The “Dear Diary” section was written by

Dorothy Niedzielski, Betty Miller and Ethel Feldman in the “Loon” in 1947, outlining a weeks’ worth of camp musings. “Well, I finally got here and rushed to the lodge, found my hut and rushed (knocking everyone over) to get a top bunk (success). After dropping my belongings all over the hut I rushed to Dutton (poor me 14 ½ years and only weigh 95 pounds.) Finally making my bed before supper, I came back and found my bed pied.” (And what would pied be?)

“I was in Hut One and I loved it,” said Minette Jacques, who was only seven when she camped in 1955. She had slipped past the age requirement because her two older sisters were at camp. “I wanted to be on the top bunk, but because I was the younger one, I had to be on the bottom. Well, you can bet every year I bullied my way to the top bunk by running to the hut first and grabbing it. My sister and I loved being on the top bunk. From that bed we had control of the window—your own private window where you could open and close it. And in the 2×4 rafters, you could put a shoebox with your personal things in it.”

“Everyone wanted the top bunk”, said Susan Williams, who camped for ten years beginning in 1947. “You had to step on the bottom with your sandy feet to get to the top,” Cindy Naylor (1967) always liked the top bunk and “always got what I wanted because I was just that kind of girl.”

Missy Plambeck, (1968-78) said it was a big deal to have the top bunk, where you could store personal things on the shelves. “We would line our stuff up and I think the girls on the bottom bunks actually had shelves or cubbies.” For Carolyn Stanton (1947), the top bunk was where she wanted to be, “but I had a room of my own at home and so it was crowded!”

“I always liked the top bunk, but I didn’t always get it,” said Molly Olson, who began in 1949. “I can still picture those screened windows with the wood flaps and how the beds were arranged.”

Another girl from the same time, Mary Jo Rawlings, also loved the top bunk. “It always felt safe and secure having a counselor in the hut with us, but I don’t remember a director ever being visible. I was always an insomniac, but loved laying on my bunk awake listening to the sounds outside.”

The Utter family drove Jane McKinley and Barb Utter up on the first day in the early fifties and Jane does not think her family ever saw the camp. “I remember dark wood huts, but we did not spend much time there. I loved the top bunk and was glad Barb was in with me to share the first experience with me because the next year we were in different cabins.”

Brooke Sauve’s mother drove her up and she took the bus back and always liked the top bunk. “Once I leaned over to look down off the top bunk and fell off,” she laughed about her times in 1949-51.

“I totally remember the huts. I would rush to make sure I got the top bunk, so that I could have that big screen window that opened up. The counselor had a single bunk by the door and we were always short-sheeting her bed,” said Gretchen Jacques from the mid-fifties.

Were you a top bunk or bottom bunk girl?