90th Year Reunion a Great Success

What an amazing weekend! It was 3 days bathed in absolutely perfect weather, decorated with fond memories relived, and filled to the brim with laughter and conversation among friends… a camp reunion to remember. Rick and his crew took great care of us by serving wonderful meals, including several fresh yummy desserts baked by Alison. Everyone stayed busy on Saturday hiking to Kilroy’s Cabin, climbing the Alpine Tower, making pottery, shooting archery, and zipping down the water slide at the lake, but perhaps most enjoyably, spending a lot of time relaxing amid the beauty of Rockbrook.

Here is a group photo we took after lunch on Saturday (click the photo for a larger version). We also took lots of photos all weekend long and have published them here: 2011 Alumnae Reunion Photos. Take a look!

Stay tuned to our Alumnae Blog for more updates about the reunion. There are many wonderful moments to recount.

Thanks to everyone who attended the reunion. We always enjoy welcoming former campers back to the “Heart of a Wooded Mountain.” It won’t be long before we do it again!

Your Year Round Health Food

It’s ice cream, of course! Biltmore Dairy ice cream.  This photo of a Biltmore Dairy delivery truck has that great slogan proudly written on the side: “Biltmore Ice Cream: The Year Round HEALTH FOOD.”

At Rockbrook, we certainly understand!

Rockbrook Wedding Anniversary

This is a very special day for Jeff and Sarah Carter because it’s their wedding anniversary. It’s also a special day for Rockbrook because the Carters are the only owners and directors of camp who were also married at Rockbrook as well. So in a way, it’s Rockbrook’s wedding anniversary too!

Here are just a couple of photos from the wedding— August 17, 1996.  Friends and family members came for the whole weekend with some staying in cabins. The ceremony was held in the upper lodge and the reception in the dining hall.

Happy 14 years!

Learn more about Sarah and Jeff (and see a more recent photo!).

Flashback to the 70s

Another quick photo post… Browsing through our archives, I found this picture labeled “August 1971.” It shows the Sunday morning flag raising ceremony, the girls gathered on the hill dressed in their uniforms, and the amazing view of the mountains we have at the center of camp. The Sunday uniforms are slightly different nowadays. Campers today wear white shorts, shirt and a red tie, but not red knee socks!

Is that an Oldsmobile in the background?

The Camp Fire Girls

Do you know about the “Camp Fire Girls” of America? This is a drawing taken from the inside cover of their handbook (the 1947 edition), The Book of the Camp Fire Girls.  The history of this organization is really cool.  Founded in 1910 in Vermont, it’s as old or older than the girls scouts in America.  It later became coed, and has since changed its name to “Camp Fire USA,” but it originally sought to help girls gain important skills for living a “well rounded life—a vivid, intense life of joy and service.”

As you can see from the drawing this included all kinds of skills. Some, like boating, camp craft, nature lore, gardening, dramatics, dancing and art, are still part of the camp experience at Rockbrook. Others are more specialized, like aviation, science and business. Click on the drawing to see a larger version. It’s really great.

The Camp Fire Girls valued spirituality, beauty, service, knowledge, trustworthiness, health, work and happiness, and provided opportunities for girls to form, as Luther Gulick the founder put it, “habits making for health and vigor, the out-of-door habit, and the out-of-door spirit.”  It’s neat to realize that this was “in the air” when the first summer camps were forming in America, and how Rockbrook too shares these ambitions.  Camp really is a place to grow… in some really important ways!

The History of Summer Camps

The American Camp Association, the national accrediting organization for summer camps (including RBC!) and camp professionals is celebrating its 100 year anniversary. It was back in 1910 that it was founded under the original name of the “Camp Directors Association of America.”

As part of their celebration, the ACA has published a nice collection of historical photos, documents and interviews. It traces the history of organized camping to a particular event in 1861. Here’s how the timeline starts:

The Gunnery Camp is considered the first organized American camp. Frederick W. Gunn and his wife Abigail operated a home school for boys in Washington, Connecticut. In 1861, they took the whole school on a two-week trip. The class hiked to their destination and then set up camp. The students spent their time boating, fishing, and trapping. The trip was so successful, the Gunns continued the tradition for twelve years.

It’s nice to see summer camps so well represented, and interesting to think that Rockbrook’s founding in 1921 came so soon after the ACA. By the way, if you want to learn more about the history of summer camps, there are some great resources out there.

Rockbrook and the NC Cherokee

If you’ve been to Rockbrook you know how it’s located in an amazing place— tucked between two prominent rock faces, surrounded by forest on three sides and bordering the valley formed by the French Broad river on the fourth. Add to that the two freshwater creeks, two waterfalls, and the two caves, you begin to understand how unique it really is.

But did you know that Rockbrook was also the site of a Cherokee settlement? That’s right; a Native American town called Kana’sta was located right near camp. This photo is a marker telling a bit about it.  The plaque says:

Site of CONESTEE, Legendary Lost Settlement of the Ancient Cherokee Nation. Visited by British Troops in 1725. Disappeared 1777. Erected by Cherokee Historical Ass’n, Transylvania Historical Ass’n, Unaka Chapter, Daughters of American Colonists.

According to this blog, there is also a Cherokee story telling of the Kana’sta settlement leaving its town to go and live with another Cherokee group.  Two visitors arrive one day and offer to let the Kana’sta people come and live in their town “where we are always happy.”  It is a story of why the Kana’sta “disappeared.”

It’s so interesting to think about the rich history of this part of North Carolina.  Long before European settlers arrived, a group of Cherokee recognized its special character and made it their home. Today, hundreds of years later, it is home to all of us at Rockbrook.  Pretty cool.

Evening Program Writing

We found this great old photo in the Rockbrook archives the other day. It’s not exactly clear when it was taken, but we’re guessing that it was sometime in the 1950s. It looks like the girls are all writing for the camp yearbook, “The Carrier Pigeon” during an evening program in the upper Lakeview Lodge. It’s when all the girls in an age group take time to jot down a favorite memory (sometimes as a poem or drawing) from their time at camp that summer. We later compile them all and publish the “Carrier Pigeon” each year.

From the photo, you might think it’s a sleepover, since the girls are in their pajamas, but that’s just life at an all girls camp. Nice and relaxed.