Homesickness–#5

Published on November 30, 2016February 21, 2017 by Kathy Baker

Knowing your bunk-mates or having a friend or relative at camp during the session was often the best security blanket needed for first timers who felt the pangs of homesickness.

Marcia Michelson had three older sisters in camp in the early sixties and made good friends while there. Sisters Barb and Sue Utter convinced Jane McKinley in the mid-fifties to attend. Mickie Kessler’s parents could not afford to send all their daughters at the same time, so at age six in 1941, Mickie sat at camp and cried her eyes out.

For Kellie Moore, who loved camp from day one her first year (1970), she thought it would be double the fun if she brought a friend. It turned out to be the worst summer, because her best friend was so homesick that she returned home. Kellie camped another six summers!

Seventies camper Helen McLogan was the youngest of six girls and one boy and left for camp kicking and screaming, despite her sisters having gone to Maqua. “I was homesick. I did not want to go to camp and leave my friends behind. I loved my summers in my neighborhood. I had seen Maqua when I accompanied my best friend’s mother to pick her up on the last day. Dana Foote, who I ended up at camp with,” she said.

Bonnie Kessler idolized her older sister Judy, despite the year difference in ages. Known as “Tagalong Tulu”, she wanted to be wherever her sister was and followed her to camp in 1947 at the age of nine. “I lacked confidence. I continually followed Judy’s footsteps and her presence at camp prevented me from becoming homesick. Whatever Judy wanted to do, I wanted to do. But, I was never in the same group as my sister and that was probably a good thing.”

Having a friend helped Linda Doering adjust when she was a camper at a different site, which in turn allowed her to draw on her experience of fright and homesickness when she took over a cabin of fifth graders in the early sixties at Maqua. Bonnie Schlatter also dealt with a frantically homesick child in the seventies, but acted like the big sister to handle her situation as a first time counselor in 1975.

Homesickness–#4

Published on November 28, 2016February 21, 2017 by Kathy Baker

Susan Ward managed to convince her parents in 1961 to take her home when she attended camp by herself, but the following years were more enjoyable when her sister also camped. Many of the campers had their fears eased by the mere presence of cousins, sisters or friends, despite many of them not sharing cabins. Just knowing they were at camp quelled that lonely ache of a new place.

That was not always the case. Mary Jo and Judy Rawlings went off to camp together in the late fifties and sister Susan in the early sixties. All three girls shared similar bouts of homesickness. Coming from a close-knit family unit, (where their father loved having his three girls by his side), made it difficult for Susan and Judy, who shared a similar personality that tended to be shy. They both remember Mary Jo crying from homesickness.

“I would get teary-eyed just about dusk, right after mealtime, every night. I didn’t go to a counselor, but dealt with it and each morning I would wake up and it was all okay. Just that time of the night was tough,” said Judy. “We were always taught to keep a stiff upper lip in our family, but honestly even when I spent the night at neighbor’s houses I would sneak back home in the middle of the night.”

For sister Mary Jo, she learned that she could survive anything for a short time. “It was about endurance and trusting people. I wasn’t made fun of or embarrassed or ridiculed when I was homesick. I learned compassion and how to be a team player.”

Homesickness–#3

Published on November 23, 2016February 21, 2017 by Kathy Baker

Lois Levine recalled her gorgeous wardrobe as one of the highlights of going off to camp as a ten-year old Jewish girl in 1948, because her clothes allowed her to fit in. Bunking in with eleven-year old Gentiles, on the other hand, made for a “dreadful, miserable unhappy experience”. Mean girls, perceived prejudice, and homesickness were still clear sixty years later. She decided on the first day she would be back on the bus to Bay City when it arrived on that Wednesday.

“Somewhere along the way I realized the bus wasn’t coming and stuck it out,” said Lois, who was placed in a hut with girls closer to her age for the rest of the sessions. She was no longer the youngest. “I had no concept at age ten of what the consequences of a stubborn child’s return home would be, but I was glad I stayed. I was stubborn, but obedient, but I could visualize myself on that bus!”

Lois’ cousin Sue Levine was also ten when they headed off to camp together and experienced similar unhappy memories of camp. “My Mother made me go and I did not want to leave home. I had never been away and I was a Mommy’s girl and I was so homesick,” remembered Sue Levine (1948). “She said you are going and that is that. At that time I was a chubby girl and I was teased and it did not feel like a friendly place in my child’s mind. I felt the prejudice of being Jewish. I was so happy that Lois was there with me and in the same hut because she was funny and fun.”

