Carol Hulett was the “Camp Health Director” during the time when it was impossible to find a nurse. After her junior and senior years at Albion College, where she majored in Biology, Carol trained under the American Camping Association and “learned to nurse” at camp the summers of 1973-74.

Sue Patenge, director, had recruited her at college and interviewed her the first summer. “That first summer I spent most of my free time with the unattached staff. I had been a counselor and a WSI and had helped out with the horses, so I had plenty of experience,” said Carol, who ended up becoming close friends with Sue after her camping years.

“I was certainly a little apprehensive, but felt ready as I had spent my whole life going to/working at camp. I was a pre-med, so my ego was fairly healthy,” she laughed. “I was also an athletic trainer at Albion College and felt I could handle pretty much anything!”

The last recorded medical staff in the YWCA records was in 1974, with Carol Hulett as camp health director under the directorship of Sue Patenge and local physician Dr.William McCadie was the camp physician.

Although records were not available for the later years of camp, two campers, decades apart, shared salt tablet stories. Shirley Colbert camped in 1941 and laughed as she remembered the plants of flowers on the tables. “They used to give us salt pills, and I’m not sure why we did this, but we used to dump them in the pot on the table. The flowers would die soon after. I wasn’t malicious, and now I understand they were given for our health. ”Nancy Neumyer camped 1975-78 and recalled water skiing and sailing on a 100 degree day and the nurse had to give them all salt pills.

“I did have a traumatic thing that happened at camp. As usual, a wonderful closing ceremony after two sessions at camp—Mom and Dad picked me up the next day and some poison ivy”’ said Tally Cone (1960-65). “Well, I discovered I was highly allergic to poison ivy! I had inhaled it, as it was on wood of the campfire. I came home for a long hot bath. Unbeknownst to me, I had poison ivy.”

“I got it first internally—nose, mouth, throat, vagina, etc. and then it developed externally. Within twenty-four hours, I was covered completely! The hot bath made it spread everywhere! I ended up at the doctor’s with shots, pills and stuff to scrub the sores with—Fels Naptha soap, I think, and then ended up with shot starting in January weekly until I left for Maqua the following year. I was very careful to avoid poison ivy at all costs, both in the woods and at campfires.”

What sent you to the Infirmary? Did you ever get into poison ivy while at camp?