Miggy's Memories and More
Many thanks to Dan Wallace, son of Miggy Keeler Wallace, and Rick Cleary, son of Joan Roche Cleary, for their contributions to our website.
Special thanks to Dan for sharing his mother's scrapbook, which contained the wonderful photographs featured here, and to Rick for helping me connect with his mother, who recently shared the memories presented on these pages. Not only did Miggy preserve these photographs, but the notes she carefully wrote on their backs have ensured that those memories continue to live on. We are all fortunate to benefit from her efforts.
I was able to connect with both Dan and Rick through the Coolbaugh Township Historical Association, of which I am a member.
A few years ago, while scanning old Camp Tegawitha photographs, I came across an image of a young woman whom I did not recognize at the time. A day or two later, while visiting the Historical Association, our president showed me a photograph we had received of a former camper. To my surprise, it was the very same photograph I had just scanned. Providential? It certainly seemed so.
Those of you who attended the camp reunion may remember Miggy Keeler, White Captain in 1938.
More recently, I was able to connect with Rick Cleary, again through the Historical Association. We were wrapping up our annual Art Show, which features local artists, when Rick happened to visit the museum with one of the exhibitors. He spent considerable time in the Tegawitha room, photographing the camp memorabilia and pictures on display. Before leaving, he provided his contact information, which was passed along to me. Rick later shared the photographs with his mother, and they sparked the memories that are recorded here.
A message from Miggy
"
And salud to you, too! Thanks so much for thinking of me. I didn't know Anne Marie - but think my sister may have. My sister was Eleanor Keeler, a Rumpus-er at the same time your mother was! I was over in Rhododendron (or was it Marigold?) - whichever burned down because one of its occupants was smoking(Il) instead of dining at the Lodge. I lost my trumpet. Miss Lynch hearded us all into Stroudsburg for basic necessities that weren't in the
• Laundry. She also wrote each camper's parents; mine, of course, wanted to now what part I might have had in it. I remember getting new shoes - snazzy looking that didn't fit properly with the result that I incubated the grandest infected toe in the Poconos, was treated in Scranton; slept in the infirmary, and was transported the rest of the season in a wheelbarrow with Sarah Baerle as "horse". 1938, as I recall, and I was 17 and really stupid
"I wonder what became of Sally" as the old song muses. Happy days to you!
"
I have been hemming and hawing about reunion, yearning to attend and try to
be young again and to see that wondrous countryside. It has been a confusing,
helter-skelter, mixed-emotions winter and spring and I just think I should
not try to attend. There is a funeral in Alabama this Monday - and a wedding
in Texas in June. I am very disappointed - especially since you have worked
so hard to put it together.
Over my desk I have a glossy of a blue/white foot race on the hockey field
with the Lodge in gorgeous Miss Paasikivi in the background, both wearing
tunics and black stockings, white shoes, white tams. The principals are Peggy
Tunney, Blanche Gillespie, Marjorie Fleming; Betty Morris is trying valiantly
to beat Miggy Keeler, who is gasping and breaking the "tape"! All middies are
sewn skin tight and worn over pleated bloomers - but legs are bare! I think
that the whites won because, unlike the blues, they did not wear those long
ties! So you see, Tega is with me daily. I wish you the bluest of skies.
"Miggy"
"
A good view of the race about which Miggy writes
Joan's Story
1949 - Intermediate A - Primrose
1950 - Wood Orchid
1951 - Buttercup
1952 - Buttercup - 1/2 season
1953 - Laurel - CIT summer
1954 - Columbine - jr. counsellor
I arrived summer of 1949. The cabins were very nice, clean; the cots sagged slightly in the middle, good for snuggling into at night. Our counsellors were great bunch of women. Kids being what they were, we'd get crushes on some of them like Miss Killoran or Miss Bowen, who sort of reminded me of Gary Cooper. Very patient. When I was in Buttercup we had a powdered soap fight one rainy afternoon. Miss Bowen was our counsellor. Given the mess - which we had to clean up - she didn't blow up, just sat watching until every last bit of powder was gone. And then there was Miss Dooley, the camp bugler. When she blew taps, well it was beautiful to hear those silvery notes ring across the evening air.
On the first day new campers were assigned to a team - white team for me - and then we voted for our captains. I followed the advice of a more seasoned camper who knew the candidates. Don't remember much about the early days. One specific memory - sitting on the Lodge floor practicing for Song Contest. Lots of music at Tegawitha. We were always busy. I thought rest hour was for little kids, although that opinion, as many others, changed as the summers unfolded.
Tega was quite beautiful all nestled in the woods and a feeling for that beauty quietly grew as each summers moved on. There was a lovely chapel and I enjoyed Sunday evening Benediction. The chapel had a bowling alley in it's basement, too.
And then, about two weeks into the first month of camp I contracted chicken pox! There were quite a few of other campers of all ages and one counsellor quarantined in the Infirmary for two weeks! My parents came to visit but I could only talk to them out the window.
So, August I resumed my place with the rest of the camp. Song Contest was really impressive and beautiful. I liked waterfront the best;, field sports were aplenty, archery, tennis, softball, field hockey (hated); crafts; riding, etc. The food was very good, truly. Word had it that the chef worked at a hotel in Scranton but took the summer off to oversee the kitchen at Tegawitha.
At summer's end was the final night's banquet. You could cut the excitement in the air with a knife for besides individual awards, we found out which team WON! This was based on points earned over the summer not just for sports competitions but also for other winnings such as Song Contest, Sunday Parade and even cabin neatness. Oh there were tears all around. And then the next morning the tears started again as we said our goodbyes. I made some good friends and have indelible memories of that beautiful place.
I came back for a final summer in '53 as a CIT - Counsellor in Training. Caught The Mumps that summer but Mumps didn't have the gravitas of chicken pox. Only a few at the Infirmary.
I have a confession in closing. That first summer I arrived at Tega not understanding haw my parents could possibly have sent me, ME, off to overnight camp, so far away in Pennsylvania, and for two months! I-did-not-want-to-go-to-camp. The bribe was riding lessons.
Years later Dad told me that as I boarded the train at Penn Station bound for Tobyhanna, I said to him, "I never thought you'd do this to me, Pop."