A copy of the revised edition of the “Notes Regarding Closing Camp Maqua” for the season, dated 1954 and updated from August 1950, listed the elements required to successfully close up camp.
The surplus food, that was unopened and would not keep until the following season, had to be returned. The kitchen had to be cleaned well enough that the mice would not have an attraction to it. Bedding had to be stored with paper supplies in Dutton. The screen doors and shutter ropes were removed from the huts for security. The supplies in each area had to be stored safely. The furniture inside and outside the lodge were positioned, rugs were rolled, poison was spread for rodents, windows were latched or shuttered, doors were padlocked, planks were nailed, screens were removed, water was drained, and pumps were covered. At the waterfront, ropes, buoys, riggings, rafts, and anchors were stored inside the boathouse, huts or lodge.
According to Dorthe Balaskas’ 1966 notes, post-camp days were a busy time for the caretaker and a time for the counselors and directors to list repairs needed in their areas. Mert and Ollie Webb were the caretakers at that time and she was always confident of their abilities to handle the general maintenance, but enlisted the help of “Pop” Watson to deal with some of the larger issues to be delegated to the appropriate services, since he was familiar with what had to be done to close up camp.
She had a banquet style meal for the staff after they had packed their bags. All the living areas were checked and counselor notes had to be handed in before she passed out their checks. The frozen food, record player, library books, mimeograph machine, medications and station wagon were taken to the “Y”; the guns were put into storage or repaired, and surplus food was returned to Schwanbecks in Saginaw.
The descriptions from an unknown publication in the archival scrapbook dated 1929-30, (but presumably a Bay City newspaper), had a headline that read: “Maqua is closed: Preparations for Winter Completed”.
“Closed for the winter, without its 65 girls, benches were turned upside down and placed on the dozen tables. One table with its legs in white porcelain pitchers bore six small mattresses and as many rugs, all decently shrouded in paper; two other supported the upholstered cushions of the reed furniture. A grass rug (rolled and tied) hung above the lodge door. A plaque above the fireplace read, ‘Burn merrily”.”
“The narrow yellow timber of the walls and ceilings of the great, high hall showed more distinctly their skeleton construction, a wooden vault with books on the wall and dismantled furniture in awkward postures. In the kitchen cupboards were bare, white porcelain pitchers on the range top, the zinc-lined storeroom was filled with breakfast foods and wool blankets, mousetraps were fed, and doors were locked.”
A beautiful description of a hall of memories–what do you recall of the closing of the lodge and property?