History

Washington County News

Thursday, August 31, 1950

page 6

Oldest Camp For Girls Celebrates 50th Anniversary

“Jubilee” Banquet Fetes Five Decades of Campers

   A “Jubilee” Banquet with former campers representing each of the five decades of the camp’s fifty-year history was held as Camp Glenrochie closed its summer season.

   During the celebration, former campers and counselors were honored and the history of the camp reviewed.  Volney H. Campbell, a former counselor, served as master of ceremonies.

   The Rev. Churchill J. Gibson, rector of St. James Episcopal Church in Richmond, conducted the Sunday morning service.  His wife is Gay Lloyd Gibson, who was one of the first girls to attend the camp.  She later led a pilgrimage to The Meadows where she told the girls of the first camp on the site where the first tents stood.

   The Green team gave the banquet, using the “50th Anniversary” as their theme.  Table decorations were replicas of camp life, with Tent Row as the centerpiece.

   Representing the first decade of the camp’s history was Louise Dearing Myers of Savannah who attended Glenrochie in 1906 when it was located at The Meadows.  She is also the first “old” camper to have a granddaughter, Louise Oliver, at the camp.  Louise came both this year and last year.

   Jean Cunningham Reade of Abingdon and Valdosta, Ga., represented the second decade.  She came to Glenrochie form Savannah, Ga., as a camper in 1915.  She later returned as a counselor and has been there ever since.

   Amelia Weaver Cochran of Nashville, representing the third decade, came to the camp in 1926 and 1927.  During her second year she was captain of the Green team and won the camp sweater for the “best all-round” camper.

   A North Carolinian, Mary Robertson Copenhaver of Asheville, represented the fourth decade.  She attended camp in 1938 and was captain of the Red team.  The granddaughter of the camp’s founder, she later served as counselor for many years.

   Mary McKinley of Brookside, Ky., delegate for the fifth decade attending Glenrochie in 1944, returning in 1949 as counsellor. 

   Two early counselors from Abingdon were introduced at the banquet.  They were Mary Hayter who helped supervise the girls for many years and Mrs. W. T. Booker, the founder’s sister.  Mrs. Booker was one of the early counselors at The Meadows in the camp’s first decade.

   As hostesses, some of the Green team members donned costumes of the various decades.  They were Martha Alsop of Richmond, 1910; Mary Kolmer, Salem, 1920; Louise Oliver, Savannah, 1930; Caroline Phelan of Valdosta, Ga., 1940; Eleanor Oppenhimer, Richmond, 1950; and Nancy Corson, Arlington, Va., 1950.

   Others introduced during the fete were William Hogans, the camp’s first cook, Bessie Nicholas, who was with the camp for 30 years and Willie Taylor, camp’s cook since 1915.  Hogans was camp cook for 20 years.