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Camp Echo History
Caring ... Honesty ... Respect ... Responsibility
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Sumner Dudley, the Father of YMCA Camping
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In 1885, Sumner Dudley, a YMCA volunteer in New Jersey, took a group
of seven boys ("honor YMCA members") camping for eight days to Orange Lake, near Newburgh, New York.
The next year he moved the site to Twin Islands, Lake Wawayanda, New Jersey.
Ultimately the camp settled on Lake Champlain, New York, in 1891. Dudley
referred to that first camp as Camp Baldhead; after Dudley's death in 1897,
the camp on Lake Champlain was renamed Camp Dudley in his honor.
Dudley would later be called the "father of YMCA camping."
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The Early Years of Evanston YMCA Camping
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Summer camping for the Evanston YMCA began in 1899 when Evanston
boys first attended Camp Hope on the shores of Phantom Lake, Wisconsin
along with boys from the Milwaukee YMCA. (Milwaukee had begun the camp
in 1896.) Camp Hope (now Camp Phantom Lake) is listed as the third oldest YMCA camp, after Camps
Dudley/Wawayanda (1885) and Camp Fuller (1887). This appears to be the
origin of the claim that Camp Echo is the third oldest YMCA camp. For
more information click here.
In 1900, a separate session
of Camp Hope was set aside for boys from Evanston. The Evanston YMCA began
their own camp in 1902 at Black Lake, Michigan. After three
summers on Black Lake, the camp moved to White Lake, Michigan in 1905, and
then to Bear Lake, Michigan in 1906.
A reference to the "seventh annual" camp in the 1905 Evanston Index article
suggests that 1899 was marked as the first camping season. But in a 1907
Evanston Press article the term "seventh annual" is again used,
marking 1901 as the first camping season. Both 1908 and 1909 are called
the "tenth annual," and 1910 the "eleventh annual," in the Evanston Index,
suggesting that 1900 was determined to be the first camping season. The
confusion over Camp Echo's exact beginning has persisted to this day.
Without any public information from 1901 (there are no mentions of YMCA
camp in the Evanston Index that year, and the Evanston Press
issues are missing) the best information we have (from the 1902 Evanston Index)
suggests that Camp Echo began on June 12, 1902 at Black Lake
when the Evanston boys "planted their flag and named the place Camp Echo."
Using 1899 as the first year that Evanston YMCA boys went camping, the upcoming
season, 2003, will be the 105th. Using 1902 as the first "Camp Echo," the upcoming
season will be the 102nd. The 100th "Camp Echo" season at its present site (and
permanent home) on Long Ryerson Lake in Fremont, Michigan will be in 2022.
Click here to read newspaper accounts of the early years.
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Goals and Objectives of Camp Echo, 1908
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While it is neither possible nor advisable in a camp extending over a period
of but two weeks to subject a boy to all the hardships incident in roughing
it, we aim to give him such a taste of life lived close to nature, with the
companionship of other boys, that his whole life - physical, mental, social,
moral - will be benefited by the experience. Here his life is stripped of all
artificiality; here he must be natural; here his real self is seen in his
relations with his companions; and here it is that he is under the influences
which tend to develop manliness, courage, self sacrifice, courtesy - the marks
of true manhood.
Camp Echo moved to Portage Lake in Onekama, Michigan in 1911. In the
ensuing years the camp shared a site with the Chicago YMCA, and then
moved to Diamond Lake. We are doing ongoing research on these years
and hope to offer more details here in the coming weeks and months.
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The Present Camp Echo Site
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In the late 1800s, the camp lake, Ryerson Long Lake, was part of a great
chain of lakes used by logging companies located throughout Newaygo County in
the late 19th century. The felled trees were marked with the different
company's emblems on the ends and sent down through the chain of lakes to the
sawmill; credit could be given to the proper logging company based on the log
markings.
In the early 1920s, YMCA Board Member and Boys' Work Committee chairman
F. P. Davis, Sr., Boys Work Secretary Freeman, General Secretary James
Bixby, and Mr. Chester Cook, Board and Committee member, began looking
for a permanent home for Camp Echo. After rejecting sites at Town
Line Lake and another nearby lake, they arrived at the south end of Ryerson Long Lake
and were "electified by what they saw -- a beautiful lake with a peninsula
in the middle cleared except for trees around the edge and a real forest of
trees in the distance." They negotiated the purchase of the property and
Camp Echo moved to the site in 1923.
