Something special today…
Marie Schmid our beloved director has announced her retirement at the end of the 2024 summer. She has dedicated her whole life to making magical moments for every camper that attends Camp Foley. We dug through the vault and found her Bridge Crossing Essay, that she wrote in 2012, long after she hit 5 years at Foley!
Keep reading to discover her beautiful wish for all Foley campers…
What Does Camp Foley Mean to Me
Inside a cardboard box placed carefully to keep warm on the oven door in the camp dining room in early May of 1956 was bundled up baby girl oblivious to a place bubbling continuously with new faces, heartfelt memories, and endless challenges. Foley firsts began at a young age with tales of eating one of the numerous frogs that inhabited our bathtub, of crying myself to sleep when the counselors dyed our pet rabbits red and blue for the 4th of July, or shooting my first red squirrel with a 10 pound bow. I was once found by distraught parents in Kadigomeg playing cards with Rivers Ereste Patout the 3rd. He was an awesome fencer and totally captivated everyone, including me, with his personality and passion. I was sent into the infested rooms of campers and counselors to entertain the ill, so that I catch mumps or chicken pox at an early age. Of course there was mischievous behavior of playing with fire crackers, being out on the ice pushing our paddle boat during the spring thaw, or disappearing for hours into the woods to avoid working.
As I grew older, I realized it wasn’t that cool spending one’s summer at a boys camp, but I made the best of it. I ate cookies and made bread with the catholic sisters, helped Father Foley blow out his 80 candles on his birthday cake, and was great helper at Canteen. I tamed a chipmunk to eat peanuts out of my nose, spent hours floating and playing with my black inner tube with Marie written in great big white letters, and was sent to “summer school” down the lakeshore to be with other girls my age. This may have been successful, but I was terribly shy.
As a pre-teen, I learned to water ski, crew for my brothers in numerous regattas, and ride wildly through the woods bareback on the horses that came with some property camp purchased. I was driving stick shift vehicles and backing up trailers, making bow strings, and working in the kitchen. Memories come flooding to me with the exciting activities, camp songs, the campfires, the carnivals, the 16mm movie nights, and the bloody noses in the boxing rink – to name a few. Oh how I wished that I could be a camper…
With being a teenager, came kitchen work. Oh did we have fun! If those mixing bowls and spoons could talk! One cook made pizza dough and I mistakenly put it into the cooler to rise. The dough became very elastic and impossible to spread on the pan. When the cook wasn’t looking, we played baseball with it, leaving the round dough blobs all over the wall! Since the dough was ruined, our job was to go out into the woods, dig a deep hole and bury it! Later that day, campers discovered foreign white stuff moving the earth! Soon numerous kids were walking around playing with this “mysterious” substance that was rising out of the ground. We cleaned the kitchen walls.
June of 1974 was bittersweet for me. Camp opened after the loss of it’d director, my father, who died in the fall of 1973, and with the start of girls coming to Foley. I could finally live in a cabin! Not as a camper, but as a counselor and happily made my home in Ishtakaba. That first year, I taught horseback riding, swimming, canoeing and went on a few camping trips. With endless enthusiasm, I took the campers to round up 500 head of cattle, on an overnight trip through the swamp and muck to Echo Lake, and played capture the flag – all on horseback. Throughout my college years, I also taught waterskiing, sailing, and was the Marina Director and Program Director. Memories flood back of teaching sailing on scows ad x-boats, campers who struggled to get up on two skis and advanced skiing classes complete with skiing on canoe paddles. I remember my days of skipping around the campfire in a pink dress as Dorothy from Wizard of Oz, a cave woman dressed in burlap blackened head to toe with ash from the campfire and being in the 50s campfire when a co-counselor rode an old bike over the bank and the campers rushing to the edge to see if he survived.
As a counselor, I remember picking up rocks every morning for a couple of hours for weeks when the soccer field first went in, hauling by the truck loads the dead fish floating 5 feet along the shoreline, and the storms! We had all of our docks floating in the water, boats flipping on the buoys, and ski boats sinking. Camp counseling was so different – there were two counselors assigned to a building, i.e. one in Micmac and one in Sacajawea. When a counselor was off, you had all 20 campers to yourself. We had no “free periods” and one phone line installed in a wood duck house outside of the dining room.
My summers were filled with memories of sitting on the bank overlooking Whitefish Lake and writing poetry by the moonlight and watching the falling stars. A s counselors, we tried riding a bucking cow (I failed miserably), seeing how close the bears would come to our car at the landfill, and pile in to go to the Drive In Movie Theater. I recall the “gifts” from my campers – the clams and rocks left on my bed along with the notes. I remember seeing a camper get up on skis for the first time only to become so excited and drop the rope. Or being up all night with a homesick camper and having campers hug you goodbye. Memories are what last a lifetime.
I never thought that I would make camp my career or better said my vocation. It captured my heart, my creativity, and my desire to make a difference in the lives of young people. At the age of 28, my mother, Director of Foley, left camp on opening day due to a reoccurrence of her cancer which was terminal. On that day, I grew up – I learned to see the positive in every situation and that great things can be accomplished by dedicated people. On that day, until that moment, I was only an Assistant Director whose job was program, campers, and activities, a single om, with a 3 year old – Alli. With faith in God, lots of tears and laughter, and with a new Leadership Team quickly formed, we survived! We would sit on the floor of the office and figure out what was the most important thing that we needed to do to survive and to reach our goal of making each day a fabulous day for the campers. I ordered enough chicken for two summers, let the propane tanks get empty – no hot water, no grill or overs to cook, and had absolutely no concept of many things at camp. But for the campers, their days were magical – full of activities and excitement. We succeeded in our mission!
As I look back over my years at Foley, I am always saddened for those individuals whose hearts are not captured by Foley or who break their ties from Foley. Fortunately, I am blessed by so many numerous individuals who I see and hear how much camp means to them and how it changed their lives forever. I look over the lake and am so grateful that I can carry out the mission of Father Foley, Robert and Viola Schmid and so many dedicated, talented and enthusiastic staff members who have worked over the years. It it truly amazing what we can accomplish as a team! And lastly, but most importantly, I am grateful for each camper that has spent days, weeks, months, or years at Foley. In them I see the Foley magic sparkling. In them I see what has made it all worthwhile – the hard work, the lack of sleep, and the daily challenges. It is their laughter, humor and smiles that keep me going. In them, I see the deep friendships developed, the lifetime skills gained, and their eyes sparkling. It is in them that I have come to realize that I like to be constantly challenged with new ideas, new activities, and the variety of tasks that I do each day. My dream is that Foley can be your dream forever.