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Becoming A Woman At Camp—

Published on by Kathy Baker

One of Debra Osher’s firsts occurred at Maqua in the early sixties, but not in the usual timely manner of most girls. “Everyone had their period except me. I was fourteen and my Dad was a doctor and we were supposed to send in this medical form and it would have information on it. I knew everyone had their period, because I used to sneak into the Infirmary and peek at the records. So, I asked my Dad to please mark down that I had it, and he did, even though he knew I didn’t. Well, didn’t I get my period there and I had no equipment! I think I called my Mom a few days later to tell her. Normally, my Dad would have never done that, but he knew how much it bothered me

“I got my first period at camp and I was terrified! It took me awhile to figure out,” said Dana Foote (1974-77). “My Mom did not send anything with me to camp, so I was pretty scared and told my counselor. It was the summer after sixth grade. She took me to the nurse and I just recall being mortified, hoping none of the other girls found out.”

Kay Alcorn remembered one great laugh at her expense in the forties. “I was the only one in the cabin who was not menstruating yet. They teased me unmercifully. I was feeling inadequate and even worried that maybe I’d never start. One evening when I returned to the cabin in my light blue pajamas after brushing my teeth and washing my face, one of the girls said “Oh Kay, what’s that spot on the back of your pajamas?” Knowing that they were probably just teasing me I declined to look. But they kept it up. When I did look, I said, “Oh, I probably just sat on a bug!” They really laughed at that and never let me forget it, for indeed that momentous right of passage was a reality at last.”

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Smoking–

Published on by Kathy Baker

 

Helen Hasty recalled the clouds of smoke that billowed around the big tent behind the lodge in the early forties.

(“Smoke virtually rolled out of the couselors’ smoking tent!”) Some years smoking was no big deal and other years, the directors warned the counselors about smoking on the premises.

Lucille Greenwald (1947-50) had the same memory of the counselors sleeping in the tent behind the lodge and the girls were never allowed to go back there. “We would see some of them with bandaid boxes in their pockets, which had cigarettes in them and we thought it was terribly risqué.”

“I do remember the counselors had a tent behind the screened porch at the back of the lodge, where they would smoke their cigarettes and talk about the “ugly” (uncooperative) campers,” said Geraldine Folkert (1942-47), who learned to smoke at camp at the age of sixteen and became a social smoker.

Carla Schweinsberg (1945-52) was relieved not to be part of the round-up of naughty girls who got caught smoking in the bushes. Anne Obey believed the walks she took to smoke cigarettes was the most scandalous thing she did in the sixties, but admitted she never wanted to disappoint her director and they never smoked on canoe trips.

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Bra Or No Bra?

Published on by Kathy Baker

Every girl probably remembers the first time they had to change in front of someone other than a sister, step into a communal shower after a gym class, shop for their first bra, or the shock that someone could be the same age as flat-chested you and have the hugest breasts you had ever seen!

“I had never spent the night at anyone’s house. I knew no one,” said Geraldine Padgett (1954-56). “I had no friends at camp and the other girls were not from my area. One of the biggest things for me was changing clothes in front of girls! In those times, you didn’t even lounge in your pajamas and we showered alone. I had never dressed in front of people and I was very modest.”

“I do remember, just as my friends did, that we all wanted to be around when one girl was putting on her bra. Her boobs would fall into the cups and then she would just snap it on and pull up the straps. We had never been around girls who were not modest. I think we bothered her “laughed Dorothy Niedzielski (1946-47).

Pat Kula said the memory of her early forties bra story at camp still brings howls of laughter to her bunkmates that witnessed the same act of the girl with the biggest boobs stepping into her bra from the floor. There was not much room for privacy for the girl who was cups ahead of her flat-chested roommates!

