Sweet Reminiscence

In the summer of my first year writing this column, I printed a photo of Camp River Glen counselors, remembering happy times at Girl Scout camp. I asked readers to contact me if they recognized anyone in the photo. Immediately the e-mails poured in.

The first to respond was Georgie Pullliam, who lived only blocks away from me.

She had been one of my counselors. We corresponded after our camping session ended. Georgie told me that she and others had organized an alumni group of counselors, camp committee members and campers. Locals met monthly for dinner. Every summer the group hosted a reunion. Fellow Scouts came from near and far to look at old photos, chat and sing.

I often join the local group for dinner and look forward to the summer get-togethers. This was our first summer without Georgie, Linda and Frances Prosser. They retired to a quaint Norwegian fishing village only a ferry-ride away from Seattle, Wash.

In July they hosted a reunion in their new hometown of Polsbo with eight women visitors.

Last Saturday Gail King turned her Verdugo Woodlands backyard into a Hawaiian garden. Nearly 30 ladies and a few gents donned leis and settled in for a pleasant evening.

When Georgie first introduced me to the group, we had about 40 on the mailing list.The updated list, distributed at the reunion, includes over 150 names and is still growing.

One of my River Glen columns was reprinted on a journalism institute’s website as an example of the personal essay. I still get e-mails every few months from nostalgic campers who idly type “Camp River Glen” into their Web browsers and find my story. Georgie combs websites like reunion.com or classmates.com searching for names suggested to her by others.

Saturday, I met two ladies who were newcomers to the group. They attended camp in the early days, before I was born. River Glen was quite primitive in the mid 1940s, when Helen Fry and Dorothy Gruber slept under the stars near Barton Flats in the San Bernardino Mountains.

“There was no swimming pool. We hiked up to Jenks Lake for a swim,” Dorothy recalled. “We hiked all the way to the top of San Gorgonio, too, “ Helen added.

Helen remembers hearing the wild burros at night. “Sometimes we’d see them when we went horseback riding.”

Both women thought the camp food was wonderful. “It was good home cooking. We had to drink a glass of water every morning, before we could have our hot chocolate. Then we cleaned up our own dishes. We called the clean-up girls beavers and sang a song that went ‘Run little beavers, do your dishes,’” Dorothy said.

Both women made one return visit to camp after graduating from Glendale High School. They wanted to see the new pool being built. Helen went on to Redlands University and later received a master’s degree from Whittier College. She did genetics research at Children’s Hospital and worked on vitamin synthesis in another lab. Helen moved into clinical work as a medical technician for Glendale Memorial Hospital.

Dorothy spent most of her business career at Security Pacific Bank. The campers remain close friends. Dorothy lives in North Glendale and Helen resides in Montrose.

I also chatted with Leigh Taylor, formerly of La Crescenta. Leigh lives in San Clemente now. She works for a Benedictine abbey, maintaining a website for the monks. “The Benedictines believe in a balanced life, so it’s a wonderful place to work.” Leigh said.

Our group of River Glen alumni contributes to a fund earmarked for the Mt. Wilson Vista Council’s renovation of the Montrose Program Center. My contact at the council headquarters, Sylvia Rosenberger, has been promoted to chief operating officer. Susan Galeas has taken over Sylvia’s previous post as fund development director. I asked her for an update on progress at the Montrose center.

Susan reports that the Weingart Foundation has given the council a $250,000 challenge grant. The council must match that sum by March 2007. Architect James McClintock is donating design services. Armstrong and Walker Landscape Architecture are working now on the landscaping