By Joe Crain
One of my favorite off-season events here at camp is when we get visits from alumni and former staff members who haven’t been to camp for many years and in some cases, decades. Usually, it is an elderly former camper looking to rekindle youthful memories of days gone by. The old timers are usually full of stories about adventures or pranks that they remember as if they had happened yesterday. So, I wasn’t surprised the other week when an unfamiliar car pulled up outside camps front gate, but when an elderly woman got out of the car, I recalibrated and figured maybe it was just someone looking for directions. When I went over and asked if I could help her out, she told me that her name was Faith and she was the camp nurse for two camp seasons when she was in her early 20s, back in the summers of 1963 and ’64, and asked, “would it be all right if I had a look about the place?” And of course, my immediate response was “Absolutely, let me unlock the Big House and you can start your tour there.” As we went into the Big House she remembered the office space, not much has changed there, and she recalled that Nardie and Sally Stein were the directors back in her day. She remembered that Sally was pregnant one of those summers but she could not recall weather it was in ‘63 or ’64. I knew Ted Stein was the same age as I was and was therefore born in ’61, and so I speculated that perhaps it was Jane that Sally was carrying that pregnant summer.
[ED Note: This is not Faith, this isn’t even 1963 — but you get the idea!]
After getting some photos of the all-staff pictures from her two seasons that we found in the entrance hall of the big house I led Faith over to her old stomping ground, the Infirmary, now also known as the Health Center. (Also known as the Waldorf-Castoria, a nick name that puts a smile on the faces of those old enough to understand the joke, like Faith!) Faith remembered the upstairs living quarters as well as the Dr.’s exam room, but thought that in her time here the wing with the patient rooms had not yet been added. I asked if the place was bringing back any memories and she said the only thing that came to mind was that on her first day at camp she had to assist in removing a fly that had gotten lodged in a counselor’s ear canal on his train ride to camp. When she saw the plaques on the wall with the dates and names of the nurses and assistants of the particular season, a tradition that was started well after her time at camp she exclaimed, “Oh, what a great idea I wish we would have thought to do that!” As we left the infirmary she looked about and said the place seems smaller to her. I told her that was a common observation from visitors from the past. (Another observation we often get is, “Wow the trees sure have gotten big!”) After our tour of the Health Center, Faith headed off in the direction of the Rec Hall and thanked me for being so kind and would it be all right if she wandered about the place on her own, “Absolutely” was again my reply. I saw Faith again about an hour later as she was making her way back to her car and I asked her how her tour went. It was wonderful she reported! She had looked through the Rec Hall with all of its plaques and awards from past summers and had made it down and along the waterfront. She told me she was so glad she made the effort to visit; it had brought back many warm memories of her two summers at Camp Nebagamon. She said she would love to get in touch with the Steins so I hooked her up with some contact info. And finally she told me her name back then before she was married was Faith Hinnenthal. Maybe a few of you old timers reading this remember her, who knows, maybe you were that first patient of Faiths with the fly stuck in your ear!
Hoping the next visitor to camp has a great story about the camp nurse who got the fly out of his ear on the first day at camp 59 years ago, it’s Caretaker joe At Camp.
Plus — it snowed at camp this month!