Infirmary at Quid

I got the picture of the infirmary on a Christmas Card from Ellie in 1991. On the card she wrote: "I found this winter picture of the infirmary in a box of odds and ends this past summer. I have no idea of when I took it or even if I took it but thought it would make a great card for all of you gals out there who were once entwined in the spider's web." Kelly Rice

Sappy

Sappy was the camp director in 1969. That was the year she tried to rehabilitate the mildly bad girls of Neppies by telling us late-night stories of how we should be going on hayrides in Montana and quit trying to make herbal tea in our tents by boiling the water in our tin GS cups with a candle (fire hazard you know). She thought New York girl scouts lacked gumption. She gave up on us but we reclaimed our Juliette Lowe history just in time to practice our lashing skills—I think we lashed anything that moved—and put on a Winnie the Pooh skit for Sleepy Hollow.
Splint, you were the Ass’t Waterfront director then, you let me keep my buddy tag as a souvenir at the end of camp.

Patti McManamy

E-mails regarding Reunion!

Hi All:
I'm coming; not sure which days. I live about an hour from camp in Parsippany, NJ. My sister in Suffern is half an hour closer, so I won't be needing accommodations.
I have memories, letters, pictures, bracelet, pin, and patches, even though I only went to Quid two summers, only one 2-week session each time. I was in Sky Blue in 1963, I think, and Sherwood Forest in '64. One of my counselors was Char and another I think was Teddy. A friend I made in Sky Blue (Audrey Seidman) is a friend to this day.
I don't think I had a nickname. I wrote poems, one of which I half remember. My name then was Ellen Forman, and I was from Queens. Mosquitoes were particularly partial to me. Ditto spiders and little green fish.
efm2@optonline.net

Hello Everyone,
I attended Quidnunc 1969 (Sherwood Forest) 1970 (Rocky Ledges) 1971 (those cabins on stilts things) 1972 (Caravan). Always in the month of August.
I live in California now and it's doubtful I can make the reunion. Back then I lived in Brooklyn. I don't recall having a nickname.
I would love to hear from anyone that was at Quidnunc around the same time. I remember the canoe regattas on Sebago Lake. Canoeing on the Delaware and Ramapo Rivers, hikes down to the Red Apple Rest and socials.
Carol Smith rickysmom@yahoo.com

(from Reunion Website)...I went to Quidnunc from 1968 until 1972. I lived in Sherwood Forest, Rocky Ledges, those Cabins on the hill (what were they called?) and finally Caravan. I started 3rd session and by my 3rd year was staying 3rd and 4th sessions. I loved going there.

I remember starting in swimming as a Green, having to swim in the cribs until I could become a blue intermediate swimmer and be allowed to swim out to the platform.

We had a canoe regatta against other camps in 1971 on Seneca Lake and we won our division. We had practiced every day for the entire session.

I remember dances with the coed camps, Camp Trexler. There was a girl named Pebbles who had a boyfriend in the other camp and was considered scandalous.

Quidnunc was where I smoked my first cigarette. It is also where I started drinking black coffee.

We would climb up to bald mountain. We also sat by the road and threw green apples at the cars.

The first two years I went we had to cross the road to swim. The bridge came later.

I remember being consigned to rowboats on the lake until you could pass the test in the canoes, by tipping over and righting it and paddling back to the dock.

I remember campfires, the arts and crafts shack, splash parties. I remember the trespassers. I especially remember the campfire songs.

Carol Smith rickysmom@yahoo.com

Quidnunc 1955 and 1956 (Posted on Kids Camp site)

by Marlene Toth, 2/21/08

I went to Camp Quidnunc in the mid-1950's. I also think of it each time it rains hard. The rain on the tent was amazing. I also remember the fire drills where we all had to exit the camp area to a deep gully and walk on stones in a creek for what seemed forever.

I won a costume contest. I glued dry leaves to a paper bag hat, that looked like curls on my head!

I also recall arriving the first day of camp, and being placed in a large circle right off of the bus from NYC. We were asked to remove our shoes and socks to be checked for athlete's foot, which I had never heard of - I was eight years old. I HAD it, and was banned from swimming for the first week, until it cleared up. To this day - I am 60 years old, I cannot stand walking in bare feet. If my feet touch the floor before bed, I have to wash them in the sink.

