Not every young camper who packed off to camp loved the idea of time away from their parents, sharing a room with sometimes seven strangers and spiders, or eating food that was not cooked by Mom, but for the majority of girls those summers were the days that memories were made of.
Cara Prieskorn’s accounts of her years at Camp Maqua from 1966-71 (as a ten year old and oldest of five) included the fact she was so happy to get away from home. “I was around city kids for the first time”, said Cara, who was from the small town of Cass City. “I went the first time I could go and I had no idea what I was getting into. I used to go to the Maqua Jamborees at the “Y” and hated it, since I didn’t know anyone. They would sing, introduce the counselors who showed up and sometimes divide the girls up by age. Later when I knew more girls, it wasn’t so bad.”
Marsha Immerman was one of the little Bay City girls that attended “Stay-At-Home” camp and also hated it. “It was inside, it was boring and I had to go home at the end of each day”, she said. She had heard about Maqua and was excited by the idea of going away from home, but did not realize until much later in life how different home and camp life were until she experienced her years there from 1947-53.
The tires of our Suburban crunched on the ice and snow as we headed down the trail in northern Michigan on a cold winter day in 1987. Lined with snow-laden trees; the pines, oaks, birch and aspen seem to envelop us as we rounded a bend past an old corral.