@route20guy,
My name is Andrew Lees. I am a professor of History at Rutgers University. If you care to respond to any of what follows, you can reach me at
[email protected].
A few weeks ago (July, 2013), I searched for Camp Wampanoag in Bourne on Google and quickly found my way into the online forum in which I am only now participating. Inasmuch as most of the messages to which I am attempting to respond were generated in 2008, many of their authors may not receive what I am sending now, but I hope that a few will and that they will find what I have to say of some interest.
I first attended Wampy in the summer of 1949 as a junior, living for eight weeks in one of the cabins on the hill. I spent the next five summers, through August of 1954 as a camper, working my way through tents on the hill to a tent for seniors closer to the water. I also spent the summers of 1956 and 1957 there, working in the kitchen.
I went to Wampy owing to the fact that it was owned by my great aunt, Dorothy Taylor, who lived in Newton, just outside Boston. Born in 1888, she had run it for several decades, first as co-director with her mother, who began it, I believe, sometime shortly after the death of her husband at the age of 53 in 1908. My aunt, who taught at a boys’ private school in Cambridge, became the sole director no later than 1939, when her mother died. My own mother having died early in 1949, I needed a place where I could think about things other than my recent loss and seek happiness. Also, inasmuch as I was living with my grandmother (Aunt Dot’s sister), not my father, it was important for me in the summer to be around men. In any case, the camp was the perfect place for me to spend not only the summer of 1949 but also later summers.
Like others, I recall sailing and canoeing on the inner bay, sailing on the outer bay, swimming in the concrete pool (where we all had “buddies” we were supposed to keep an eye on and whose hands we were supposed to raise when the whistle announced a “buddy call”), tennis, archery, riflery, arts and crafts (many lanyards were woven from gimp), and nature walks. Among organized activities, the “war games” stand out in my memory most vividly. How exciting it was to climb up the steps outside the nature lodge in order to get to a place where one could drop through an opening in the ceiling and liberate prisoners! I remember reading lots of comic books when I was young. But in 1950 or 1951, in the camp library, I discovered the pleasure of reading real books, beginning with books about the Hardy boys and Tom Mix.
I admired most of the counselors greatly, although I do remember a couple of nasty ones, who were sent packing because of their misdeeds (none of which, thank goodness, rose to a very serious level). The person who did the firing was Bill Mulliken, whom my aunt had taken on to serve as co-director. I remember a story in the “Saturday Evening Post” from 1949 or 1950 in a series about different sorts of jobs done by MEN that dealt with him as an example of a camp director. It was great publicity for the camp, but the story seemed to indicate that my aunt was Mulliken’s helper, not vice-versa! In any case, he was a good guy. So too was the chief counselor, Lee Pattison. I remember him standing up at lunch time in the dining hall to summarize main stories in the newspaper, which he did with great flair. Also, he played the bugle, which he used in order to announce daily activities: reveille in the morning; nondescript blasts to announce the end of activities periods; “soupy” to announce that it was time to head to the dining hall for dinner; and taps when it was time to go to bed.
My “Aunt Dot” was the heart and soul of the camp. An effective administrator, she was also an inspirational figure. I well remember her Sunday evening talks at our weekly assemblies, in which she reflected on the importance of honesty , courage, thinking of the needs of others, and so on. I also remember how she scolded once for having failed to report some constant bullying that I knew about. I like to think that she helped to shape not only me but also lots of other boys and young men as we were growing up.
My aunt (Miss Taylor) sold the camp in 1960 or 1961 to a retired military man, whose name I forget. She stayed on through the summer of 1961 to help effectuate the transition, but after that he was on his own. He wanted, understandably, to put his own mark on the camp—for instance, by introducing horseback riding. After a few years, I think, he was losing money--perhaps partly because of bad decisions but also no doubt in part because fewer families were sending their boys to summer camps nationwide. In any case, after a few years, he sold the land to developers. A few years ago, I inspected the camp grounds. I saw a small piece of what had been a tennis court and a fragment of a dock—fragmentary reminders of some of the happiest times I have ever had. I am glad to know that others have similar memories. (The food, by the way, never elicited much if any criticism as far as I can recall.)