I loved the camp, and especially the songs - White Dove, and "I love the mountains, I love the daffodils" Boom di ada... etc. Marlene

Some New Pictures

Melinda O'Sullivan sent some new pictures for the blog.
Click on the photo of tentmates above at right for more.OK! I'm the one of the far right. The 3rd from the left is KB, the sloe gin fiz girl. We're both from MN.... we rode the Greyhound Bus all the way from St. Paul to NYand we actually put on our white pumps and dresses so we'd arrive in NYC properly dressed. What a laugh that gave everyone at Camp Quidnunc. I did not give anyone my ID so that must have been KB. On the left in the back row is Lena Nielson from Sweden. And on the left side on the front row is Jay, the waterfront director. I can't remember the others. I have a better copy of the picture. I'm still paying for that glorious tan with trips to the dermatologist!!!! Peri

Neppies Staff 1964: Ellen Muth, Boni Allen, Grace Aldag, Karen

KB, Dusty, Dee, Sukie, Lena, Linda Hecht(Mouse), ? , Cathy Ramirez

Camp Quidnunc Reunion Plans!

Plans are in progress for a camp reunion this summer, July 11,12, and 13, 2008. Come for any or all days, more information will be forthcoming. Cindy is trying to arrange to stay at a cabin at Sebago. Hiking to Bald Rock, swimming, cookout, campfire and singing are all on the agenda! Get those pictures out of the attic bring your guitar and songbook, and let's reminisce a little! Email Cindy at spare1@mindspring.com if you want any more information.

Remember?

When young, camp was the best time
of my childhood. Even if there is no one out there from my time, it does bring back so many good memories. Knowing that talking about camp they know what I am talking about and I know what they are talking about. I remember the smell of honeysuckle on the way down to the lake. Do you remember that? (My troop # was 4- 708. 4 is Queens. Mine was in St. Albans. Our co-leaderwas Mrs Romano. I always went to camp the last two weeks in Aug.)
Judy Caputo

I don't remember the honeysuckle, but the smell of pines and woods always makes me homesick for camp. My troop was from Staten Island, # 5-180..my mom was the leader for years. I usually went to camp in July, but once I went in Aug.
Cindy Cleveland

Our troops were 4-750 and 4-40 in Queens. They were based in the Community Methodist Church in Jackson Heights. My mom was one of the leaders of 4-40 for several years. We moved out of Queens late in 1965, but that was about when Quidnunc was opened up to folks from outside the city.
Pam Crabtree

I came from a troop in the Bronx and went to Quid for the month of Aug every year as a camper. I agree that reading everyone's memories has brought me great joy. Camp was such a big part of my life. Remember the crab apples on the way to the waterfront?
Gilda "Splint"

I don't remember the crab apple tree..? Where was it? I remember having to take those darn salt tablets before a hike, esp. if it was real hot that day. YUCK..Even trying to swallow them with the delicious cold water from the pump, it was hard. I think I faked it most of the time. I remember all the canoe trips from lake to lake. I never got to go on the long distance trips, I wasn't there at the time or didn't qualify. But the last day of the session, we would take the canoes out on the lake and swamp them. That was great fun. We didn't get in trouble and went home the next day. The unit leaders were not too happy with us because they told us not to do it. But back then, we thought we were invincible. That was our one big defiant act all summer...Sitting on the stern, paddling over to the boys camp, and half way back , then oops....Who taught the Junior Lifesaving in 65? Well, I wasn't very good and when she tested me I didn't want to dive down in the mucky bottom of the lake,...sooo..I waited for her to come up and then used the hair pull rescue on her, needless to say I failed.Who ever it was could sink like a rock!

Ok, how about a gross memory?? Do you remember the first day or two we had to go to the infirmary to have the nurse check for head lice and spread your toes for athletes foot? All of us lined up on the porch, spreading our toes one at a time and then someone else picking thru our hair. Guess it wasn't fun for them either.
Cindy Cleveland

Staff Pictures: 1964, 65, 66 from Boni

Name those Counselors! Click on the picture to enlarge. Then send me an e-mail with the names! 1964

Bottom row L-R: Char, ?, ?, ?, Beaver, Mary Martin, ?, ?, ? ,Ruth (Took Ellie's place that year),?, Judy Globinger (Glob), me (Linda,Mouse), Sue Frish,???
Middle row: ?, Sukie, Dee, ?, Ram (Cathy Ramirez), Max (Maxine Klein, twin), K.B., ? Dusty, ?, ?, Peri, Boni, ?, ?, ?, ?, "Danish girl", ?, ?, ?
Top row: ?, Moe (Maureen McConnell), Ruth Klein (twin), Mary Lynch (office manager),?, ?, Ruth Henderson (Sunny), Kathy (ass't. office manager),?, ?, ?, Gus (Nancy Augustus), Grace Aldag, Lena Neilson, Ellen Muth, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?

