Why did the
Sisters of Mercy decide to start a camp?
Sr. Mary: Bishop Joyce, the Bishop of Burlington at
that time, was in dialogue with the mother superior of the
Sisters of Mercy. There was a concern that there was Camp
Holy Cross for the boys, and there was no camp for the
girls. There was a real desire to have one. So the Sisters
of Mercy were encouraged to purchase and staff and operate a
camp for girls.
Mary Sullivan: When did the Sisters of Mercy buy the
camp?
Sr. Mary: We bought the property from Malcolm Briggs
in 1956. I think the original purchase must have included
about nine acres of land, much of it lakeshore. Then, in
1960, the second purchase was made by the Sisters of Mercy.
That was the Mark Horican farm. I think we picked up about
42 acres at that time, much of what became the archery field
and all the surrounding areas. For the first time we owned
land on both sides of the street. The third purchase was
from the Malcolm Briggs estate in 1964, and we bought nine
lakeshore lots then. This brought in about another five
acres. So the total was about 57 acres.
Mary Sullivan: Did the camp start right away?
Sr. Mary: Yes, it opened in 1957.
Mary Sullivan: Were any of you there at the
beginning?
Sr. Virginia: Yes, I was on the first staff of the
camp.
Mary Sullivan: Was it full the first year?
Sr. Claire: It was small at the beginning, but as the
years went on the numbers grew.
Mary Sullivan: Who was the first camp director?
Sr. Claire: Sr. Joan Caron was the first camp
director. She was born in Grand Isle. Her father had been a
doctor up there, and he knew about the Island Villa. She
just celebrated her 90th birthday.
Mary Sullivan: Did you feel that you were offering as
much as what the boys had at Camp Holy Cross?
Sr. Claire: I think we were offering more, but we
weren't really comparing. We wanted to make it a really good
camp, the best we could for the girls. Many of the girls
came back summer after summer.
Mary Sullivan: How long would they stay?
Sr. Claire: Many of them were two week campers. But
some, if they came from long distances, stayed for a longer
period of time. Some were four weeks, some six, some eight.
Mary Sullivan: Where did they come from?
Sr. Claire: The campers came from all over. For a
period of time we had children coming from 34 different
states and 23 foreign countries. In the beginning, the
campers found out about us mostly through word of mouth. We
belonged to the American Camping Association, and our camp
was advertised in their magazine so word spread a little
further. It was a beautiful cultural exchange between the
American campers and the ones from other countries. Even to
this day, many of the campers write back and forth.
Mary Sullivan: How did you get your training to run a
camp?
Sr. Virginia: We taught tennis, swimming, archery,
hiking, dance. And that we got from our teaching during the
year.
Mary Sullivan: Were there other sports and activities
that were provided for the girls?
Sr. Virginia: There were all kinds of things. We had
softball, archery, tennis. For awhile we had golf. We also
had swimming, hiking, dancing, drama.
Mary Sullivan: Did you finish the year in June and
then rush right up there?
Sr. Virginia: We'd make a retreat first, and then
we'd go right up. At the end of the summer, we'd finish
camp, and come right back to school. Some years you were
lucky if you had a week between each. Some of the sisters
worked in the kitchen, and that was difficult, preparing
three meals a day, and a snack in the afternoon and at
night.
Mary Sullivan: Do you look back on these years
fondly, were they fun years?
Sr. Claire: Yes. I especially think fondly of them
this time of the year. It was this time of year that we'd be
getting ready to head up to the camp.
Sr. Virginia: I think you either really liked camp or
you didn't. I went to camp when I was a girl, so I always
wanted to go back to camp.
Mary Sullivan: What were the ages of the girls?
Sr. Claire: The girls' ages were six to 16. Once in
awhile we had 5 year olds. And they were separated by age.
Sr. Virginia: The thing that was special about Camp
Marycrest was that we were all in one house. That's unusual
for a camp. I think it had more pros than it did cons. The
noise level could get pretty high on a rainy day. But we had
the porch, which was a wonderful place when it was raining.