Click here to read F. P. Davis' telling of this story.
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Early Connections with Camp Newaygo
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Marci Gray contributed the following: "Back when Camp Echo was all boys the
Camp Echo boys where brought over to Camp Newaygo on more than one occasion to
have dances with the Camp Newaygo girls. We have 'log books' at Camp Newaygo
which are basically scrapbooks from every summer, all the way back to the
first year Camp Newaygo was open in 1926. Camp Echo's boys are mentioned more
than once in some of the older log books."
From the May 3, 1956 Evanston YMCA Live 'Y'er Newsletter:
CAMP ECHO -- A GREAT ADVENTURE. BOYS ... GIRLS ... You hear about Camp Echo,
read about it, wish for it. This summer, dreams of this exciting out-of-doors
adventure can come true. At Camp Echo you will love the swish of a canoe
paddle, the singing of a fish line, crackle of the campfire. Can't you just
smell that outdoor cooking, hear the crack of a bat on the ball, the splash of
the waters. You'll hike, paddle a canoe, sail, dive and swim, learn the
secrets of nature and woodcraft. You'll have fun living and competing with
real pals, sitting beside a glowing campfire, watching the sparks shoot
upward, until they are lost in the silent stars of the heavens.
Camp Echo is a permanent and unusually beautiful camp site. It is on clear,
spring-fed Long Lake, which is about two miles long, with a beautifully wooded
shoreline. The campsite covers 47 acres of land, partly
wooded, partly cleared. Twenty-seven acres jut out into Long Lake, forming a
wooded peninsula, where the dining lodge, social lodge, cabins, athletic
fields, and council rings are located. The camp is fully equipped with clean
enclosed cabins, modern plumbing, special shower buildings, and a new craft
shop building.
Leadership, equipment, location are necessary qualities of a camp. The
greatest of these is LEADERSHIP. From the campers' standpoint, the most
important and influential persons in camp are the leaders and counselors. Camp
Echo leaders are carefully chosen, mature, clean living young people that boy
and girls campers look up to and admire. Each of the staff is selected not
only for wholesome personality, but for abilities to teach certain skills as
well.
The counselor assists and supervises the campers in their activities. He or
she sees that each camper gets into special instruction classes as well as
group projects, where they meet other counselors and campers, and develop new
skills. Every camper has the opportunity to participate in programs with
others of his or her own age and abilities. Each lives in a cabin with the
counselor and eight cabin mates. Each cabin family has
its own found pine and cedar table in the dining lodge.
Cliff Maxwell, City Boys' Secretary, Evanston YMCA, will direct Camp Echo
again this summer. This is his 10th year as Camp Director. Zenol Moore will
be Girls' Camp Director. Mimi Gibson will be Program Director. Zenol Moore
served as a Program Director for 10 years at Camp Tecumseh, Indiana State YMCA
Camp.
CAMP ECHO RATES to members, $25 per week;
non-members $28.50. Round trip transportation and baggage fee $15 additional.
Rates include $1500 insurance coverage of sickness and accident, including
polio. Minimum period two weeks.
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On the Names of the Buildings
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While many summer camps have numbered cabins and generic building names,
most of Camp Echo's buildings are named in honor of, or in memory of, persons
or organizations that are an important part of Camp Echo's history.
There is a plaque on the wall of the Klein Clinic that
states, "The J Paul Klein Health Center, dedicated to the memory of J Paul
Klein, M.D., camp physician and friend." In the 1950s and 1960s, Dr. Paul Klein
had a practice in town. He took care of the Echo kids. He would come out to camp,
see campers, have lunch, and then forget to send a bill. His daughter Mary Lou
(now Kansfield) and his son Bob were on the staff in the 1960s.
Under the leadership of Camp Director Neil Featherstone, Camp Echo began
building the present camper cabins in 1962, as replacements for the smaller
cabins that were originally built in the late 1920s. The parent of a camper,
an architect, contributed an artist's rendering, and a local builder was
enlisted to construct the cabins as funds became available. The cost of each
cabin was $5,000.
Funds were sought from various sources, starting with the major
service clubs. John Altmeier and Carnig Minasian obtained funds from the Optimist
Club; Larry Peterson, Jim Dugdale, Frank Endicott, and Neil Featherstone obtained
funds from the Lions Club; Al Butler, Ben Gaines, Tom Dowdle (of Wiebolts),
Neil Featherstone, and Ken Theil were active in the Ys Men Club and obtained
funds from that group; and Doug Monahan and Norm Grimm obtained funds from the
Kiwanis Club.
