Camp
WOODLAND, Inc.
PHOENICIA, NEW YORK
Office: 853 Broadway * New York 3, N.Y. ¢ AlLgonquin 4-2526
Board of Trustees SARA ABRAMSON, D¢rector
ANNE ALLAN
JERALD COLEMAN
MARVEL COOKE
HAROLD LEWIS
ADELE LITHAUER
BERNARD OSTER
PHYLLIS STROUD
oS 115
July 8, 1963
Dear Parents:
On Saturday, June 22, fire swept through the main buildings of Camp
Woodland. Erased with them in half an hour were a year's planning and the
1963 camp season.
The one mitigating factor in this harrowing and heartbreaking experi-
ence was the reaction of you parents. When we broke the news to you, your
first thoughts were not of the personal problems suddenly thrust upon you but
about the camp. ''How can we help?'' you asked. We shall be forever grate-
ful to you for your response and your shared determination that Camp
Woodland must go on.
We are sending this letter not alone to express our gratitude but also
to try to answer the many questions that you asked. They can be answered
best, we think, if we start with some background and proceed chronologically.
As most of you know, this administration took over the camp less than
a year ago. Apart from its magnificent site, its proud record of authentic
integration and its unique relationship with the community, it offered us only
severe challenges. It was rundown and in urgent need of physical rehabilita-
tion. Some of you who had been at camp before, or who had visited it this
year, spoke to us anxiously about the condition of the buildings and other
facilities, and we promised you they would not remain that way.
Those who accepted our invitation to come up during the Memorial Day
weekend, or since, had reason to feel reassured. They saw work in progress
at the dining hall and the recreation hall, the old farmhouse that is the office
and library, the bunks, the pool, the tennis court, the baseball field, the art
shop, etc. Though we inherited a deficit, we went further into debt to make
basic repairs because we were determined to provide our children -- your
children -- with the best situation possible.
Approved by Standards Committee of American Camping Association
BERNARD OSTER, Assistant Director
REGINA DICKER, Business Manager
By June 22, the fateful day, we felt that we "had it made" and were
looking forward to a wonderful season. Enrollment was good (we were still
being offered campers after the fire by people who hadn't gotten the news).
We had enlisted a staff of exceptional competence. The social hall and the
dining hall had been re-roofed to make them weather-tight, the screening
had been replaced, a collapsing interior porch of the social hall had been
torn away and replaced with a broad and safe exterior staircase and landing,
and both units had been painted a uniform gray.
The farmhouse had been similarly re-roofed, the falling ceiling of the
library had been replaced, and the superimposed front porch torn away to
expose the lovely lines of the old building and let light into the office, and the
whole painted an appropriate white. (Just a week before the fire, in a driving
rain, petunias, lilies, sedum, etc., had been planted in front of this building
and plans made -- a project for the children -- to break the stark lines of the
social and dining halls with appropriate shrubbery). The tennis court had
been completely reconstituted and for the first time in years was ''for real,"'
The buckled porch of the art shop had been bulldozed away and steps
installed. One of the bunks was being totally reconstructed as a pattern for
all for the future, and shaky steps on others had been replaced. The pool
had been cleaned and repaired.
All of this, we want to acknowledge, with the guidance of a devoted
architect friend, Maxfield F. Vogel, and with the exceptional cooperation of
a local contractor, Nash Dunham.
As we have said, we thought we had it made. Trunks already were
arriving. Gina Dicker and the kitchen crew were in camp and getting things
in order in anticipation of the arrival of the staff in a few days. Some of the
crew were shaping things up in the kitchen, others were directly across the
path cleaning out the former handyman!'s cottage which the cook, Mrs.
Wilson, had selected as her bunk. Mr. Dunham and his men were painting
the pool. No one of the camp staff, or of Mr. Dunham's staff, was in the
dining hall or the social hall.
At about 9:30 a.m., one of the young men working on the cook's
quarters happened to look up and saw smoke rising from the social hall.
He shouted for a hose. Mr. Dunham relates that he heard the shouts down
at the pool, looked up to see smoke and flame bursting from the social hall,
and that by the time he and his men ran the approximately 100 yards, flames
had engulfed social hall, dining hall, kitchen and store room -- which in fact
were attached units about 150 feet long in all -- and in 15 minutes the sup-
ports had collapsed, the roofs had fallen in and the disaster was complete.
