The Adventurers (Part 9)

 Louis was a cabin boy aboard the Aladdin that first summer. By the time the camp closed he was proud to have earned the position of first mate. Raised on the clean air and hearty food of Apple Island, he grew tall - six foot four - and lanky. He'd also become an accomplished scholar, winning awards first at Horace Mann school and later at Columbia. When the war came, the Skipper was recruited to work on the Manhattan Project, Lou continued his studies and also worked as a TA, and in their "spare" time they worked on a project to make airplane jet engines faster and more efficient. There was little time for the camp. I can only imagine their joy when the war ended and they could get back to normal. 

Those dreams were dashed when, in 1947, the Skipper died suddenly of a  heart attack.

The Adventurers (Part 8)

The Skipper and Sam filled every room with their energy, but the camp would not have been possible without Old George or Nell Edwards. Little remains of him but a worn portrait. Nell, on the other hand, left behind a house full of personality. 

Ellen Edwards had served in the Red Cross with Sam and that acquaintance had inspired the initial invitation to the Aloha camps. During the school year Miss Edwards worked as a nurse at St George School in Rhode Island, but once the Bakers founded The Adventurers Camp at Dingley Dell she was game to join them. She bought a little house across West Shore Road and offered accomodations - and undoubtedly perfect British service - to the families who brought their boys up to the island in person. Nell adored the British royal family and on quiet nights would read about them while listening in her living room to records on the Victrola. She was a traveler, too, collecting a set of silver spoons from the Columbia World's Fair and candlesticks from Norway. We have no likeness of her; perhaps she was the chronicler who took our many pictures of The Skipper, Sam, Lou, and the boys on their travels.

The camp closed in 1938. There may have been talk about reopening, someday, after things had quieted in Europe. The Aladdin sat patiently on shore, still a landmark for passersby, sheets and lines stowed at camp for when they would be needed again. 

In the meantime, The Skipper lent his genius to the war effort; Sam guided Louis through his schooling. When they could they escaped New York for Vermont, no matter how short their visit. Nell, too, spent as much time as she could in that idyllic place. 

But their dreams of a future at Dingley Dell were not to be.

The Adventurers (Part 7)

 The boys already knew The Skipper and Sam from previous years at the Aloha camps, so it was no surprise that as soon as they arrived they were put to work mowing and painting and building. Evenings there were dances in the assembly hall with music (and girls) from the local community. They put on great plays, and recited poetry, Shakespeare, or passages from Dickens from the living room stage. There were feasts thanks to Old George, who had been a cook in the civil war and a vaudevillian sometime after. The boys laid a tennis court, and Sam judged matches from a concrete bench from which she could just see the lake. 

But the heart of the Adventurers Camp (as it had been advertised) was lakeside. Under the enthusiastic (and undoubtedly authoritarian) eye of The Skipper, in just a few weeks the boys built The Aladdin, a lateen-rigged, 5 masted schooner-of-sorts which, like the Bakers themselves, defied categorization. Then those adventurers, those beautiful pirate boys, hoisted the rainbow sails and explored Lake Champlain - sometimes for weeks at a stretch - from Canadian waters down to Fort Ticonderoga. The ship was the talk of the papers both local and as far away as New York City. At one point a fellow named Walt Disney even stopped by for a cruise. And so, for eleven glorious summers, the Bakers made their dream come true. But war loomed once again...

The exploits of the camp are told far better (and with pictures) in the book "The Pirates of Dingley Dell" by Brett Corbin, so I will let his work speak for us both (if interested I can pass you his contact information).

The Adventurers (Part 6)

 Thus far we have known our heroes as Frances and Marion. By the time they became camp directors, however, they had more apt names. Come winter, when he returned to his desk job as a mechanical engineer, Mr. Baker may have been Godfrey. But at camp he was called The Skipper. And Marion, who had already tried on the identities of traveler, nurse, war hero, and mother, had long before chosen from Dickens (her favorite author) the nickname Sam - after Sam Weller, the beloved and amusing sidekick from the Pickwick Papers. 