What it did was make for more of a family atmosphere. The
older kids looked after the little ones. We all ate in one
dining room together. We slept in the same building. I think
it was one of the big attributes of the camp.
Sr. Mary: The building that was originally a boat
house became the chapel. That's the brown building just down
toward the water from the main building.
Sr. Virginia: We had dancing and evening programs
down there, because you could close off the chapel part from
the rest of the building. When we first started, there was a
green farmhouse and a huge red barn, and across from that
was the big hay barn.
Sr. Mary: The basement had a great big cistern. I
think it was built in the early 1800s. I've read that the
fire department burned each one of these as they came into
disrepair.
Sr. Virginia: There was a boat that they used when
the camp was the Island Villa. It was used to take the
guests out on day trips on the Lake. When we took over the
camp, the boat was left there. It had been pulled up onto
railroad tracks. We decided that rather than using it as a
boat, we would turn it into a place for the
counselors-in-training. They didn't have any place to go
when they weren't working. It gave them a little place of
their own. Over the years, it just kind of rotted, but we
managed to save the important things, like the portholes.
Mary Sullivan: Were most of the girls Catholic?
Sr. Mary: Most of them were, but not all of them.
Mary Sullivan: How did things change over the years?
Sr. Virginia: I think at first the camp was set up
like an extension of a convent school. The girls had
uniforms. We had the rosary every night, and things like
that. Eventually, things began to lighten up and become more
of a real camp atmosphere.
Sr. Claire: When the camp first started, they had to
get up for Mass every morning. I wasn't there at that point
so I don't know when it was dropped.
Sr. Virginia: After awhile, you realize this isn't
what kids want. It became more well rounded.
Sr. Claire: We always had morning prayer with the
girls before they went into breakfast, and at night time.
The camp counselors would take their kids and have a special
night reflection before they went upstairs. They discussed
any misunderstandings they'd had during the day. It was very
impressive to watch and listen to them. It meant a lot to
them.
Sr. Mary: I think one of the things that Marycrest
tried really hard to do was to have a quality educational
aspect to the program. It wasn't all just games, though some
of the games could help with the educational aspect.
Interwoven in all the programs was the conveying of the
values, which is an extension of our mission in ministry.
The first few summers we used to have flag raising up on the
widow's walk, where the flag was. The girls would go up to
the widow's walk and raise the flag, while one girl played
the bugle.
Sr. Virginia: And there was Sr. Gloria. She used to
play the trumpet. For taps at night, she'd go out on the
lake. They'd play taps from land, and she'd echo it out on
the lake.
Mary Sullivan: Was there one part of the day that the
girls really looked forward to?
Sr. Claire: The highlight of their day was the
evening program, because they didn't know from one day to
the next what they were going to do. They really had to use
their imagination. The children who were there all summer
never had a repeat of the evening program.
Mary Sullivan: Tell me about a few of these programs.
Sr. Claire: One night they might do nursery rhymes.
Each room with their counselor would choose a particular
nursery rhyme. They'd go off by themselves to prepare a
skit, and then they'd put it on for everybody.
Another was dress up your counselors. One was asking the
girls to think what your counselor would look like in 10
years.
Sr. Virginia: Sometime we'd have a real campfire
theme.
Sr. Claire: On the Friday night just before the camp
closed for the season, we'd have the wish boat. After the
campfire, each camper got a little piece of wood with a nail
and a candle, and we'd walk down to the lake by the chapel,
and the counselor would light the candles, and the group
would make a wish and let them float out into the water.
Some of the kids came during that two-week period,
because that was what they wanted to do at the end. Everyone
who lived near the camp knew what was happening, and they'd
get into their boats to watch. Some of the candles would
burn most of the night. And, of course, we'd have to go pick
up our debris the next morning.
Sr. Mary: If the Lord was good all the candles would
come back or at least stay close to shore.
