From the fifties to the seventies, the “Loon” newsletter included the activities each session from each hut. Each cabin would contribute a few sentences, and the compilation of the different years added up to a diary (of sorts ) for the camp experience. There was backwards day, tin can stove making on the rifle range, […]
Marsha Immerman
Fads and Fashions–
Driven by her friend’s parents, Molly Appleford (1946) had her suitcase packed with shorts from Best and Company in Grosse Point. “They had buttons down the side and I loved them. So did Marsha Immerman, who thought they were so “in”, so I bought her a pair,” said Molly. Tucked in with those coveted shorts were […]
Rites Of Passage—
It was all girls and a safe place to talk, a place to give in to the innocent rites of passage, and share experiences only girls could relate to–that was camp. Shaving your legs, bleaching or cutting your hair, smoking your first cigarette, talking about sex, wearing a bra or not wearing a bra […]
Cliques–
“You could tell there were cliques or groups, but it was never in a mean way. It was usually the Saginaw girls, the Bay City Girls, the Detroit girls—and they were usually in the same hut, so they just hung out together,” said Deb Wilkinson (1964-66).” I do remember the girls from the wealthier families […]
Burnt Toast and Bug Juice–
In the early twenties’ each counselor brought a white enamel pitcher of milk and a plate of graham crackers to the hut. “—for it was a long time between meals and we were hungry by then. This helped us to hold off starvation overnight,” said Harriet Crumb. Her friend Meg Dahlem remembered the hot […]
Skinny Dipping!
“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 […]