In early June I took a trip to a place that has been near and dear to my heart for almost 35 years. I drove some of the same familiar roads I’d always driven to get there. When I got to the center of town I drove through the little rotary where a flagpole marks the center, I took a right onto Standish Street and then another right at the fork in the road onto Crescent Street. This is where the tears started. I knew it was going to be one of the last times I would see Blairhaven. I’d been to Blairhaven in South Duxbury, MA countless times. First as a camper in the late ‘70s; then as a teen attending retreats with the NCYL (now SCYL) in the early to mid ‘80s; as a camp counselor in the summer of 1982; as an adult staffing teen retreats in the late ‘80s to early ‘90s; and even as an adult attendee at a women’s retreat. In addition to all those visits, we often attended the end of year church picnic at Blairhaven. Over the years the building and property became very familiar to me and I truly loved being there. The sunsets on Kingston Bay were always gorgeous. Walks to Myles Standish Monument were part of the regular routine during a visit to Blairhaven.
When I first I attended Blairhaven as a camper, Lois McCurdy was the camp director. I didn't grow up in the church. I started attending the Sunday school in Elmwood, MA when we moved there in the summer of 1975. The pastor was rather bland and the Sunday School was pretty generic but the kids kept talking about Camp Blairhaven. My mom decided to send me there. I honestly don’t know if her decision to send me to camp was a result of my nagging or if she’d talked to other moms in the neighborhood. Blairhaven was only about 30 minutes from Elmwood so it must have felt safe to her. For the rest of my life I will never forget my first encounter with Lois McCurdy, the camp director. Smiling, cheerful, and welcoming are words that come to mind when I think of Lois. She was sitting at a table on the porch near the front door of the big house. My mom brought me over to the table to check me in and Lois introduced herself and told me to call her "Aunt Lois". I immediately felt comfortable. It wasn't that I was really worried about being away from home because I knew several neighborhood kids who were also attending camp, but Lois’s demeanor immediately put me at ease. In addition to being camp director, Lois taught the religion class.
Up until that point, I really had no idea what religion the Elmwood New Church was associated with. I was christened at Christ Church (Episcopal) in Quincy, Massachusetts. My mom always wanted us to go to Sunday School so we went to whatever Sunday School was convenient. As long as it wasn’t Catholic, or too weird, we went to Sunday School. When we moved to East Bridgewater, sending us to the Sunday School 5 houses down the street was really convenient. We got a basic Christian education at Elmwood New Church. It wasn’t until I went to Camp Blairhaven that I discovered for the first time that the beliefs of the church that I’d been attending for at least a year, mirrored my personal beliefs about heaven and hell. I was 12 years old. You could say I was hooked. Between learning about the church, making new friends, swimming in the bay, trips to Powder Point beach, games on the front lawn, craft projects, and the camp store, the days were packed and there was little time for boredom or homesickness.
I attended summer camp at Blairhaven until I was considered “too old” at which point I started attending camp at Fryeburg (but that’s a story for another time). In the summer of 1982 I was, however, old enough at 17, to be a junior camp counselor. The camp director that year was Trevor Woofenden (now my husband). I’d known him for several years through attending church conventions and retreats with the NCYL. Little did I know then that as soon as he saw my application to be a counselor that he immediately decided he wanted me to be on staff. Junior counselor really meant dishwasher and I washed so many pots and pans that summer that I was washing pots and pans in my dreams. As a junior counselor we had to be in the kitchen after every meal for at least an hour but for the rest of the day we were free to do whatever we wanted. Other staff members that summer included: Jim Lawrence, Gladys Wheaton, Sue Tafel and Robin Tafel, to name a few. As a dishwasher, I participated in most camp activities and trips but for me the highlight of working at Blairhaven that summer was simply being there for the entire month of July.
I attended my first youth league retreat at Blairhaven on Memorial Day weekend in 1980. Anyone who has ever attended a youth league retreat knows how much fun they are but what was really special about a retreat at Blairhaven was the location. Watching the sunset over Kingston Bay from the front porch, sunbathing on the porch roof, late night walks to Myles Standish Monument, and playing games on the front lawn were just some of the more memorable things we did at retreats.
In the mid 1980s the Blairhaven Committee hired their first resident director of Blairhaven, Rev. Ken Turley. Ken was also the pastor of the Elmwood Church at the time. Ken and his wife Laurie lived in the main house while the barn (which had previously been used as a boys dormitory) was completely renovated and converted into the director’s house. Also around the same time, the much-loved front porch was enclosed and a ramp was built, covering the much-loved front steps of the main house. Other changes to the main house included a handicap accessible bathroom on the first floor. While these changes made it possible to host larger groups, the feel of the building was never the same to me. The wide porch on two sides of the building had been completely enclosed.
I’ll admit that I have a thing for porches and it goes back to my childhood when we would visit my great-grandparents’ summer house in Chatham on Cape Cod. The house was a simple cape but it had the most magnificent porch on all four sides, three sides had a view of the ocean, with one corner glassed in, also facing the ocean. The glassed in porch was the perfect place to be when the wind on the bluff was just a little too much. Blairhaven, with its magnificent porch on two sides, one facing the bay, was a close second to my great-grandparents’ house in Chatham. I was sad to see the porch go, and even though the enclosed porch had plenty of windows it wasn’t the same. The Blairhaven that I had grown to love had been changed forever.
When it was suggested to sell Blairhaven a few years ago, it wasn’t the first time. There hadn’t been a resident director for quite a while and the building needed some serious work. But still, just the idea of letting go of Blairhaven seemed like it would never happen. I thought that it would always be there. It was a relief to learn that the town of Duxbury would buy the property and that it would be part of a waterfront park.
In May, an email from Rev. Susannah Currie alerted me to the fact that all of the furnishings from Blairhaven would be available and that the Massachusetts Association and New Church Union wanted sister camps to be first on the list to take whatever they could use. As registrar for Fryeburg New Church Assembly I knew that the camp could certainly use some new-to-us beds. On the weekend of June 11th and 12th, we arranged volunteers, rented a truck and took one last trip to Blairhaven. It was bittersweet, to say the least. It was wonderful to be there again, even in the pouring rain, as it was when I arrived. We spent that Saturday afternoon going through house, and packed a U-Haul truck with furniture for Fryeburg. It felt good to know that Fryeburg would be benefitting by the sale of Blairhaven but at the same time I fought back many tears and occasionally gave in and had a good cry. A small group of people, including Ken and Laurie Turley, Gladys Wheaton, Herb Ziegler, Beki (Phinney) Greenwood, and Denyse Daurat enjoyed a delicious dinner together that evening. We shared some memories of Blairhaven and some were surprised to learn of other’s connections to the place that has meant so much to so many people. On Sunday morning about 40 people turned out on a rainy morning for the final service at Blairhaven. More memories and remembrances were shared, as well as a tear or two shed.
I was lucky to have one more visit to Blairhaven on July 4th. Trevor and I were in the area and were able to spend the night and watch the fireworks across the bay from the (now enclosed) porch. The next day we packed up our truck with more items for Fryeburg and said our final goodbye to Blairhaven.