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More Firsts—

Published on by Kathy Baker

“I can still see that L-shaped dock,” said Karen Magidsohn (1965+).” We would take baths down at the lake, but we would also sit on the dock and shave our legs. I can remember the older girls were shaving their legs and it was a peer thing, so I thought I should. On the way home from camp that summer, my aunt who was only ten years older than me, was sitting next to me in the car and asked if I had shaved my legs. So, I had to tell my Mom.”

More than one girl shaved her legs in the “water fountain/Bradley Basin”. According to Missy Plambeck (68-78), it was the perfect place to do it, although other girls like Pat Rehmus (1962-65) thought it was odd.

Judy Engibous (1973-75) shaved hers for the first time at camp. “My Mom was a control freak and insisted I bring Nair to camp, but the sheer practicality of shaving far out-weighed waiting for some cream to work, so I shaved!”

And then there was hair and makeup. Kerry Weber (1968-70) recalled a little girl named Jane, who came to camp with makeup and was probably only in the fifth or sixth grade. “I can still see her with this bright purple lipstick. I know she figured her parents weren’t around to see her experimenting with it.”

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Rites Of Passage—

Published on by Kathy Baker

 

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 and getting your period for the first time were all firsts sometimes experienced at camp.

“We discussed lots of things about life at Camp Maqua,” said Anne Shutt (1961-66). “The birds and the bees talk took place in my cabin. I can remember the counselor came in and answered all our questions with the lights out. I think she stood outside and listened to what the questions were, and I look back and think that was pretty smooth. I don’t know who she was, but she had blonde hair.”

Discussions like that had been going on for years. Mary Jane Keschman (1944-54) recalled some evenings when the older girls answered questions from a cracker barrel. “We were allowed to ask any questions we wanted, whether it was sexual or otherwise, and the counselors would answer them for us.”

“I think I have a photo of some girls with me sitting on beds over there with the counselors. I wondered at the time, why would they want to talk to us, but we could ask our counselors any questions, even if it was about sex,” said Jan Mosier (1947-52). “So, I asked HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE?”

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Confusions and Confessions–

Published on by Kathy Baker

 

“I was somewhat aware and in denial at the same time, while I was at camp and in those college years, of my sexuality,” admitted L.D, who was at camp in the late sixties. “I had a boyfriend, but wasn’t really all that interested in him. One of the other counselors eventually made me talk about it, but she did it in a nice way. I think they all knew at camp, but I waited several years before I came out.”

For some, like K.M., who was just a hugger during the same era, and had no confusion, it was the summer of awareness for her. “I loved that I could walk around camp with my arms wrapped around another girl or arms linked, appropriately, and no one cared. I could hold hands swinging and feel comfortable. I don’t remember ever having any girl crushes, but I do remember the summer there was a rumor about another girl liking another girl and I just never knew anything about those things. We just never talked about sexuality.”

One woman in the early sixties had applied for the job as a college student from an ad in the Bay City Times. Having passed her water safety instruction classes through the Red Cross, she felt she could write her own ticket for a summer job, knowing WSI instructors “were hard to come by”. Her degree was in physical education from a college in Illinois and she had been a counselor at a Girl Scout camp and a Pioneer Girls camp in the Poconos.

She felt her summer with her waterfront job was fine until the last day, when she alleged her director made sexual advances toward her. She was to help with the last day’s closing-up of Camp Maqua, but told her she refused to help her and if she said one word about it, she would report the incident to the Bay City “Y”. In a second interview, she felt she did the right thing not reporting, as she had not noticed the director had ever been inappropriate with the young girls.

“I didn’t know about lesbianism at that time. I probably should have reported her to the school system in Detroit, where she worked as a physical education teacher, but I never did. She was a cold, strict woman who you could not talk to. I was OK with my decision not to report her.”

She spent six weeks at Camp Maqua and then walked away, but as a professed introvert, she stated she had never been close to any of the other counselors. “The best part of that summer was working with the kids. I lived above the boathouse and would wander around and talk to different groups of kids. It was okay until the last day.”

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