Off to camp went the girls, with their injection records up to date, physicals performed and armed with whatever medications they may need for their stay. Although the staff always included medical personnel, there was no way a summer camping session could maintain a clean slate of minor medical maladies, and sometimes even some major ones.
There was always a sick bay of some sort, whether in Dutton or in the new Infirmary and it was always staffed with a health official.As early as June 26, 1935 there was a mention in a news article about medical staff at the camp. The article was partially cut off, but mentioned Dr. Lorna Feng as the camp physician. (The piece noted her interest in art, literature and poetry; her position as an intern at Grace Hospital and that she was one of fifteen children educated abroad.)
Dorothy Bonnen, who camped in 1942, said “Dr. Vail’s wife was our nurse and she volunteered her time at camp with her five year old little boy with her around as she did her job. She used to be the person who inspected the cabins for tidiness.” (It is unclear if her husband was the doctor on call.)
There were also unexpected injuries that demanded immediate attention. “The mouse that Pam Farley hit with a broom during the day came out limping at night and she said ‘poor mouse’ and picked it up,” said Pat O’Tool (1944-52). “It proceeded to bite her and she had to be taken to West Branch to the doctor for a tenanus shot.”
The camp doctor’s daughters, campers Marge and Helen Hasty, lived just down the road from Camp Maqua in 1946. Their father, Dr. Henry Hasty, was the go to doctor when one of the campers needed medical attention. Marge recalled the old station wagon that would ferry them back and forth to her father’s office on the main street in Whittemore, just south of Hale.
Jan Mosier (1947-52) sat on the archery field with allergies long enough to rub the roof of her mouth raw, which landed her in the Infirmary. Ellen Hydorn’s allergy injections were administered by a doctor in Hale in 1954.
An article in the July issue of the “Loon” in 1950 related a stinging incident; “Hut 4 started out without any scratches or bruises, but ran into a beehive on the way to Chapel Hill, where almost everyone got stung. Judy Henderson got two on the eyelid,Billy Carlisle, “our prize bee attracter”, ended up with eleven. Kay Cochran had one in a very bad place—she hasn’t been able to sit down yet. Pat Gillilan was the girl who had been right in the middle of it all and was scared that Jean Dent had to get her out and Jean got three stings. That night the girls had a party and the four girls who had the most fun were Carol Husted, Phoebe and Georgia Atha and Sue Robinson, who did not get stung.”
Brooke Sauve (1949-51) swatted a bee with her bare hand on the hut screen door and visited with a bee sting, as did Janet Dixon (1951-52), who just remembered how bright the light was in the Infirmary. Bee and wasp stings came with the territory at camp.
Linda Greenwald (1948-49) was one of the youngest campers the year she started and much more of a tomboy than her sister Lucille. “One night we had one of those cookouts in the woods and there was a domestic cat with a bobbed tail and I felt sorry for it, so I took it back to the camp and put it under the cabin. Well, it started biting all of us and I was the first one to get bit. I remember it was the fourth of July and I started getting very sick.”
“They took the cat to the vet in West Branch and it died, maybe from rabies. They tried to get a doctor to sign for the vaccines and had a tough time finding one, “ said Linda. “A lot of the girls had to get the shots. In those days, they divided the doses and your last dose was the strongest. There was always the danger of ‘brain fever’, but thankfully I was the only one who got sick and no one got rabies. The first shot threw me for a loop, though.”
Do any of you remember the rabies incident?