their Golden Songbook.
“I remember playing the song “Isle of Capri” on the piano and years later when I visited the Isle of Capri, I could still remember that song,” said Marilyn Levine, who camped in the early thirties. “The piano teacher, or maybe she was the director, made all the difference to my experience.”
Dorothy Niedzielski (1946-47) recalled the lodge when it was cold, they would sit by the fireplace. “There was a huge gramophone, with the big speaker, like Thomas Edison had.”
Do any of you remember playing on the piano or listening to the gramophone?