“Having a boys’ camp across the lake did not stop the tradition of bathing in the lake in the forties’ and fifties’. Mary Jo Stegall camped in1933-41 and did just that. (I imagine the campers had been participating in this ritual when the camp was built in the twenties’ and kept it up until showers were installed.)
“I remember how silly we got when we got into the lake to bathe in our bathing suits,” said Shirley Colbert (1941). “Part of the suit would eventually come off, and although we never saw them, we always worried about those boys at the camp across the lake coming over.”
Back in the day, there were Saturday night baths and Bev Lemanski (1945). remembered Ivory was the requested soap because it floated. “There we all were in Loon Lake “au naturel” and then we would spot the canoes from the boys camp trying to get close enough to see us,” she laughed. The coldness of the lake and going in for the first time is a memory that stayed with Ellen Hydorn (1954), who had a special little soap dish she used for her lake baths.
Sally Harris, who camped in the late forties’ and early fifties’, could still remember taking those Saturday night baths, and the girls worried so much about the boys that they would run into the water as fast as they could.
Janice Moore (1953) laughed as she related an incident when some of the girls went for a walk off limits and close to the water. “There was poison ivy, so we went into the hut near the water and took off our shorts and washed off with soap in the lake in case we did get poison ivy on us. I guess there was a couple in a fishing boat that came by and saw this horrible display and we were all admonished for being off limits.”
“We used to take our baths in the lake until the homes started going up around the lake and we had to stop” said Jan Mosier (1947-52). “I also loved the canoeing and sailing. Those trips down the Au Sable were wonderful. About a half dozen of us went one year and we stopped and camped near a bend in the river. We “skinny dipped’ around that bend, so we didn’t see other people coming around. We just stayed under the water.”
There were no showers when Lucille Greenwald (1947-50) and Marsha Immerman (1947-53) camped, so they had to take their suits off and soap up in the lake. Both of them worried about the rowboats that came too close with fishermen who were constantly being shooed off by the counselors.
By 1962, hot showers finally arrived at camp. Valerie Monto (1964-68) hated being cold and the Brownie showers were sometimes cold. It it was nice enough, the girls would just go to the lake, but sometimes the lake was cold and she hated going in.
Skinny-dipping was “quasi-sanctioned”, according to Carolyn Waits (1955-57) because there were showers in the Brownie, but many of the girls loved the idea of those skinny dips on warm summer nights. Some, like Cindy Rose (1968-70) worried about the leeches when bathing in the lake.
“I was in the water every day,” said Dorothy Niedzielski (1946-47). “I know since my sister was around, and she and her friend were in the same cabin, she would have made me wash my hair. I actually think I didn’t have any shampoo and put Tide in my hair, which made me lose all the oil in my hair. My sister also told on me when I went skinny-dipping. She wrote a letter to my Mom, but when she came to visit, she never said a word.”
Susan Prieskorn (1966-72) thinks she never took a shower the entire first summer she camped and Judy MacNicols (1946) doesn’t recall ever brushing her teeth the whole time she was there!
Cara Prieskorn (1966-71) corroborated what her sister said!–“We had these nights where each cabin could pick what they wanted to do for an activity, like cook, go to Iargo Springs (which was the best thing), or even take a scrub dip. Now, showers were always cold, especially in the morning before the water heated up, so we would take scrub dips. You would wash your hair, scrub up in your suit and shave your legs in the lake, if you were old enough to shave. My youngest sister swam, so I don’t think she took a shower all summer.”
“I remember running out of clothes, ” said Carrie Norris (1972-73). “Everything got filthy, but it didn’t seem to bother me. I didn’t care or didn’t notice. I was so unconscious at that age. I was not aware of being compared to other people. I don’t even remember brushing my hair, but when I went to sleep at night I could smell the lake in my hair. And when I went home, I smelled musty and smelly, so I had to clean up so that I didn’t smell like funky boathouse. We just didn’t look at ourselves anymore when we were at camp.”
Were you a skinny-dipping lake girl or did you take showers?
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