Family Camp Reviews
Family Camp Reviews
So Many Memories at Family Camp
This year, Mark and I will be celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary and will renew our vows on Big Crooked Lake sitting in a kayak/canoe surrounded by our two children David and Rebekah and her husband Max. I am already visualizing being out on the water near Oriole at dusk with the moon and stars rising. Time does fly!
Twenty seven years at Camp…has it been so long already since our first visit to Camp Nawakwa? Most of those years have been spent at Oriole doing the same thing year after year….discovering nature’s wonders, exploring the trails, relaxing, watching clouds, napping, reading on the dock, swimming, watching loons and their sweet babies on the backs of their parents, canoeing, kayaking, eating, building great bonfires, hiking, watching turtles lay their eggs, going to the athletic field at midnight to look for shooting stars, being with family and friends, etc.
"Are we there yet?"
“Are we there yet?” I ask. It’s 1953, and my parents are taking us kids (my two sisters, brother, and me) somewhere way up north in Wisconsin for a vacation. I’m 9 years old and am the oldest kid in our family. We’ve been headed north on Hwy 51 for what seems like all day, jammed in our green 1951 four-door Pontiac. We’ll be at camp for two weeks so the trunk is packed full, and we have a roof-top carrier filled with boxes. I’m in the front seat with my dad, and everyone else is crammed in the back seat. Boy is it hot! It’s the first week in August, the sun is beating down, and the temperature is over 90 degrees. All the car windows are open, and there’s a nice breeze when we’re doing 50 mph, but that quickly changes each time we hit a town and have to slow down to 25 mph. You know, when we go through those towns, it seems like I could run faster than we were driving. I just want to get there, whatever “there” is.
Fast forward 50 years…… “Are we there yet? It’s my kids now with the same age-old question. It’s 2003 and Emily and James are 8 years old. We’re on our way “back” to Camp Nawakwa. After seeing a poster for camp at the Buehler Y and my recollecting with Barbara and the kids about all the fun I had as a kid at camp, we decided to give it a try.
Our family loved camp, and they begged to come back. We have been coming to camp for the past seven years. The kids have such a wonderful time each year, and they have made many friends that they look forward to seeing year after year. They enjoy camp just as I had as a kid – be it the organized activities or the spontaneous fun things they do. It is non-stop all day long, and then into the evening with the campfires and smores. Barbara and I enjoy watching our children grow up over the summers at camp.
Family Generations at Family Camp Nawakwa
Seemingly small actions have the potential to significantly influence the lives of others and, it is also true, that we may never know when our actions impact others. Through the years, Camp Nawakwa has become a beloved home-away-from-home for many families. For the Lopez family, leaving their respective homes in Chicago and returning to Nawakwa each summer is a cherished tradition and ritual--one founded by a seemingly insignificant action.One day in 1954, while attending a meeting of the South Chicago YMCA Women’s Auxiliary Board, Connie Lopez was handed a brochure for a family camp in northern Wisconsin. Coincidentally, Connie and her close friend, Earla (Musselmann) Black, had been considering the possibility of their families vacationing together. Connie shared the brochure with Earla. Several months later, Connie and her husband Chuck, along with their young children Chuck Jr. and Laura, set off for the northwoods with Earla and Bill Black and their children, Bill Jr. and Karen. After many hours of traveling on two-lane roads and through small towns, they arrived at Camp Nawakwa and to the beauty of the lake, the rustic cabins, and the peacefulness of the woods. This trek up north was the beginning of the family tradition that has been interrupted only twice in fifty-two years. The family’s two-week stay each year guaranteed that Chuck Sr. would have an extended period away from his family’s business and quality time with his family. As the years passed, life at Nawakwa changed –wood burning stoves were replaced by heaters and running water in the cabins made pumping water a thing of the past; the family changed as well and grew to include Lenore, Marina, Amy and Marcy.
The Lopez family, like Camp Nawakwa, has continued to grow and evolve from those earlier days. Three generations of Lopez’, Connie, her six children, and grandchildren continue to gather each summer, to find respite in the woods, to nurture relationships with each other, to renew relationships and share in fellowship with other campers.