No wonder, then, that their new summer home was given the fanciful title Dingley Dell - after the peaceful, cozy, and joy-filled retreat where the Pickwick Club secluded themselves. For that, my friends, is what the camp became for the Bakers - and the crew of boys who signed on to become the Pirates of Dingley Dell

The Adventurers (Part 5)

 Francis and Marion were the kind of people who chafed at being told what to do. It was natural, then, for them to decide that they wanted their own summer camp. A sailing camp - which meant they needed to be on a lake. It had to be reachable from New York. And they needed enough space to do big projects. We don't know much about how they found South Hero. We do know that the land had a log cabin dating to early settlement, and a two- story farmhouse with an attached woodshed. It was a start.

They converted the woodshed to a kitchen. They took out the woodstove in the middle of the house and Marion built a whimsical fireplace, meant to look like an elephant with it's chimney trunk raised. They cut through one wall of the house and attached the "assembly hall" - a large open space with a balcony at the far end. There was room enough for dances and dinners. They hung a maroon velvet curtain in the opening and the living room became a stage. Two dozen wooden camp chairs were delivered from Macy's at 25¢ apiece - seating for parents and campers. They added a smaller dining room next to the kitchen. Marion created an advertising flyer. Then they waited...

The Adventurers (Part 4)

 Marion stayed with her soldiers long after the war ended, but finally returned to New York - and Godfrey. They were married Christmas day, 1919. He worked as a mechanical engineer. She started the Home Nursing Service working with the poor of NYC. It was a good life, made better when their son Louis was born. 

They had a robust social life, hosting dinners for international student at Columbia, getting involved with folk dancing groups. But the city drained them. Godfrey knew they needed to restore their minds and their bodies. So when Marion's wartime nursing friend, Ellen "Nell" Edwards suggested they join her for a summer as staff at the Aloha camp in Vermont where she served as a nurse they jumped. Their tenure was magical - Godfrey taught sailing, and when on land led campers in building an epic Spanish galleon themed boathouse/dock with a drawbridge. Marion produced and directed dramatic performances that included every camper. 

The little threesome - Godfrey, Marion, and Lou - returned for several summers. But even that adventure wasn't enough...

The Adventurers (Part 3)

 Marion had crossed the Atlantic alone at age 16. From one brother's home in New York she had crossed the United States to visit another in Nevada. She had survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and in her travels she had even walked partway across the Isthmus of Panama. But the Great War just about destroyed her. 

A born leader, Marion rose through the nursing ranks to the dubious honor of head nurse of an American hospital serving Verdun. When a ship loaded with relief nurses was sunk, she and her colleagues still met the relentless waves of shredded young men with endless courage and kindness. We have a stack of silver plate photos showing before and after portraits of some of the boys who passed through Marion's hospital, barely repaired before being thrown back into the fray. 

After the battle, the story goes, Marion was ordered to HQ for a medal; she went AWOL instead, unable to face the pomp and circumstance.

Through it all, Godfrey waited for his girl.

The Adventurers (Part 2)

 Francis Godfrey Baker - Godfrey to those in the know - was a local boy, graduate of Queen's College and a real outdoorsman. He'd spent many summers as a surveyor for the provincial government, canoeing through the northern provinces inhabited at the time only by indigenous people. It is said that he learned to build birchbark canoes from the folks that invented such things, and once horrified the director of an elite whitefolk summer camp by dismantling the prized camp specimen - only to rebuild it better than before using sap and a pair of crossed twigs for a blow torch. Godfrey was a helluva guy, a mechanical engineer by trade. And he was smitten by Marion. But it was wartime in the old country, and she had a duty to serve...

The Adventurers (Part 1)

How I came to Dingley Dell - a short story made long with lots of detours. Part 1

A friend asked recently how the Fearless Leader of Kreskestan wound up spending weeks in a not-quite-dilapidated summer camp in remote Vermont. 

