The Health and Happiness of Our Girls
HEALTH RECORD: Camp Glenrochie is nearly half a century old. In all these years, we have had neither a serious illness nor a serious accident.
Such good fortune does not just happen. It is in great measure the result of careful supervision of all camp activities, of intelligent interest in the individual camper, of a proper balance between rest and exercise, and of good, wholesome food, and plenty of it. Daily rest hour from 2 to 3 P.M.
HEALTH SERVICE: Dr. Marian E. Farbar has been head of our Health Service for a number of years. She is a specialist in the field of preventive medicine, and likes to stop sickness before it begins. On her recommendation, girls who are sick or not up to a certain physical standard are limited in their participation in camp activities.
A new health service building was erected on the hill above tent row in 1947. The George Ben Johnston Memorial Hospital, one of the finest small hospitals in the country, is located in Abingdon and is only five minutes’ drive from camp.
CLIMATE: Glenrochie is 2400 feet above sea level. Warm, pleasant days, and delightfully cool nights seem to be conducive to good health, and Abingdon, Washington County, and Southwestern Virginia are happily not in an epidemic area.
TENT ROW: Our girls sleep in tents, as they have done since the first tent was pitched in the back yard of The Meadows in 1901,–and they love it! We have often wished that the girls preferred cabins, which do not have to be put up and taken down every summer,–but the tents are pitched in a semi-circle, are set on wooden platforms well up off the ground, are fitted with heavy duty flys,–and they do seem to make camping more like camping.
The girls keep their own tents in order. Cistern water is used at the tents for washing, while at the bath houses there are showers and a great kettle in which water is heated. A maid is in attendance at the bath houses the entire afternoon.
COUNSELLORS: The various camp activities are directed by an able staff of counselors. All sports, particularly those that can be enjoyed for many, many years into the future,–such as horseback riding, swimming, dancing, and tennis,–are taught by trained people who know their jobs and who have experience with young girls.
While we also offer training in such skills as rifle, archery, basketball, handcrafts, and so on, we have long, long ago given up such sports as baseball and track,–still apparently enjoyed by boys and young men whose games were imitated by the earliest camps for girls.
FOOD AND DRINK: Camp has its own vegetable garden which yields an abundance of fresh vegetables throughout the camp season. Chickens and eggs come from neighboring farms. Meats and groceries are bough in Abingdon, from Kroger, the A.&P., Piggly-Wiggly, and locally owned stores. Special favorites, like the Bellwood preserves, are ordered from the W. H. Williams Company in Richmond.
Dairy products,–milk and cream, cottage chest, ice cream, and the like,–are delivered at camp by Southern Maid, of Bristol. Milk is grade A, pasteurized and homogenized, and served to the girls in half pint, individual bottles, directly from our electric refrigerator, which is set at about 38 degrees. Drinking water, which comes from a deep well, is periodically analyzed by the State Department of Public Health which also inspects and approves all sanitary facilities.
We do not count calories at Camp Glenrochie, but we know that vast quantities of them are taken in and burned up by healthy young campers in the course of any given day,–from oatmeal, bacon and apples at breakfast through hot rolls and syrup at supper! Meals are, of course, carefully planned, and well prepared, but always with the thought of the health of the girls rather than of the economy of the particular meal.