Sr. Virginia: Another thing we did every day was flag
raising in the morning and flag lowering at night
The whole camp was divided into two teams, a blue team
and a white team. Every two- week session there would be
some competitions. Whatever color you got the first year,
you'd be on the same team every summer you came back. Once
you were a blue team member, you'd always be a blue team
member. That built a lot of spirit.
Sr. Claire: The Sunday between each two-week session
we'd have competitions between the two teams. All the ages
were mixed in. They were divided up into about eight or 10
groups depending on the number of kids at that time. There
would be four big events, and the camp counselors had to
decide what the themes of the events were going to be. They
really had to work on that. On that particular Sunday
morning, the counselors would have to get everything ready.
They'd start off with a parade They would make banners, and
they would have a dance. They had to make up a skit for the
evening part. We'd all have a picnic outside that night.
Sr. Virginia: That was really special because the
younger kids really enjoyed being mixed in with the older
kids, and they all really showed a lot of care for each
other
Mary Sullivan: Did you think of camp as an escape for
the hustle and bustle of the rest of the year?
Sr. Claire: It was different. It wasn't the same
feeling that you had when you had a classroom. You prepared
for school, and of course you had to prepare for camp, but
it was in a completely different manner.
Sr. Virginia: We had free time, and it is so
beautiful up there. You could sit down and enjoy it, or take
a walk by the water, or go for a swim.
Mary Sullivan: What brought about the closure of the
camp?
Sr. Mary: We closed the camp in 1993. The Sisters of
Mercy gathered together people from all over the state. Some
were from preservation groups, some were from different
ministry groups, some from state groups, some Realtors. We
had a big meeting at the camp in 1993 to discuss what would
be the best use for this facility and this land. One of the
things the Sisters didn't want to see happen was to have it
broken up and developed. We wanted see some worthwhile work
continue there, if this was at all possible. What caused the
closure of the camp was all the regulations that were coming
down. This was an old wooden building, and we were
constantly facing fairly significant renovations because of
updates of the fire code. We kept on facing new regulations
all the time. We'd put a new fire alarm in, and in a few
years we'd have to put in another one, and we had to upgrade
the water system. The capital improvements became
overwhelming. So even as we thought about continuing to use
this in some ministry aspect — be it a retreat house or
something along those lines — we still had those same
kinds of problems. It would have been nearly impossible for
us to meet say the code for Americans with Disabilities. The
facility was such that residents were up sleeping up on the
third floor. So that is really what brought closure to the
camp and the Sisters of Mercy ministering in that spot. We
continued to work with a group of people in trying to find
the best way to preserve the land and the best way to use
the facility. In the course of that search, we entered into
dialogue with Bob and Cindy Hoehl. They had a lot of
different ideas of what they wanted to do with it. We signed
over the deed to them in October of ‘96.
Mary Sullivan: Did they say beforehand what they
planned to do with it?
Sr. Mary: I think they dreamed a lot about different
things. At one point I think they considered bringing
inner-city kids up. We knew they were not going to develop
it, that was a given, that was the overriding thing. Bob was
looking into semi-retirement. They dreamed about different
possibilities. From the beginning we knew there was hope of
the property being given to the Preservation Trust of
Vermont. The Sisters of Mercy introduced the Hoehls to Paul
Bruhn, and now they are dear friends. After the Hoehls
purchased it, they made a gift of the property to the
Preservation Trust, and I believe deeded it over in December
of 1997.
Mary Sullivan: Regarding the bureaucracy, and all
these rules and regulations that forced you to close the
camp, what were your feelings — sadness or anger or what?
Sr. Virginia: We were very sad, it really was hard.
But we knew it was time. We had kids whose mothers had been
counselors there. They didn't understand. Some wondered,
could they give $10,000, but that couldn't keep it going.
But it really was a wonderful camp. We had very high ratings
from the American Camping Association with all our
inspections.
