Buildings and Property

Nature Directors 1970-71

Published on by Kathy Baker

When Joan McKinney arrived in 1970, she took an inventory of the nature hut (Dutton) and its equipment, cleaned it and readied during her pre-camp. She described the surroundings as central to all the cabins and by the water, with a front screened-in porch that faced the water. She kept her reptiles and amphibians there, plus the two bird’s nests to be observed. (Phoebe and Robin)

The main room held sixteen to twenty people or two cabins, blackboard, large work room cabinet to store chemicals and paints, bulletin boards, shelves, racks, tools. equipment, chairs and tables. A small back room held a toilet and an unplugged cooler. The second floor was sleeping quarters for unattached staff. She had a little diagram, which indicated a sink in the workroom that faced the road, and “Dorthe’s Island” to the right of Dutton, which was an outdoor nature terrarium that had been built three summers previously.

Joan’s bulletin boards featured “Animals Around Us” with photos of reptiles, birds and mammals and specimens and explanations of pressed leaves and photos of trees. She conducted nature contests each session, tree identification of twenty-five trees, and competitions between the cabins. Her prizes included penny candy and nature ribbons at the closing ceremonies.

There was also a boa constrictor, mice and a Blanding turtle that Joan brought with her, which the campers cared for over the summer, as well as a painted turtle found at camp.  Her father had made a poster on wild flowers entitled “Let them live in your eyes, not die in your hand”, which she thought was appropriate since many of the campers decorated their wishing boats with flowers at the end of the session. Other posters pertained to Smokey the Bear, poison ivy and poison sumac. An assistant was on hand from the first week and they worked together on scheduling lessons and rainy day activities.

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Nature Director-1968

Published on by Kathy Baker

Audrey Delcourt  was a first-year biology major at Albion College in 1968 and had a few classes in her field when she was hired as the Nature Director. She had relatives in northern Michigan, and had often gone up to Oscoda. She saw the sign as she passed through Hale, and her Mom wrote the camp name down. The director came to her house to interview her and that was the beginning of her north woods adventure!

There were no notes left for her to follow, despite the camp having always had a nature studies program. Audrey made charts and used her own interests and knowledge for the program. There were scavenger hunts, where the girls would run around and find plants on lists, including “Lady Slippers”. “They don’t grow everywhere,” she said, “so I told the girls not to pick them.”

Dissection was also on her program and she believed the girls thought it was fascinating. One of the maintenance staff secured a cow’s head and they dissected the eyeballs. There was also an outdoor site, which was a moat with a little island on the side of the nature cabin.

imagesThe second year, Audrey came in as the assistant cook, hoping to try something a little different. “It looked more like perseverance. I got up early for this job. I burned my fingers a few times and decided I needed to change my attitude,” she said. “Then I had fun. Before my attitude change it was just work. I remember bringing my plant press into the kitchen because I needed a heat source to dry my plants. I used a shelf over the huge stove.” (Audrey’s explanation for this fascination was the recent plant course she had at college.)

Audrey received excellent ratings from Dorthe. “Nature went very well this summer. I felt Audrey worked very hard and had planned some new interesting activities for the campers. A great deal of hard work went into the completion of the island started last year. The Nature part of Dutton was always neat and clean at all times and it was a pleasure to visit her classes and observe her in action. She was an asset in many ways to our staff.”

“Audrey was new to Maqua but right right into the spirit of Maqua. She was always interested in the campers and was most effective with them. She ran a good program in Nature and had a variety of activities. She was always on the job and most mature in the way she assumed her responsibilities. She could be called on for extra duty or to help out in the kitchen and she was always a willing worker. She was liked by her co-workers and was indeed an asset to our staff. I found her most cooperative.”

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Nature Directors 1959-67

Published on by Kathy Baker

fullsizerender-1For many years the nature center was housed in “Dutton”—the original farmhouse on the property by the lake. It was never in great shape, but every year renovations were done to keep the building standing just a little longer. Karen (“Billie”) Kaiser was the first director of nature that was mentioned in archival notes.

Karen applied in her senior year of high school and Camp Maqua made an age exception for her to become the Nature Director from 1959- 1962. With her interest in Biology, she and her father developed the nature center at camp.

“My Dad and I built the cages and I made charts and we were part of the Infirmary in the beginning.  It was quite a good program, and every year I directed the nature program and the music at camp. I was a good leader, the kids loved the program, and I loved being with kids of all ages. I was fun and I loved my campers. I have wonderful memories of great kids and even a pet goat named “Daisy’ that belonged to the fella who took care of the grounds—Mr. Watson.”