Homesickness–#2

Published on November 21, 2016February 21, 2017 by Kathy Baker

Young girls who were on the receiving end of the kindnesses during their bouts of homesickness remember the methods that worked.

Sally Harris (late forties) had fallen and cut her leg very deeply and had to have stitches. “The nurse from camp was very nice and she let me be with her and was so kind to me since I couldn’t go swimming or do many of the activities. She really saved me with her kindness, since I was so lonesome.”

“I was very homesick”, said Mary Jo Rawlings, who camped in the late fifties. “I was a mess and couldn’t wait to go home. But, I had a very kind and accepting counselor nicknamed ‘Dodo” (Diane Dudley 1957-63), who was helpful and didn’t push me hard. I didn’t feel childish. Of course, in the end I couldn’t wait to go back, but when my parents came up after the first week and I begged them to take me home, they wouldn’t. It was the first time I had been homesick and I spent a lot of time crying.”

The busy-ness of camp kept Linda Greenwald (1948) and Carol Requadt (1945) from their moments of loneliness, but for eight year old Chris Lambert (first timer in 1958) it was more.

“I was homesick for two days until I realized it was a place of inclusiveness and there were so many activities that I forgot how homesick I was. It was scary because it was unfamiliar and I was doing something new and at that time I was not a huge risk taker. It was the little girl insecurities of fitting in.”

Janet Dixon had her moments of homesickness in 1951, but knew she just had to “stick it out”. She had a little of that fighting spirit as she admitted,” I would never think of going back home like some girls. That would be like giving up or admitting defeat. But, those lonely feelings were markedly offset by strong feelings of satisfaction and empowerment in being independent for the first time. All of those feelings had a great impact on my maturity.”

Homesickness–#1

Published on November 16, 2016February 21, 2017 by Kathy Baker

“We used to have homesick campers, but like everything else in the world, the words keep getting changed, so now the camper who used to be homesick is lonely”, wrote director Barbara Haggart in her report in the early seventies.

She suggested counselors look for these symptoms—poor appetite, wandering off alone, and stomach-aches and headaches that occurred at mealtimes and times of low activity and maintained the root cause of this situation was most often an over attachment between the camper and her parents. Many of the young girls felt like their parents wanted to get rid of them. Some believed they were missing something at home or their preconceived notion of what camp was going to be just did not meet their expectations.

The counselors were key to the issue of turning a girl’s feelings around to the idea that camp would be a great experience and were instructed to keep the girls busy, listen carefully without minimizing the young camper’s feelings and give her the attention she needed.

“I recognized there was a lot more payment than the financial reward and I think my campers felt it”, said Sue Wiegand (1966-67). “With the smaller kids, there was always a few traumatized by homesickness and some would go home, but the older kids were not that far removed in age from us. We knew to give them enough rein and they felt comfortable telling us their problems. The ability to relate as a counselor was so important. We realized that some of the fears they had as campers, we had as counselors. But, they knew we respected them and treated them with no judgement. Sometimes it was easier that you were not direct family. We cared and listened and it permeated Maqua.”

Boathouse Cabin Envy–

Published on November 14, 2016February 21, 2017 by Kathy Baker

Jan Mosier and Geraldine McDonald had memories of cabin three, which was renamed “Sleepy Hollow” in the fifties and although Senior Village was the furthest from the lodge and was a highly desirable spot, no cabin created envy more than the one atop the boathouse!

Carla Wilhelm, Helen Hasty, Yolanda Erickson and Sally Harris had all attended camp in the forties and were a bevy of campers who wistfully recalled the enchantment cabin nine had for them, but they never had the chance to stay.

Maureen Moore remembered being in the cabin down the stairs and to the left in the late sixties before her stay in Senior Village, but never got into the boathouse cabin. “The wood floors were always sandy and the beds were awful, but cool, and everyone wanted the top bunk with the area on the wall for our flashlight and personal things.”

“The big thing was to be in that hut above the boathouse, but the year I could be in it, we stayed in Senior Village” said Kerry Weber, who began in 1952. “It was the first year it was built and a group of girls from Essexville were in with me. We thought we were so grown up. I think we wrote on every board in there.”

Located above the boathouse and reached only by a stairway, the larger cabin was situated on the shoreline of Loon Lake, next to the campfire pit and directly in front of the craft hut. When the windows were open, the waves lulled the girls to sleep and the plaintive cries of the Loons echoed under the stars. It was camping magic.

Dorothea Kelton was thirteen in 1940, when she left for Maqua for two weeks. As an only child, she loved camp and attended with friends. They stayed together and always preferred the cabin over the boathouse,

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