Seneca Village

In the previous post, we came upon something called "Seneca Village." Perhaps some reading this will want a clarification. Most will not need it, but what is a blog for if not to give a few people what they need while the others can skip any entry that seems irrelevant?

Yes, Philla Barkhorn really was a camper in Seneca Village.

In the early 70s, when Tacoma seemed to us not enough for the teenage girl campers - when, more than ever, 14 and 15-year-old girls wanted to come to camp - we created Cherokee Village to handle the overflow. What was different about Cherokee, as I've no doubt commented before, is that (a) they lived in lodges (Biscuit and Pigeon) and (b) they ate in the Boys' Dining Hall, in the "back room" called Hemlock Lounge. Both (a) and (b) were huge attractions to the girls: ample electrical outlets in the lodges for plugging in a myriad hair dryers and eating meals with the boys.

Cherokee was not a success in any programmatic or counseling sense (perhaps that story is itself another entry), but from a fill-beds/get-registrations sense it was a huge success. Still more 15-year-old girls wanted to come to camp. So one summer - and one summer only - we extended even Cherokee and created another village, this one called "Seneca." (For readers familiar with our summer program now, this will ring a bell: after creating Pac and Windsong, we needed still more and along came Sycamore.)

The name "Seneca Village" was re-used a year or two later, when it became the forerunner of MAC - FV's first program for kids with disabilities. Seneca operated 2 or 3 summers during 4th session only in the late 70s. Dave King was the VC of Seneca its first summer.

Now here's the archival rarity. Philla remembers the Seneca Village song, so here it is:

Seneca, village we have learned to love,
Living each day in our friendships,
Blue skies above.
Tennis, hiking, waterfront,
That is only half the fun.
The other half is living together,
How we hate to go.