“The office is considered anything behind the counter in the lodge,” Christine Varney wrote in her 1969 report. Her office consisted of two desks, one old Royal typewriter, a glass cabinet with office supplies, a Spirit Duplicator with instructions and twelve wall boxes– one for each cabin, immediately to the right as you came in the entrance door.( Pictured above is the entrance that faced hut one, with the office inside the door to the right.)
Each cabin had a “mailman” who picked up the mail for the “anxious campers” in her cabin. When the campers wished to mail their letters, they pushed them through a slot in the counter, which was located in the lodge, and a box on the reverse side caught them. The mail was collected at 9:30, when Chris would go into town for groceries. She sometimes had so much mail that a mail strap had to be used, and Chris never went in without money to pay for postage due. (The amounts were tallied and added to camper’s account.) She sorted the mail, using an alphabetical list above the counter for referencing each girl’s cabin number. If there was a package, a slip was sent to let the girls know to pick it up in the lodge office. The staff also had their own mailboxes. Other mail was taken to the mailbox outside the lodge, which was picked up after lunch.
Chris also handled the “Trading Post’, which was the camp store. The girls were allowed to visit the store after breakfast and lunch for stationary, candy, stamps, combs, etc. In the afternoon only ice cream and candy were sold. The girls lined up single file and when the items were purchased, they were written on their card, which was in alphabetical order. There was usually a volunteer helper to assist Chris with the process. At the end of each week, the girl’s cards were totaled and the total was relayed to the camper.
Most of the store items were stored in the lodge, with some in the store, and when supplies were low the director would go to town to resupply. There was a white cabinet that held all the candy and freezers on the back porch and storage hut for ice cream. “They can consume about three boxes of ice cream and four boxes of candy a day,” she wrote, “but they are allowed one ice cream and one candy.”
To keep it cold in the store, they used a white Styrofoam box with a lid. The stationary items and staff photos were arranged on the counter in the store in the morning and the key was always kept in the director’s room. During pre-camp Chris learned how to type and run off the cabin/camper list, alphabetical camper list, and area forms. The camper caper schedule, counselor caper schedule, and camper duty schedule were run off once, but occasionally there was a staff list made or pictures of butterflies for nature or camper sign in and sign out slips. An envelope at the front desk held all the receipts for groceries, hardware, drug store and errands that may have to be run by the office girl.
When all the inventories were taken in June, Chris had to retype them in duplicate and save until August, making sure she had numbered them. The “Loon” camp newspaper was put out each session and was typed on a stencil and “run off on a monstrous machine which I never learned to run because Lee Engle always ran it off for us,” she wrote. There was also a telephone bill on the wall inside the phone booth and as it filled, it was taken down for later and a new one was taped up.
“I’m sure the tempo that you will certainly find in doing your work will vary from the one this year because you will be under new management. (You) may change forms, ideas and ways of doing things, but this is how we did it this year. If you don’t have a nervous breakdown before camp is over, I may come up to see how you worked out”, she wrote, “but GOOD LUCK!”
Rhonda Thayer was the business manager/office girl at Camp Maqua from 1974-1977 and was hired after her graduation from Hale High School in 1973, just as she started as a math major in secondary education at Eastern Michigan University. She worked every summer registering campers, purchasing items for the camp store, driving and transferring girls to canoe trips, keeping the books, and buying groceries when needed.
“Since I was a math major, they figured I would be good with numbers. I had to keep the books straight and there were always one hundred plus campers for each session. I made $400 the first summer, $500 the second and $600 the third. Each kid came on Sunday and their parents would put money into their account and they would draw off their account for candy and store purchases and I spent most of my time keeping that straight and answering the phone calls in the lodge. I did not get around camp much because someone had to be on site.”
Did you ever work in the business office as a counselor? What do you remember about your job?