1965
Bottom L-R: Maureen (accountant?) Max, ?, Char, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, Ass't. Director
(Maureen's sister and good friend of Ellie's), Ellie, ?, Grace Aldag, Peri, Judi Jankovitz(from MN), ?, Jan, Sue Frish, Me (Linda, Mouse)
Middle: Charlie (handyman), Flip, ?, ?, Lynne Jeffries,?, ?, K.B., Buzzer,?, ?, Bonnie
Sukie, Cathy Ramirez (Ram), Lena Neilson (Sweden), ?, ?, ?, Don,?, ?, ?, ?, Kathy, Ruth, Boni
Top: ?, Wink, Brownie (nurse), Swede,
Mary Lynch, Moe, ? , Ellen Muth,?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?

1966

Bottom L-R: ?, Mary Lynch, Maureen, ?, ?, Don,?, ?, Ellie, ?, Cathy Loudis, Faye Hildenbrand, Linda Hecht (Mouse), Gilda (Splint), ?,Mary Muth, Boni, Char, ?

Middle: ?, Pam Burke, ?, ?, ?, Judy (Glob), ?, ?, KB, Brownie, ?, Cook, ?, Faye Muth, Jan,?, ?, Kathy,????

Top: ?, Swede, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, Office Aide, ?, ?, Ruth Klein, ?, ?, ?

Name those Staff Members!

Lake Kanawaukee

Woodcut of Lake Kanawaukee

Pictures from Boni

Joey eating spaghetti with an eggbeater

Boni's birchbark place card

Waterfront 1967

Pudgy in Boni's ditty bag

Boni's Memories

Love your blog. Here are some memories for you. The pictures of Pudgy (Neppies mascot) and Joey are from '64. Pudgy went canoeing regularly and always jumped into my canoe when she was ready to throw up. She earned her beginning swimmer card also.
Our girls planned an overnight at a nearby Girl Scout camp and they forgot to pack eating utensils and were forced to eat with what was available, hence the eggbeater.
The birch bark place card had a rosette of pine cones, but they didn't survive. I don't know who painted the lake, but it's really neat. What I liked best about singing at Quid was when a bunch of counselors would circle through camp serenading the girls at bedtime. We only sang the really pretty ones. Boni

Painting of Kanawaukee 1, Eva Wittlinger, 1994

Kanawaukee 1

Words to Songs

It was suggested in an earlier comment that we make available words to some of the songs we learned at camp.

I have been making clickable links to many of the songs that I had listed on an earlier blog posting (February 07)

On some of the songs, you can click on a player and hear the song.

Now, if you click on the name of the song, the words come up.
I have also found some good websites to look up Camp Songs on.

This site below is very comprehensive and the link relates to Girl Scout songs.

http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=77412

Ellen

Camp Quidnunc 1963 and 64
by Ellen Forman Muraskin (borrowed from the Camp Reunion Website)

I went to and absolutely adored Camp Quidnunc when I was 10 and 11, in the summers of 1964 and 65. I stayed in Sky Blue the first year and Sherwood Forest the next.

I had a counselor from Texas named Char.

I hiked to Bald Rock. I slept outside in a bedroll one night.

I washed my hair in the lake with Prell. Fish bit me. Spiders bit me. Mosquitoes covered my arms and legs with bites. If I hadn't looked so happy when I met my mother after two weeks, she probably would have been alarmed at all those bites.

I made a friend (Audrey Seidman) that I have to this day. The day we met, she dropped her footlocker on my foot.

I wrote poems and burnished copper and learned to make campfires and washed dishes in buckets that were brought to every table in the dining room. We sang

"Mandy was a little Bahama Girl..." and "I Won't Grow Up" while we washed dishes.
I peed in the "la" which did not flush. The faucets were rabbit-ear devices you had to squeeze together. They only ran cold water. I washed my clothes with a washboard.

I had a black tent mate named Gwynn, who was a good friend. I noted this in a letter home, describing her as "Negro."

I wrote letters home to my bathroom. Also my family. My mother has kept them; they are so excited and enthusiastic. I still have the Q spiderweb pin and the little charm bracelet with the fir tree.

And you?

Ellen Forman Muraskin, from Troop 612 (I think) in Middle Village, Queens, circa 1963-64

Wendy's Recollections

...quite a few of the people mentioned in the blog I do remember. I remember being very upset the first time Pam went to camp and I was too young to go – I think I drove my mother nuts the whole time see was gone. I think I was 7 my first summer and having an older sister in camp was a definite asset. My time at Quid included Sleepy Hollow, HAW, Sky Blue, Cricket Hill, Gypsy Skies & Caravan. The summer of ’71 I followed my sister’s footsteps and was the Dining Hall Supervisor – I remember I tore the ligaments in my foot that summer, and lived on Hershey Bars and apples (seeing how the food was made definitely wasn’t very appetizing.) The summer of ’72 I worked on the waterfront.