Fire companies from Phoenicia and surrounding areas laid lines from the
camp pond and, working desperately, managed to save the farmhouse from
total destruction.
Notified by phone in the city, where they were spending their last pre-
season weekend, the other officers, joined by Mr. Vogel, hastened to camp.
Despite almost numbing shock, the immediate and unanimous decision was
made that we must go on, that the obligation to children, parents and staff
must be fulfilled.
The lower camp -- what for many years had been "junior camp" for
young children, later a work camp, but went unused last year -- became the
focus of study and planning. For two days ideas were exchanged, measure-
ments taken, the contractor consulted, notes recorded as Mr. Vogel checked
building by building and called out what must be done to put them in shape.
Nothing was left from the fire. Every item of kitchen equipment, from
dish to dishwasher, was gone -- no chairs, no tables, no anything. The same
for every item in the social hall -- stage, audio equipment, piano, boats
stored there for the winter, the contractors! building materials, etc., etc.
Yet, this weekend, we were determined to replace everything that must
be replaced: a new kitchen would be created from the abandoned old one in
lower camp, a modest social hall would be established there, the children
would be housed in the old infirmary, the Bark Cottage, the Butterfly cottage,
Victory Cottage, Bunk 5, etc. -- these designations will mean less to new-
comers than to oldtimers; they mean that every available space was being
mobilized in a centralized area.
It would require incredible effort. There was a week to go before the
children arrived; repairs, finding and bringing in and installing equipment
and supplies -- all must be accomplished in that one week.
At 6:30 the next morning, Monday, the contractor's workmen were
tearing up and replacing the kitchen floor, which had been judged insecure,
and getting started on other urgent projects. At 8 a.m., a hunt was on for
a commercial stove and a refrigerator and a promise of quick delivery. No
thought was given to expense, though we had no notion where the money was
to come from.
But the crushing realities soon began to assert themselves. An inspec-
tor from the State Department of Health, though friendly to our efforts,
warned against the hazards of using an area which had encountered repeated
trouble in the past and which had not been used the previous season.
Thoroughly familiar with the camp, he cautioned that the water pipes could
not be counted on and that the sewage facilities were questionable. These
major problems could not possibly be dealt with in the limited time available.
We could not bring the children into such a situation. After long and heart-
breaking discussion that night, we had to accept the fact that camp could not
attempt to operate this season.
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Then began the agonizing job of tearing down what we had built up over
long months -- first sending out telegrams to you parents, then speaking to
each of you and helping to guide your children to other camps, then initiating
widespread efforts to find jobs for our staff.
The whole experience can be described as comparable only to a bereave-
ment; it was, and is, as intense and deep as a death in the family.
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Two things remain to be said:
First is an acknowledgment to those, camps and individuals, who
offered assistance. The ruins of our main buildings were still smouldering
when camps began phoning in to offer supplies and equipment. Later they
cooperated in placing children and staff. Our special thanks to Camps
Gulliver, Bass Lake, Triwoodie, Lincoln Farm, Meadow Lark and Jug Hill.
= Our thanks also for the advice and efforts of Lillian Margolin and Dan Morris,
Directors of Camp Wel-Met, and Cornelia Goldsmith, recently retired head
of the Day Care and Day Camp Division of the New York City Department of
Health.
Second, we acknowledge your many questions regarding the source of
the fire. No more than you, do we know how it began. We share your
bewilderment as to how such a devastating fire, the first in the camp's
25-year history, should have started so strangely, at such a critical time,
; and precisely in the key areas where several thousand dollars of repairs had
been concentrated and completed. All we can tell you at this point is that our
counsel, Milton Friedman, has asked the New York State Police and the
District Attorney of Ulster County for the most searching investigation
possible.
As we write, the Board of Trustees of Woodland has met and planned an
) early visit to the camp, the better to be able to evaluate the whole situation.
. We shall keep you posted and, at the end of the summer, shall ask you to meet
with the officers and board to discuss our conclusions. In the meantime, as
soon as there is a settlement with the Insurance Company, which we are told
should be within the next couple of weeks, tuition received will be refunded.
We wish you, and above all your children, a happy and fruitful summer.
With respect and affection,
var LE FOTO Oe
Sara Abramson, Director
For the Officers of Camp Woodland
Adele Lithauer, Chairman
F For the Board of Trustees
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