The short version is: it's my husband's family place.

The long version is far more interesting. It starts in 1914, when 28 year old Marion Weller, originally from Liverpool, England, and recently graduated from the New York Hospital Nursing School, was invited to spend a week canoeing with her classmates around the Thousand Islands region of Ontario, Canada. There she met a tall, dark, and handsome fellow named Francis. (to be continued...)

The Fragility of Family

It was growing dark when the phone finally rang. I had done my chores by then, and my homework, and taken advantage of unexpected alone time to sneak episodes of both The Electric Company and 3-2-1 Contact. But as the clock ticked past six thirty, my sense of freedom dissolved into unease.

“Yanna? It’s Charlie.”

I expected my mother. Maybe my aunt Candy. Not the shop pressman. 

“Your mom has been in an accident. I’m on my way.”

Charlie hung up. The shop was 40 minutes away. Charlie lived in town, 20 minutes in the other direction. I didn’t know which he was coming from. I watched as shadows moved down the walls. The wicker lampshade over the dining table threw monstrous shadows into the corners, like grasping trees in a dark fairy tale. Our usually cozy condo was silent. My legs dangled uncomfortably from the wooden chair, so I tucked them under me. 

Charlie’s arrival prompted a flurry of activity. He blurted out what little he knew -- the accident had happened early that morning, mom was at the Philpott’s, Candy was with her -- while his wife collected my toothbrush and a clean pair of undies and helped me into my parka. He shut the door behind us as I clambered up into their giant red pickup. New. Mom and Candy had speculated about how he could afford a new pickup on his salary. I didn’t trust Charlie, with his thick mustache. His wife was nice, though, and from my spot in the middle of the bench seat I leaned my head against her arm as we drove the dark two-lane highway toward Aspen. Charlie chattered. I imagined our little red Volkswagen Beetle, Brutus, crushed. I didn’t dare imagine what had happened to my mother. 

Suzanne Philpott, family friend and my bonus grandmother, opened the door to us. The hall light behind her was warm and yellow and her familiar smoky rasp was a comfort. 

“Yanna, your mom is okay. She’s pretty drugged up right now, but they took good care of her at the hospital. She and Candy are in the living room.” Suzanne reached down for my hand, and walked me down the hall.

There were adults scattered through the wide open space. All the lights were on, and the living room glowed with the same warm yellow, which reflected from windows now black with night. My aunt Candy and her friend Suzie were on one couch. Jim Philpott was perched on another. Someone exclaimed too loudly that I was there. My mother wobbled to her feet and looked vaguely around. Jim unfolded himself and took her elbow to steady her.

No Halloween mask has ever matched her face that night. A T-shaped plaster cast gleamed across her eyebrows and down her nose. Both eyes were black, and bloody gauze dangled from both nostrils. She glanced at me and asked, “Yanna?”

It was only a moment. She had been pumped full of narcotics after surgery, and her disorientation was understandable to any adult. But I was only eight and my mama, my one and only, didn’t recognize me. My world slipped sideways as I shuffled toward the monster before me.

“Hi, Beanie!” she exclaimed when I got nearer. Her words slurred, and she wavered, but she reached for me and my world righted. She was too damaged to embrace, but I sat on a blue cross stitched footstool next to her knees and ate supper at the coffee table while Suzie told the story of seeing my mother, face split open and bleeding, in the hallway at the hospital waiting for a surgeon. My mom groggily described taking off the shoulder strap to adjust the car radio, and rear-ending a pickup truck. Of her face bursting apart “like a tomato” from impact with the steering wheel. She didn’t remember much else.

Not long afterward Suzanne escorted us both to the guest room. My mother succumbed quickly to the exhaustion of trauma and drugs. I lay awake. Light from the hallway shone on the print of Picasso’s Bouquet of Peace above my bed. I listened desperately to each of my mother’s ragged breaths, for the first time completely aware of the fragility of our little family.