By A.M. Kelley
Superior Catholic Herald
Another generation attends Camp WeHaKee
SUPERIOR -- When Sallie Lindstrom was 8 years old she got on a train in Chicago with her two sisters. The year was 1956 and the girls were bound for Camp WeHaKee in Marinette, Wis., for seven weeks in the wild.
Lindstrom said she had the time of her life and continued to attend the camp each summer for four more years making friends and having fun.
"I just loved it," she said. "We all cried at the end because we wouldn't be seeing each other until next summer."
Last summer, more than a half a century later, Lindstrom began sending three granddaughters to the camp. This new generation of campers found the woods and lake adventures just as exciting as their grandmother did.
Madeline Melton is one of Lindstrom's granddaughters. She's 12 years old and in the 7th grade at Shell Lake Public School. (Last year she attended St. Francis de Sales School in Spooner.)
Madeline attended a two-week session last summer and her mother, Jenny Melton, said she "made tons of friends and is excited to be going back this year. It's something she will cherish forever."
Another granddaughter, 8-year-old Sidney Downs from Rochester, Minn., attended WeHaKee too. Her father Terry Downs said although the youngster got a little homesick, she enjoyed herself and did very well.
However, the same can't be said about her parents. Worried about their little girl, away from home on her own, they didn't fair as well.
"That's the problem," he said. "We were a basket case."
This is not unusual, Lindstrom said. Parents often have a "harder time" with the separation than the kids.
WeHaKee has a long history. The Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters (based in Grant County in southwest Wisconsin) founded the camp in the 1920s and Sr. Arturo Cranston, OP, managed it for 22 years from 1982 until 2004. She said the camp was an offshoot of the order's educational program.
"There wasn't much for girls in the summer at the time," she said. "Now there are all kinds of programs."
The camp's original site on Green Bay in Marinette was relinquished in 1964 for a lakefront property in Sawyer County, near Winter. The Dominicans had outgrown the original camp, according to Cranston, plus Lake Michigan posed challenges.
"Green Bay was unpredictable," Cranston said. "The water level varied greatly and for waterfront activities, it wasn't as safe."
Lindstrom and her family learned of WeHaKee at school. She lived in Winnetka, Ill., a Chicago suburb, and attended Sacred Heart Grade School. Its principal, a Sinsinawa Dominican, was also the summer camp's director.
"The nuns were counselors," Lindstrom said. "They'd be out there playing volleyball. It was fun seeing nuns, one-on-one, just having fun."
As the Dominican order changed with the times and lost members, the camp survived but it no longer has its own sisters on the staff. When Cranston retired in 2004, the Dominicans hired Bob and Maggie Braun to manage WeHaKee. The Brauns employ 30 seasonal workers: counselors, lifeguards and horse riding staff, and another five in the kitchen. About one-fourth of the counselors are international students.
"An agency recruits young adults for summer work in the United States," Maggie Braun said. "The (recruits) receive a stipend and in many cases, their air fare."
There are a fair number of international campers as well, some from China and a number of girls from Mexico. The Mexican connection dates back to the beginnings of WeHaKee when the Dominicans, in their missionary work there, spread word of the camp.
"Affluent Mexican families are always looking for summer options for their girls in particular," Braun said. "A place with a Catholic foundation. We're matched up with what they're looking for: an all-girl (environment), Catholic, and they can receive help to learn English. Their parents think it's valuable."
The camp hosts about 115 girls--ages seven to 17--at each session and operates three sessions of varying lengths each summer.
"About 30 percent of the girls are not Catholic," Braun said. "But the values that we talk about in our literature are universal: building relationships and building strong women."
These, she said, are consistent with Dominican values of community, compassion, justice, truth and peace, and help campers to grow up and contribute to their schools, families, and community.
Lindstrom said her parents paid $350 for the seven-week session in 1956. Now two-week sessions cost $1,600 to $1,800, and six-week sessions are $4,250 to $4,500.
Financially, the transition from management by the Dominicans to lay leadership has been challenging, Braun said. About 15 to 20 percent of the campers receive some financial assistance and she and her husband work year-round to recruit campers and solicit donations to fund the "camperships."
"It's a big priority for us," she said. "It's a difficult task. People look at camp as a luxury. But there are not camps like ours in the country."
The camp pays for itself, Cranston said. "It isn't subsidized by (the Dominicans)."
Lindstrom, a parishioner of St. Francis de Sales in Spooner, contributes all she can and considers camp to be an essential part of her granddaughters' educations.
The girls are doing OK, but then her grandsons spoke up.
"The boys were jealous," she said. "They had their mouths hanging open when they saw the (WeHaKee) kayaks, sailboats and the lake."
So she found Camp Foley (it's coed) near Detroit Lakes, Minn., and signed them up for this summer.
"I'm glad that I'm able to do this," Lindstrom said. "It builds confidence."
© Superior Catholic Herald, 2008