Families members passed away and families moved, so those events affected the decisions of girls to return to camp. Others had to earn money instead of camping, and then some were fortunate enough to take advantage of other opportunities with travel.
Jane McKinley attended camp 1956, 1957, and 1959, but her parents moved to Portland, Oregon in 1958, so she missed that summer. She had her first flying experience when she returned the following summer, and it was the first time she had ever flown on her own. She stayed with the Utter family until she went to camp and to this day wishes her sister, who was ten years younger, had taken the opportunity to attend Camp Maqua.
“I was the youngest of five, but the only one to go to camp,” said Rosemary Orgren (1956-58). “My friends were at camp. They were my tribe. It was probably helpful because I was shy through high school and college. It was good to be in an environment where you either curled up in a ball or you were friendly. It was a good time for girls. It was good for me and I felt like all the experiences were also good. My parents moved me in the seventh grade to Detroit, and I don’t remember any particular reason why I didn’t go back. I guess I felt I had outgrown it.”
As one of the youngest campers in 1965 at the age of eight, Debbie Tweedie camped long enough to become a C.I.T. and left only when her family moved. Gretchen Jacques, attended as a young teen from 1952-55, and made it to C.I.T. status, but for some reason lost interest.
Kimela Peck was eight in 1966 and attended for eight more years and despite her desire to become a counselor, felt the need as an only child to earn money and go on to college. Her father died when she was six and her mother was raising her on her own.
“I was a counselor the last year I was at camp. I had no real skills in general, but I was good leading the songs,” said Laya Rose (1939+). “If we could have afforded for me to be at camp the whole summer, I would have been there. As a junior counselor, I served with a senior counselor and loved the fun activities with the young ones. My father had a major heart attack and my Mom needed me to work our family shoe store in Bay City, and it seems I just outgrew camp.”
Connie Cruey camped in the fifties, and stopped when her mother died suddenly at the age of forty-two. It was so traumatic to her that she could not continue. (Her mother had been very active in the YWCA and it was through this association that she learned of camp.)
“I missed my Mom when I went to camp the first summer, but I had fun and loved it. She had been sick with cancer the second summer I was in camp. She died in 1969 and I never went back.,” said Cindy Naylor (1967-69). “I was always her “special child”. I had been adopted and then my Mom got pregnant with my brother a year later. My Dad remarried when I was sixteen, but I did get to meet my biological Mother and family later, which made me very happy.”
The Engibous family moved to Zurich, Switzerland from 1971-78. “If memory serves, I was a Maqua camper the five summers of 1966-70, and missed the summer of 1971, when my family moved, then returned as a counselor the summers of 1972 and 1973,” said Doris. “The last time I visited Maqua with Ann Carney, the summer of 1974, when we were working at Interlochen Music Camp and met my parents and younger sister Judy for a short visit. (I believe my sister Elaine attended Maqua the summers of 1965 and 1966.”)
“It seemed so hard to go back. We had such intense experiences and relationships, but everything seemed out of place. Sue Patenge was the camp director at that time and felt she had a different style of leading that did not endear herself to the staff and campers.”
Sister Judy recalled Dow Chemical paid for a trip back to the states for people who had been overseas for two years, so she came back to camp in 1973, when she had just finished fourth grade.
The last summer of camp, Sandy Indianer (1967-71), was a counselor in training, but the following summer her camp days were interrupted by a trip to Israel. She said the whole camp experience allowed her to be more independent and was a stepping stone to college, even though she cried like a baby leaving camp.
Just as Sandy left for travel, sixties’ camper Beth Taylor toured Europe with her family after her eighth-grade year and sisters Sue and Chris Augustyniak traveled to Italy to see relatives, missing the experience of living in senior village.
“You know, one year my sister and I were sitting in New York watching the news and this girl newscaster came on with the name Jennifer McLogan and we looked at each other and said, could it be the Jennifer McLogan?” said Cara Prieskorn (1966-71). “In college, it got to be a joke with my friends. It seemed everywhere I went there was someone from Camp Maqua. I kept in touch with Val Van Laan, Gretchen Buetel, Sue Hamel and Lisa Champion for a while, but I never went back after 1971, because I was an exchange student in Rhodesia. Maqua was one of those pivotal events in my life that taught me leadership, but I always considered my job was to have a good attitude and make sure everyone else kept one too.”
What circumstances affected your decision not to return to camp?