My sister, Velma Kaspareit, and I first went to Camp Hagan for the month of August 1941. Our cousin, Helen “Becky” Sturzebecker, had been the horseback riding counselor at Hagan in earlier years, and her parents recommended Hagan to my parents when they were looking for a camp which we might like. They had already tried a Y camp for us in the Catskills where I was very unhappy having spent what seemed like most of the time in the infirmary.
Hagan was a winner. We both enjoyed our first and subsequent seasons there. I made many friends at camp, corresponded with them over the winter, and we even occasionally visited back and forth. I liked the camp routine and welcomed the challenge of completing requirements for the red tie the first year, the green tie the second year, the blue tie the third year and ending with the white tie the fourth year – to be followed by two years as a CIT – and then three years as a counsellor. I was the counselor in Senior 1 in 1947, was Senior Unit Head in 1950 and director of the CITs in1951. My sister ended her Hagan years as a C.I.T in 1945. But its influence lasted forever. Her counselor in Senior 5 was Anne “Pippy” Appenzellar, who attended Wilson College in Chambersburg, PA – as it seemed did many Hagan counselors. So great was Pippy’s influence on Velma that she also went to Wilson – and then I followed her there two years later. So Hagan was responsible not only for many camp friends, but for our college friends as well.
My sister and I were the first of many girls from Woodhaven in Queens, NY, to go to Camp Hagan. Jan Mueller was the next, followed by Janet Lauterbach, Margie and Carol Phillips, Inge Woermann and Marlen Marcus. Another of our friends from Woodhaven, Philece “Satch” Ehrsam, was a crafts counselor one year though she had never been a camper.
My favorite camp activities were the waterfront and crafts. I could already swim before my first summer, but the challenge of swimming upstream in the Delaware made me a much better swimmer. Canoeing later became a favorite sport with overnight canoe trips and the exhilarating experience of bobbing on a canoe going downstream. I don’t remember how many lanyards I made over the years, and it was at Hagan I learned to do wood burning and to use a jigsaw. I also enjoyed the opportunity to work on a couple of the murals in Great Hall. It is ironic that my first year as counselor I was assigned to the Athletics Department!
The staff at Hagan worked hard. The activities were varied, the evening activities were fun – often challenging our brains to come up with a story or a skit of some kind. Special events were great – 4th of July, the Olympics, May Day, and best-of-all Christmas, come to mind immediately. I remember many hikes – especially sweaty, fatiguing overnight hikes when we carried a bedroll to our destination. Some had sleeping bags, but I did not. My bedroll was made up of a heavy rubberized poncho with a sheet and blanket and whatever else one needed. I can still remember the aches. Fortunately we did not have to carry the food, which was brought by the camp truck. But we did need to scrounge for wood for the fire to cook our meals.
The privileges of being a C.I.T. and counselor were, it seemed to me at that time, to be many. It felt good as a C.I.T. to be trusted with a cabin of campers on a counselor’s day off, and then to have a half-day off in Stroudsburg ourselves was a treat. Counselors, of course, got a whole day off riding in the camp truck to and from Stroudsburg – few had cars back then. Some of us also occasionally hiked to Bushkill after camper bedtime.
All-in-all, the summers spent at Camp Hagan were not only fun, but instructive as well and they led to many long-time friendships and positive memories.