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Even The Walls Sing!

Published on by Kathy Baker

553620_3521084516433_30991956_n“We were always singing,” said Kimela Peck (1966-74), who said she could still see “Beanie” with her guitar by the fireplace and the girls in their “whites” swaying back and forth to “High On Chapel Hill”.

“The lodge was filled with kids all summer long from Bay City, Saginaw, Flint and Detroit and everyone seemed to have a good time,” said Nancy Sautter (1968-70). “The staff worked hard to make it fun. Everyone sang. I played a guitar, but poorly, but I remember Barb (Haggart), her guitar and her ‘Montague” routine and singine “Adelina”. We had such fun!”

“I was not not a picky eater and I ate everything and I loved being in the lodge,” said Jenifer Penzien (1969-71). “I can still see the words to the songs on big pieces of paper on the wall and “Beanie” leading us in songs. Two songs I still remember are the “Ram Sam Sam” song and “Little Bunny FooFoo”.

“Beanie” (Barbara Haggart) made up all the activities, led the songs and played her guitar. “We sang after lunch and after dinner. I wrote out some of the songs on big poster boards and tacked them to the lodge walls. I later mimeographed them into a songbook for the staff. I think I still have them.”

“I was an only child. I went to camp late in life at age thirteen and was only supposed to stay for two weeks, but I called home and asked to stay the whole summer. I was always interested in sports, sang in church choirs and in college and learned the baritone ukulele while I was living in the dorm,” said Barbara.  It would turn out that her favorite interests would be what created the perfect counselor and director, where she would be remembered for her singing, her love of the sporting activities and her fairness as a director.

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Sing For Your Supper–

Published on by Kathy Baker

“The lodge and the food were wonderful,” said 529777_3521098916793_2124056752_nMinette Jacques, the skinny kid from the fifties’ who loved to eat. “I loved the backwards meal, where we ate dessert first and all the way back to our salad. And we sang our prayer and the chant of “able, able, get your arms off the table”, when someone had their elbows on the table. I also remember Billie singing “No Man Is An Island” and she led us in the “Johnny Appleseed” prayer.”

“I inherited a good speaking voice,” said Minette Immerman (1938-41), when I complimented her young sounding eighty-two year old voice. “I loved the singing and we sang a lot after dinner in the lodge. I can still remember the lyrics to the last one. Run along home and jump into bed. Say your prayers and cover your head. This very same thing I say unto you, you dream of me and I’ll dream of you.”

Missy Plambeck (1968-78) hated the announcements, but loved the singing after every meal and the song they all sang to Edna the cook. “There were songs on paper on the walls of the lodge, but some we didn’t sing because they were so old. I do remember singing one of them and my daughter asked me how I knew the song. I told her it was from camp and she said not else should know that, since it was a sorority song.”

She was one of many who remembered singing to “Cookie”. Debbie Tweedie (1965-72) said, ”We would make the cooks come out of the kitchen with this song and they would run around the table, and beg Beanie to play her songs and  I can still sing the “elbows on the table song”, but, we also had our table responsibilities in the lodge.”

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Drama–1975

Published on by Kathy Baker

DRAMA REPORT 1975—Lynne Bigelow and Karen Selby

The drama department offered drama games, creative drama plays and skits and the “Loon”. The drama games class was offered with no size limit and never exceeded five people. Lynne felt it was sometimes difficult to interest both older and younger campers with the same games, except for charades, which she found to be popular.

She started with charades, on to mirroring, pantomime, storytelling and other games. Plays and skits were neglected due to class size and what she considered to be suitable written plays. There were only two drama nights and they performed skits, which were held on the drama porch.

Her aim was “to get the girls to be able to assume another character or role without embarrassment and just have plain old fun”, but she felt that some of the students looked at drama as a “fill in class”, which she felt hurt the motives of the class and in turned rubbed off onto the rest of the class and herself.

The first session of plays and skits did a skit around tricks that campers play on counselors, which they created themselves. Monologues and audience participation skits were also enacted. The third session creative drama class put on a series of short skits on the archery field, which had been taken from a book in the drama department. She felt creative original skits were better.

They rarely used costumes, but occasionally a dress or hat was taken from the box of costumes, but they felt the clothes were in very bad shape.

“I feel that the Drama Department could have been better if I had been better prepared,” wrote Lynne. “All in all I found it lots of fun and I hope the campers did too.”

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