Lake Cole in 1960

Castle chefs and service staff, early 1960s

Jim Wilkes sent me this photograph of the Castle chefs and service staff - taken during a summer in the early 1960s or possibly 1959.

Dave King writes: This picture is of the Boy's camp kitchen staff of 1962 and '63. In front left is Fritz and Vilja Kohtz. The chief cook, Albert Fey, and his wife are center and right. They lived in the 2 back rooms at Pigeon Lodge, second floor. We [Dave and Shirley King] and Kathy [then a baby] were in the front room and closet over the stairwell. The male staff members are familiar, but I can't remember the names. Back left, is the incredible Calvin Brown who also worked in the kitchen. It should be noted that Shirley, along with Sal Senatore, and a Mrs. King from Pennsylvania and her sister cooked at the Castle from 1958 through 1968.

Hemlock in the mud, 1960

Two of these muddy lads are campers of Jim Wilkes: Les Blane and Paul Achinapura. The year is 1960. The village is Hemlock, cabins 21-25. I'm fairly certain that cabin 23 is behind Jim (who took the photo) and that that's cabin 24in the background.

Jim Wilkes remembers: "They had been throwing mud pies at each other on the cabin porch. So I said, 'Okay, men, there is a mud hole over younder on the other side of the ferns, filled with fresh rain water. Go empty it with your hands and feet!'"

Upon seeing this entry, Dave King remembered Paul as follows: "I remember Paul when he was in Lenape in 1959. Paul was truly one of the great characters in the village. Paul's father was in charge of all personnel (not diplomats) for the United Nations property in New York. I took several 9th-grade class field trips to NY to see the Statue of Liberty, and to visit the UN. Paul's dad arranged visits which were truly memorable. On one visit, my kids met the Secretary General, Uh Thant, who was most gracious."

man with a cleaver

In this photo you'll see the camp food service staff, the Castle food service staff and the maintenance staff - for 1960. Vilja and Fritz Kohtz, Albert and Mrs. Fay, and Paul Cypert - they were the leaders of the group. Wanda Cypert still lives in the Cypert house a few miles down the road from Frost Valley's east end. What I personally remember about Albert Fay was that he was - or was said to be - legally blind, couldn't see very well. And yet when he got mad he'd come at you with a cleaver, all in jest, to be sure, but just imagine what it felt like to be mockingly chased around by a man with bad eyesight waving a cleaver. I remember Bill Van Zandt once telling me about being chased all the way around the kitchen by Albert. What I remember about eating meals prepared by Vilja and Fritz...was that they served, more frequently than I ever liked, Hungarian goulash, served in these large low flat brown bowls that didn't make the dish any more appetizing.

Photo courtesy of Jim Wilkes.

1960 dining hall dedication ceremony

Above is the program for the dedication of the newly built main dining hall in the year 1960. (It was unnamed at the time; only later was it given the name Thomas Hall after Emerson Thomas.)

Ed Tomb spoke a few words here. Ed was instrumental in the move from NJ to Frost Valley in the late 50s and was a key figure in maintaining good relations between the new "Frost Valley Association Y" and the feeder Y branches in NJ who'd had a proprietary view of Wawayanda, deeming it "their" camp to which to send children in the summers. As Frost Valley became its own strong and vibrant organization, Ed was one of those who kept the peace among the Y parts. We named the Administration Building after Ed and there's a nice picture of Ed and his wife Elsie in the main room of the office.

Note too that Henry Hird himself - Floyd's father - spoke here too.

"Jimmy Ewen" is Jim Ewen - whose father Ed was a key Y guy (ran the Westfield Y for some years, I think). Jim must have been quite young when asked to speak at this program. When I got here as a camper Jim was a mainstay camper and then staff member, VC of Forest, trip leader, horsebarn director (hilarious) and eventually - in '73 - a camp director. He's a dear friend and I've written about him before. Have a look. Jim met the love of his life - Ellen Rutan - here (at the horsebarn in fact!) and I'm happy to report that Jim and Ellen will be visiting for a day next week.

Then Floyd Hird, Henry's son, spoke.