The Boat House & Craft Shop, tennis courts, and Lakeside were built with
funds donated by Warren and Ben Snyder in 1954, in memory of their father
Thomas. Both of them grew up attending the Y in Evanston -- and attended Echo.
Warren played football at Lafayette College. Ben was in the molasses business.
His company owned tank cars, and instead of dumping excess molasses in Louisiana
and causing pollution, they brought barges up the Mississippi to Iowa and sold it
to mix with feed. After Ben died of a heart attack in 1963, the Snyder family
donated funds for a cabin in his memory.
Wally Ford Lodge was built in his memory with funds donated by his
parents, Rollin and Eleanor Ford.
Rollin Ford went to George Williams College (55th & Drexel) and earned a degree
in physical education. The Ravenswood Methodist Church built a gym, and recruited
Rollin to run it. (The gym later became the Wilson Avenue YMCA.) Rollin
injured his back and the members of the congregation set up a schedule for
people to visit him during his recuperation. One of those visitors was Eleanor Abbott,
whose father started Abbott Labs. They later married and Rollin became an executive
at Abbott Labs. Rollin and Eleanor's son Wally was a very popular counselor
at Echo in the early 1950s. He made All-American at Coe College in Cedar Rapids
and later became a pilot in the Air Force. He died young of injuries sustained
in a plane crash.
Rollin was a member of the Camp Committee at the time. He drove a large Cadillac
limo and would take the entire commitee up to camp for their meetings. One time,
in the early 1960s, committee member Howard Rogers painted a sign that said
"For Sale $800" and put it in the window of the limo when the group stopped at the
Dinner Bell in Fremont. When they came out, a large crowd had gathered around the l
imo. At the time, Fremont was a farming community and it was unusual to see a
stretch limo.
As an aside, in his will, Rollin left 10,000 shares of Abbott Labs stock to the YMCA.
The $375,000 proceeds from the sale were used to buy the land south of the original
YMCA building, which was once a parking lot, and is now the site of the Sebring-Lewis
Center and the Grimm Aquatic Center.
Triangle Lodge was a gift of the Camp Echo Committee in 1963. The
name "Triangle" is a reference to the shape of the YMCA logo, the sides of
which represent the growth of sprit, mind, and body that the YMCA promotes.
Interestingly, the burning triangle ceremony at the end of each camp session
began in the 1960s when Neil Featherstone was Camp Echo Director.
The funds for Friendship Lodge were donated in 1964 by Ellen Baker of
Fremont, a friend of Dr. Klein. Her daughter Susan had been a camper in the 1950s
and her daughters Zeda and Amy were campers in the 1960s.
Doug Monahan, Executive Director of the Evanston YMCA, encouraged Board member
WW McCallum and his wife to donate the funds for McCallum Lodge in 1965.
Pete Potter was a family camper and the Office Manager for Larry
Peterson & Associates, Insurance. He received an inheritance when his mother
died and donated the funds for a cabin. The plaque in the cabin reads, "Presented
in memory of Ralph F. Potter by Harriet N. Potter, a friend of Camp Echo,
through the interest of her grandchildren." Pete and his wife later moved to
California where they ran an avacado ranch.
Christopher Lodge was a gift of the McKibbin family and their friends
in 1965. Chuck McKibbin was a Y member and a Y club counselor, and the family
attended Family Camp. Their five-year old son Christopher was killed on Mother's
Day in 1964 when he was hit by a car in front of their home on Hartzell Street in
Evanston. The plaque in the cabin reads, "In memory of the little family camper
Christopher A. McKibbin 3/5/60-5/10/64 a gift of his family and friends."
Fremont Lodge was a gift of Fremont friends of Camp Echo, led by
then-Committee-member Ted Johnson, in 1965. Ted's brother worked for Allstate
Insurance and lived in Lake Forest, and contributed a great deal to the effort.
Dugdale Lodge was a gift of Family Campers in 1968 as a
tribute to Jim and Eleanor Dugdale who started Family Camp in 1949. Interestingly,
Family Camp was started in response to the polio scare of the 1940s --
Dr. Winston Tucker, the Health Officer in Evanston, said that children would
be safe from polio if they went to camp with their parents. Jim Dugdale
was chairman of the Camp Committee for 50 years.
