Welcome to the Girls of Camp Maqua Website!

Published on by Kathy Baker Category: Blog

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On these pages you will find additional history not found in the book “Camp Maqua” with images from campers, staff, the YWCA archives and my own collection. The interviews of staff and campers, using their maiden names, have provided further history and will be shared twice a week–on Mondays and Wednesdays beginning June 1, 2016.

Enjoy the history of Camp Maqua, which began in 1916, and the stories from women (and sometimes men) beginning in the 1920’s until the camp closed in 1978. Despite the fact the camp is no longer in session, the stories and history live on through the voices of the many staff members and campers who shared their memories.Thank you for sharing and visiting!

 

Calling All Campers!

Published on by Kathy Baker Category: 1930's, Blog, Off to Camp Maqua

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Calling all eligible campers! Before the age of television, computers and cellphones, publicizing a camp was never a simple task. It was up to word of mouth of contented campers and the printed word.

The musty ledgers and minutes left behind in the Bay City YWCA accumulation of” all things Maqua” contained beautifully hand scripted paragraphs of the meetings held by the camp committees. Buried deep in the vaults of the building for years in boxes, were photos, and articles, untouched and unsorted, waiting to be unearthed and compiled from their loose and glued state in crumbling scrapbooks.

As early as 1932, these penned and typed details were the only remains of how often the committee met and who was present to plan the upcoming season for the girls of Camp Maqua.

Publicity was vitally important to the success of each summer, not only to fill the sessions, but also to hire new staff and publicize the events and happenings at camp. Pages in the scrapbooks were filled with many undated articles from several Bay City newspapers, left for guessing as to the year of publication.

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