I remember hiking through the deserted boys camp and the counselors telling us scary stories. I wonder what kind of stories were told to campers in later years that hiked through Quidnunc. Did you hear of “Irving the Pervert?” I think he appeared the last year I was a camper in Caravan.

Some of my other memories were the canoe regattas and trying to beat Camp Mahetu, hiking to the Red Apple Rest, and backpacking parts of the Appalachian Trail, canoe trips, sneaking into DD at night, the final banquets, campfires – s'mores and singing, lots & lots of singing . One summer there was a big storm predicted and we all got our bedrolls or sleeping bags and crammed into the Troop House. I remember that someone talking in their sleep was quite a source of amusement. There were always tears at the end of the summer. I was supposed to work at either Brady or Kaufmann ( can’t remember which) the summer after Quidnunc closed but I just couldn’t do it – it would have never been the same.

Flag Ceremony and Postcard

Old Postcard purchased on Ebay by Cindy Cleveland

1953 Flag Ceremony
Ellie Alf, in red shirt and red hair

Memories by Lisa

Camplife was difficult for me because I was sent so young (6 years old) and had trouble adjusting. Like everyone, I've got lots of memories but what really stands out is what I learned.

I learned how to make smores, how to collect kindling and build a campfire, how to make a bedroll, how to pack a duffle bag, how to make "hospital corners", how to roll up tent flaps, how to fold a flag, how to swim, how to paddle a canoe (bow and stern), how to tip a canoe, get back in it, bail it out (with our bathing caps) and continue home.

I vividly recall going on a ridiculously long hike and sleep over where I stepped in a next of yellow jackets and had to spend the night in the woods, feeling just horrible. Last summer when my daughter stepped in a nest of caught 16 stings, I was truly able to sympathize!

My favorite part of camp were those nights when we would have a sing. We would form a giant circle. I always wondered where these songs came from and how everyone knew all the words. It was very comforting to me to hear the music and harmony. I learned how to sing in a round. Today I am a musician and I teach music to pre-schoolers in Manhattan.

I attended Quidnunc until 8th grade when I decided to hang out with my friends in New York but what I learned at Quidnunc has truly endured.

Lisa Ellex

Deni Speaks

Lynn Jeffries, HAW 1965
(Thanks to Denise Maynard)
More new pictures in Quidnunc #2 file

Thanks for putting together the Quidnunc page with photos.
I really got teary eyed when I saw the Double Decker, Waterfront, the camp bridge and Neppies Nook. I remember some of the girls in the photos such as Belle and Saadia; they were with me in Neppies.
In the photo of 2 counselors tying a canoe to the camp truck, the gal in the plaid shirt was my swimming instructor "Flip" in '65.
In the photo of the 4 counselors in their "greenies" the short blonde
is Donna Jeffries as her sister Lynn was one of my previous counselors.

I attended Quidnunc as follows:

1965, Hundred Acre Wood: counselors were Pokey, Kathy, Lynn and someone else
1966: Gypsy Skies, counselors were Kathy, Skipper and Lee
1967: Trails End: counselor were Davey and ???
1968: Neppies Nook: Brenda, ME (Mary Ellen) and Kathy Giffin
1969-70: Caravan: Splint, Inga and "Mouse"
1971: Kitchen Aide living in Hilltop
1972: Counselor in Sleepy Hollow

Ellie was our director for my 1st 2 years, then Smitty and later some other women took over.

Some of my camper friends were: Wendy Crabtree, Robin Fields, Gayle Goldfarb, Lorraine Collazzo, Jody Krissiloff, a girl called "Rex", a girl called "Irving"(Marie Kallmeyer) who packed a trunk of mixed drinks in baby food jars, a girl called "Mushy" and a host of other girls who's faces I can just remember but not their names.

I will try and dig out some photographs over the summer. Please keep me on your mailing list and blog.

If there is a reunion or a pilgrimage to the Quidnunc site, I would definitely be interested. I still reside in the NY metro area.
Thanks for sharing these wonderful memories.

Best regards,
Denise (Deni)

Quidnunc Song

(Tune: Drifting and Dreaming"

from Staff handbook, 1951

Thread after thread, the spider weaves...

It weaves a friendship that never leaves.

With spirits ever high, we'll always be

Faithful and loyal,

Quidnunc to thee.

Happiness reflected in silken thread

High ideals woven into each web

All other camps, you may all try-

But, at Camp Quidnunc, true standards lie.

Thanks to Lanie Hildenbrand Sussman for reminding us!

New Old Camp Pictures!

Staff Picture