Sr. Mary: These people would come with their rating
cards. We'd usually get about 99.8 percent. You'd have to
put the place under a microscope to find out what we lost
points on.
Sr. Claire: One point off was because we didn't kick
our tires to see if they were in place properly before we
got into our van. I thought, who in the world would do that.
Sr. Virginia: One time there was a hole on the screen
on the back porch near the kitchen. And one time the tray
under the commercial toaster hadn't been emptied, so there
were still some crumbs on it.
Sr. Mary: We also rated quite high with the state
inspections. We always had high marks. The state inspector
was Frank Way, and he was very strict.
Mary Sullivan: Was the camp open to girls of all
financial backgrounds?
Sr. Mary: Yes. Every summer for girls whose families
couldn't afford the cost of the camp, we offered work
scholarships. We gave out about 32 to 34 of these
scholarships each year. Even today, when I meet some of
these girls, they tell me it was an experience that they'll
never forget.
Sr. Virginia: All these girls had to do were things
like help load the dish washer. There would be three of them
doing that job, two of them on pots and pans. They worked
together as a group, so they had a little camaraderie
themselves. They were there for all the activities. They
never missed anything. They actually felt like they were
getting a little recognition. We'd announce that it was time
for the Work Scholarship girls to come into the kitchen.
They'd get up like they were really important. It wasn't
hard work, but it was something that had to get done.
Otherwise we would have had to hire people to do that. It
was a big help to us. A lot of nurses that we had would come
up usually for two weeks at a time, and their kids would
come along with them.
Sr. Claire: That's how my niece happened to come to
Camp Marycrest. Her mother was a nurse. To this day she
won't go to another camp. She said they just don't have the
spirit of Camp Marycrest. I think that tells you a lot.
Mary Sullivan: You've talked about how happy most of
the campers were. Was there homesickness at all?
Sr. Virginia: Yes. We had cases of homesickness. It
usually came out around mealtime or bedtime. Once you could
get them into the activities, they usually were fine. There
were a few who found it hard. Often, it would depend on how
the mother would react. Sometimes, a mother would call and
want to talk to the child, and this usually wasn't the best
thing in the beginning. Or she'd write the child a letter
and say how much she missed her. Camp really teaches you to
be on your own, and to be separate from your family, and how
to make friends away from the protection of your family.
Sr. Claire: Often the ones who were homesick in the
beginning were crying at the end because they didn't want to
leave. We always had tears when the kids were going home.
They had made such good friends, and they didn't want to
leave.
Sr. Mary: There have been a lot of changes in our
society, and as families began to break up more, and as more
and more mothers began to work full-time, the camp took on a
bigger role. It really helped the children to instill values
in their lives, and to fill the need for development in
education. The families could not always provide these
things.
Sr. Claire: We had some children who were in boarding
school all year, and from there they directly came into camp
because parents were working or the families had broken up.
Sr. Virginia: There were some kids who became
fixtures at the camp. They'd help out around the place. On
changeover weekend — when some of the campers were
finishing and new ones were coming — there was always kind
of an empty feeling, so these kids would pitch in and help
out, and they felt important about helping out.
Sr. Mary: It was home away from home for many of
them. They had a sense of belonging.
Mary Sullivan: Do you think many of the campers were
sad that the place closed?
Sr. Claire: Shortly after we decided to close the
camp, I received a card in the mail. I opened it up. It was
from a camper from New York whom I still hear from at
Christmas. It contained $1.13. This was the money that she
and her friends collected toward opening Marycrest again.
Mary Sullivan: Is there any camp around here that
might be able to take its place?
Sr. Virginia: There was a different spirit at Camp
Marycrest, helping each other out and the unity everyone
felt. We focused on this, which is part of the mission of
the Sisters of Mercy. We taught the kids that we're not all
alike, that kids are different. We had some children from
the Baird Center, and we had some children from a similar
house up in St. Albans. There were children who didn't have
families. If a problem came up we would talk to the children
about it, so they could learn from it.