And then Walter Margetts - a strong but kindly and elegant man. Not a great speaker but a great effective person. He was the Forstmann's attorney and at the same time a long-time Wawayanda man and it was Walter who brought the two together. We really owe Walter's backing-and-forthing between the two, a truly unlikely match, to the move here and the extraordinary development of the camp into one of the nations' few great camping and conference facilities. Walter's son Tom was a member of our Board for many years until just a few years ago. The Margettses are still in contact, here and there, with members of the Forstmann Family.

building Lake Cole

Lake Cole is a man-made lake, as almost everyone knows or recalls. Wawayanda's first summer at Frost Valley--1958--was a lakeless summer. Harry Cole led the team that created our current stream-fed 23-acre lake between the summers of '58 and '59. This photo was taken in '59 or '60. The dock and swimming area you're seeing here is situated on the eastern edge of the lake, near the boathouse--not along the northern edge which is where the swimming area is today. (In this picture the boathouse would be off to the left at about 10 o'clock.) In the background you can see the grassless, treeless rim of the newly dug area. Later pine trees were planted all along the southern edge of the lake between the high rim holding the water in and the road. These trees are now tall and full. The blonde counselor on the diving board here is one of a number of staff who came from Towson State College--brought to Wawayanda, I believe, by Digger Shortt and/or other Baltimore-area folks. I can remember, as a camper, that my camp director (Dave King) and program director (Dick "Yo-Yo" Sommers) were both Baltimoreans. It's even the case that at dinner Baltimore Orioles scores were announced (they were of course a great team in the mid-60s*). Even later, in the early 70s, prominent staff members like Barry Dunkin came out of Towson State. By now the Towson connection has long faded, but my memories of the odd-seeming Marylandcentricity of Wawayanda in those days hasn't. (Someday, in another entry, I'll say something about another eccentric geographic pipeline: the Mississippi connection.)

* I suppose there would have been protests about this had the Yankees or Mets been any good then. The Yanks had just gone bad, starting in'65, and the Mets of course were perennial 10th-place finishers in the National League. My dad, Sam, mailed me short short notes when I was at camp--always enclosed with a Newark Evening News clipping about the Mets game the previous day and the National League standings. I'm not sure why I enjoyed this. My team typically lost 90 to 100 games and typically sent no one to the all-star game. But I can remember as one of the great pleasures of being at camp, this: rest hour, a cool breeze blowing through my own little crank-up window in my cabin, my green navy wool blanket (always tucked neatly into my bunk), resting my head on my pillow and gleaming white pillow case (I changed the case at least 3 times during each 2-week session), and the day's mail just brought in by my junior counselor, and I always started with the letter and news of the Mets from my dad. His letters read like this:

Dear Al, nothing much going on here. I don't see any of the neighborhood kids. You are lucky to be at camp. It's hot here. Must be cool there at night. The Mets lost again. What else is new? Ron Hunt was hit by a pitch twice. Love, dad.

campy boys camp circa 1960

Here is a photo of Jim Wilkes of Mississippi (at left) and Ralph Holt (at right, of Newark NJ) gussied up in drag for some camp program or other in 1960 (or 1959). I just love that camp car! It's good to know that a white southerner and black northerner in that era could meet at Wawayanda and find at least gender-bending in common! By the time I came to Wawayanda as a very young camper a few years later, Ralph was quite a bit stouter (taking a larger dress size, I imagine) and was by then the director of Arts & Crafts, which we called "the Crafts shop." Crafts was then located in the old garage that was renovated in 1970 and since then has been called Hayden Lodge. Hayden was the first major renovation of one of the old Forstmann buildings, the first of many in the Halbe Brown era (1966-2001). In 1963 and 1964 Jim Wilkes held two positions at camp: Trail Blazer Director and "Associate Executive Secretary" and his address on the staff list is given as 45 Bleecker Street, Newark, NJ - which was where the Wawayanda/Frost Valley Association year-round office was located. The Trail Blazer program was a combination of the following: a step beyond Hemlock, the oldest regular in-camp boys village; a pre-CIT program; what we later called "Sequoia," adventure village; and what we later called "Catskill Explorers" and "Adventure Camp" (adventure trips). The Trail Blazer staff included a "director" (not "village chief") and counselors and junior counselors. For instance, in 1964 Paul Augustine of Westfield NJ was a Trail Blazer JC, and so was Geoff Steck, while the same year Bill Starmer was a TB counselor. I believe that the Trail Blazers were headquartered in the area just to the east of the main cabin areas, what we later called Sequoia. The original Sequoia barn (a wooden structure with bathrooms that was built up on stilts to keep it above a swampy area near where Biscuit & Pigeon converged) was, when I first came to camp, called "the Trail Blazers' barn."