Summer
is coming and soon many young people will be looking forward to attending
summer camp again on Stanley Pond. Camp
Hiawatha was originally a summer camp for mostly out of state girls. It was established in 1920 by Miss Lucile R.
Ryttenberg of New York City. When under
the direction of Miss Ryttenberg, many local residents were employed by the
camp to provide them with fresh vegetables, milk eggs, etc.
Local women did their laundry and local men
were caretakers and maintenance men. A
portion of an account book kept by Lloyd Trueworthy in 1923/24 of produce and
services he provided is in the collection at History House. In 1967 the camp was acquired and operated by
Andrew N. Friedman of New Rochelle, N.Y. and his two sons, Major and Drew. They also operated two other summer camps in
this area.
In 1984 it became the Maine TeenCamp, a coed summer camp operated by Monique and Matt Pines, that provides a
specialty program for teenage boys and girls from all over the U.S. and many
foreign countries. In the off
season, the camp is often rented to groups or individuals for various private functions.
The
main lodge building and a smaller crafts building collapsed under snow in 1969
but was quickly rebuilt in time for the summer season. (Above, the camp is erroneously identified as being in Cornish. It is in Porter.)
Where did you get this information that it was founded by Miss Ryttenberg. It was founded by Abraham Mandlelstam around 1920, along with Camp Wigwam. It was established in 1920 by Miss Lucile R. Ryttenberg of New York City. ???
ReplyDeleteSo, Camp Hiawatha was founded by Abraham Mandelstam and Arnold Lehman, but the first Director was Lucile Ryttenberg, hence the confusion.
DeleteYES, She was the DIRECTOR, not the FOUNDER. An amazing place!!
DeleteOh, It was in Kezar Falls, not Porter?
ReplyDeleteKezar Falls. All data on the PDF of the 1965 SUMMER BULLETIN was simply scanned in for the summer of 1965, the next to last summer of Mandy to run the camp. It was a wonderful place. I was the Director in 1965, but do not know anything about Ryttenberg?
Deletelooking for Ronnie marcus who went to camp with me. about 1957
ReplyDeleteJoan kaufmann rosen
ReplyDeleteWe went to camp together she is on face book
DeleteWent 2 Camp Hiawatha approx 50 yrs ago. I lived in Phil's. Pa. Is the camp still around? I have wonderful childhood memories. Would live 2 take my grands plus great grands on a tour 2 show them where I spent many summers
ReplyDeleteThank u so much. Joni wade
Hello, Yes Camp Hiawatha changed owners but was still thriving as a more informal camp than it was in the 1960s. I was the Director under Mandy in 1965. Hopefully you saw the PDF version of the Camp Key to Remembrance located here: https://www.wingedsun.com/research/Camp-Hiawatha.pdf
ReplyDeleteCamp Hiawatha is now the Maine Teen Camp. Yes it is still thriving.
ReplyDeleteI live one mile from the camp and my family sold vegetables to Camp Hiawatha when Mandy owned the Camp and Ms.Ryttenberg was the camp director.
Sylvia Trueworthy Pease
If you'd like a photo of basket making class
ReplyDeletecontact me a bbbigbruce@windstream.net
Anyone with photos of Jeanne Clark or me, please send over. My camera was lost after camp. Especially overnight on Mt. Wasington. and Octa Sheina
ReplyDeleteBest regards ,Greta Couper, wave24@gmail.com
THANK YOU
Oh That was summer of 1965. Greta Couper
ReplyDeleteI am a relative of Lucile Ryttenberg - her brother was my great-grandfather Irving Ryttenberg. While she was living in NYC she, and the whole family, were from Sumter, South Carolina. The 1940 census lists her in NYC and shows her occupation as "Owner" of a camp. I am doing genealogy work of the family and would appreciate any info at all about Lucile, photos, etc. or anything to confirm that she was the Director and not the owner of this camp. Other relatives remember working at this camp over summers for her. She was quite an independent woman for the day - in 1918 records show she got a passport to go to England, then France to volunteer in a Red Cross hospital during WWI. If you have any information to share, please reach out to me directly at: allisonpicard@hotmail.com Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI spent my summers from 1941 (The year I was born)-1948 at a house owned by my grandfather at the other end of Stanley Pond. We use to take our motorboat down to see the campers at play. They were wonderful years.
ReplyDeleteI recently found out that my mother, Marjorie Lou Heck at the time and later Marjorie Lou Bosworth, worked at Camp Hiawatha during the summer of 1940. This was shortly after she graduated from Sargent College of Boston University that June. It was also before she went off to be a Physical Education instructor at Tougaloo College in Mississippi during the 1940-41 academic year. I know this from a letter of correspondence from her (while at Camp Hiawatha) to a college Dean that the Tougaloo had in its files and sent me a copy of.
ReplyDeleteIn the summer of 1941 she would come back to Maine but to work at Camp Sis-a-gie not too far away from Kezar Falls/Porter, a camp run by "Dot" Rowe. There she met my dad, Bill Bosworth, and by the end of the summer romance had bloomed.
I live in Brattleboro, VT but my sister Nancy lives up in Bridgton, ME. - Michael Bosworth
I worked in the kitchen in 1974/75. Kool-aid was called "bug juice". One of my high school also worked there, Alicia. I loved being at the camp for that summer and it made more fun to take my children to camp from a very young age.
ReplyDeleteI found a number of Camp Hiawatha yearbooks, they were called Key to Remembrance. I have the years 1954, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62 and 65. If anyone would like them to share with Hiawatha alumna, pls let me know, and I will send them to you. They're just collecting dust with me.
ReplyDeleteHello Michael - My husband (Camp Wigwam) and I wrote The Summer Camp Memory Book. His sister and sister-in-law both went to Hiawatha in the late 1950s. We donated our camp research to Historic New England, and we would be happy to add your Key to Remembrance issues to that collection. We'd be happy to pay the postage. Happy 4th of July!
ReplyDelete