Sr. Mary: We had children who were sponsored by some
of the parishes. This was another way to help some needy
children to have this opportunity.
Sr. Claire: I think it was a learning experience also
for the counselors, especially those that were going into
education. They had to learn that every child was not the
same.
Mary Sullivan: Where were most of the camp counselors
from?
Sr. Claire: Most of them were from out of state,
mostly college students. They had to be at least 18. The
counselors-in-training were mostly high school students.
Mary Sullivan: What are your feelings about the
restoration that's going on now?
Sr. Virginia: It looks beautiful, and the shingles on
the third floor look quite fancy.
Sr. Mary: One of our sisters here, Sr. Eileen Good,
is a beautiful artist in oil paints, and she did a beautiful
picture of Marycrest and the lake, and that always hung
other the mantel.
Mary Sullivan: How did the name come about?
Sr. Mary: The sisters were asked to suggest names,
and one of them came up with Marycrest. The name had been
chosen before we opened it. A few people in leadership
positions got together to decide what would be the best
name. I am sure they wanted to honor the Blessed Mother.
Sr. Claire: Let's not forget about the off-season
programs that we started in 1980. We had women's retreats,
and family camping, conferences, church groups. That would
be from early May until camp opened, and then from the time
camp closed until the middle of October. We had the Elder
Hostels there.
Sr. Mary: So we had the camping season and then the
extended camping season. I understand that this might happen
when the place opens up again, and some of the same groups
will be served. We had a lot of nonprofit groups in, and it
cost them about $2 a night to stay. I don't think it will
still be $2 a night. The women's retreat groups would come
on Friday and leave on Sunday. They would have the retreat
and all their meals and room, and I think it was $45 for the
whole weekend. So our rates were always very, very
reasonable. We always tried to keep them as low as we could,
so we could make it as accessible to as many people as we
could, because we were always mission driven. We understand
in today's market that it's going to be a whole different
world. Some of the sisters were interested in finding out if
there was going to be a possibility of renting the facility
for a few weeks a year so we could run the retreats
ourselves. We had big, big groups. Sister Helen Good took
the leadership of that. She used to have two retreats and
then she had to put on a third one. The cut off for the
women's group was about 55 for each weekend. It was very,
very popular. There would be mothers and daughters who would
come together. The sisters would get the facility ready and
prepare the meals and do all the cooking. We thought this
was the weekend for the ladies to be the queens. It was
wonderful. We always felt this was a time to refresh the
body and the soul. And the women felt just as if they were
queens. They came in, the meals were served, no dishes, no
thinking about food preparation. They just got to spend time
in this beautiful spot. It was nice. That was an important
use of the facility.
We wanted to think of ways to expand the use of the camp,
because back then we were second only to Citizens Utility in
Grand Isle in the amount of property taxes we paid. The camp
was operating for eight weeks out of the year, but property
taxes had to be paid for the full 52 weeks, so we were
looking for ways that we could gradually expand the use to
increase the revenue but also to expand the ministry.
Sr. Virginia: The expanded part was called Marycrest
on the Lake. The summer campers called it Camp Marycrest.
Sr. Mary: Some winters the sisters stayed out there
and prepared meals for the Meals-on-Wheels program.
When the town of Grand Isle had one of its last town
meetings, one of the things on the docket for discussion and
vote was an item about Marycrest Beach. Now this Marycrest
Beach they were referring to had nothing to do with Camp
Marycrest. The council just called it that. It had belonged
to Dr. Smail and his family. The Smails had bought the whole
Dodge Farm. And the town people had been using the beach on
this property for a long time even though it was private
land. I do believe the Smails were successful in donating
the beach to the town. The town still refers to it as
Marycrest Beach, though now I have seen signs up calling it
Grand Isle Town Beach.
Sr. Virginia: Quite a few summers we taught swimming
to the Grand Isle children. The counselors got paid from the
town for that. It was added work for them. They had to fit
it in around their schedules at the camp but it was good for
the children of the town.