Neil Featherstone was hired as the Camp Echo Director in 1958, and
served for eleven years. During those years, he also served as the Boys Work
Secretary at the YMCA in Evanston. He and his wife Karen still live in the
Fremont area. In 1969, when Neil announced that he was leaving, Carolyn Morby,
Zenol Moore, and Judy Kisor raised the money to build a cabin in his honor.
On Neil's last day at the YMCA they unveiled an artist's rendering of the
cabin, which was built on the site where Neil and Karen had spent their
honeymoon in one of the original cabins.
Metz Lodge was built in 1993. Alumni Lodge was built in 1996
with funds donated by former Camp Echo staff members. Both cabins were constructed
so as to appear identical to the 14 cabins that had been built in the 1960s.
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The Role of the Counselor at Camp Echo
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From the 1972 Camp Echo Staff Manual
As Counselor at Camp Echo you must accept the greatest responsibility that
you have undertaken thus far in life. You will face no greater responsibility
or challenge until you experience parenthood yourself. "Entrusted to you will
be the health, welfare, and over-all experience of ten young pliable lives.
Each one of your ten campers represents the most precious possession of some
mother and father. Parents' willingness to place the lift, limb, and spirit of
their child in the sole care of Camp Echo and her counselors is an expression
of trust that you, as a Counselor, must accept with the solemnity that
approaches reverence.
The task of translating the philosophy and objectives of Echo into the
individual campers' experience rests almost completely with you, the
counselor. To do this you must accept each camper as you find him and
recognize his worth as an individual. The measure of the success of our
camping is not in what we do, but in what happens within the life of each
camper.
Your role will be a most complex one. Firstly, you automatically become a
substitute for your camper's mother and father. His cabin group his family,
and Camp his community. You will, at all times, assume the role of teacher,
friend, disciplinarian, comforter, coach, protector, and many more of every
kind and description. "Being a sensitive, effective Counselor is an art
rather than a science. If you approach your job with a true love and
appreciation for kids, a firm sense of responsibility which is yours, a
willingness to work extremely hard, a conviction about the purpose and
philosophy of Camp Echo, and a dedication that tolerates nothing but the best
that is in you, then you will have fulfilled the tradition of a Camp Echo
Counselor.
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The Infamous Wood Cutting Weekend
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From the "Camp Echoes" Newsletter, June 1980:
Late April brought the first sounds of the 1980 camping season to Camp Echo.
After a relatively mild winter birds and water fowl, local deer and wildlife
were only temporarily alarmed by the splitter and chain saws of Wood Cutting
Weekend. Bill [Geiger], [his wife] Beth, year-round resident Roger Marshall
and loyal camp friend Jess Deephouse had the equipment, food, and Ben-Gay
ready for eight hearty souls who "had always wanted to be lumberjacks ..." at
least until they rolled out of bed Sunday morning. These friends of Echo
included: Kent & Sherry Smith; Dave Fowler (a real cut-up); The Fischls, Paul
& John; Mary Kleschen (Echo '80 staff); Bruce Carmichael & Terry (soon to be
Carmichael) Wermeling.
Having staff speak about the letters E, C, H, and O at the opening campfire
each session was a tradition that began in 1985 when Fred Brown was Camp
Director. Fred wanted to add something similar to the Spirit, Mind, and Body
talks that are given at the closing campfire, to bracket the session. The idea
was suggested by Rob Grierson -- at his previous camp in Pennsylvania, the
counselors spoke about S, P, E, E, R, and S on opening nights.
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The Tripping Program of the 1990s
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From the "Camp Echo Adventure Trip Newsletter" September 1992
By Steve Newman, Todd Israelite, and Mike McMahon
Each trip leaves us with many memories for those moments of whimsical
daydreaming; The dawn pedal across Mackinaw bridge; sleeping on the shores of
Lake Superior under the Northern Lights; late night pow-wows; shooting the
last set of rapids into Sand Island; after lunch naps; M&M pancakes; biking
the oh so challenging cherry pie; paddling the crystalline waters of Georgian
Bay; and finally suffering through a severe bout of cabin fever at shelter #3.
These memories will warm our hearts as another winter begins to settle over
our part of the world. Biking, canoeing, kayaking, backpacking, we did it all.
But what will stay with us longest are the friendships we made and the
thoughts we shared.
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