A Brief History of Camp Kinderland
@13.7 billion years ago: The big bang: The beginning of the universe and time.
@4.5 billion years ago: Our solar system is formed.
@3.5 billion years ago: Life appears on earth.
@250 million years ago: Mammals evolve.
@150 thousand years ago: Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosome Adam are born.
@150 thousand years ago to 1892: Nothing much of interest.
1892: A group of cloakmakers gather in a tenement on New York's
Lower East Side and formed a mutual aid society formally
chartered in 1900 as The Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring.
1921: Leaders of the New York Arbeter Ring Jewish Children’s Shules
think of starting a children’s camp.
1922: Jacob Levine, Michel Grossman and Yankl Doroshkin
are chosen as the camp committee to find a location.
The committee learns that a camp on Sylvan Lake, in Hopewell
Junction, NY had gone bankrupt and is available to purchase.
1923: What is to become the Kinderland site is rented for one year
with an option to buy (for $35,000) and Camp Kinderland
opens
for its first season.
The campers are divided into 5 groups, fifth
group up to first group.
1924: The Kinderland site on Sylvan Lake is purchased.
19xx: Jacob Levine, upset that Camp Kinderland is controlled by communists,
leaves and starts his own camp - Camp Naivelt.
Others members of the Workman's Circle, also
upset that Kinderland
is controlled by communists, decide to open
another camp on Sylvan Lake.
1927: Camp Kinder Ring opens for business.
1929: Approximately 9000 members split( or were expelled depending on whom you ask)
from the Workmen's Circle to form the InternationaL Workers Order (IWO).
Among the members that split are the owners and managers of Camp Kinderland.
After 1930, camp was run by
the Jewish-American section and then the Jewish
People’s Fraternal Order (JPFO).
1935: Wo-Chi-Ca (WOrker's CHIldren's CAmp) opens for its first season.
1935: Ben Itzkowitz becomes the camp photographer.
1936: The "Fascist" team wins "Capture the Flag. The Loyalists team loses.
1937: The last year that campers marched to breakfast, with fists in the air,
saluting the Flag
of the Soviet Union. The thinking changed from less
pro Soviet to more anti fascist.
1938: All campers march to breakfast every morning, they salute the American
Flag.
1938: There is a visiting day every weekend.
1939: Tents are still used for at least some of the campers.
The name Lakeland is used for the first time as
the name for the adult side.
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1940: Camp's dining room/theater/Casino, a wooden
building near
the sports field, burned down between the 1940 and
1941 season.
1941: Tennis court, near the sports field, is still being used.
1941: The Casino is built.
1942: Campers travel to camp on an excursion boat to
save gasoline.
1943: Yackagdayou Brateslayou(The Yackles) is formed.
1944: Deluxe Bunks A and B are built.
The bunks came "equipped" with a goat and a sheep -- live, not stuffed --
that were supposed to bring the kids closer to nature, or vice versa.
The
animals frequently broke their tethers to great consternation and
amusement. The goat munched on poison ivy
and gladly spread the rash
to anyone who petted it.
1945: The U shaped cinderblock dining room is built. The older wooden building
which
stood on the same site had burned down.
1947: Delux Bunks 16, 17 and 18 are built.
1947: World Youth Festival in Prague celebrated at Camp; greetings sent
from Prague
by ex-camper, staffer (and Yakl) Marx Wartofsky,
representing the Jewish Young
Fraternalists (youth section of JPFO).
1947: Five-day Yiddish shule teacher training session for interested Camp
counselors
held in the casino after children leave, sponsored by
School for Teachers and
Higher Jewish Education, university-level
school of JPFO.
1948: Near the end if the season, a girl named Rita contracted polio. The campers and
staff were quarantined in camp for an additional two weeks. The mattresses were burned.
1949: The oldest group is now called the Work Group.
They paid less and they worked for camp, what a
deal.
1949: The last year for the Drum and Bugle corps, Abe Wohl leader.
1949: August 14, Paul Robeson visits camp.
1949: Sept 4, A concert is given near Peekskill, NY.
The performers include Paul Robeson and Pete Seeger.
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1950: The Howard Fast Work Group builds the Open Platform.
1950: Wo-Chi-Ca closes and changes its name to Wyandot.
1951: The Work Group builds the steps to the Open Platform.
1951: The First Group builds the steps at the waterfront.
1951: Wyandot Opens for its first season.
1951: Huey gets a Kinderland emblem (A picture is on the home page)
for being a "good boy" even though he complained, along with
many others, about the
Yiddish lessons we were required to attend.
1952: The name of the Work Group is changed to the Youth Group.
They still paid and worked; they build the benches at the Open Platform.
1952: The Social Hall, which stood between the road to the
hill bunks and
the top of the hill, down the road from the infirmary,
had
a
fire sometime
before the season started. All that remained after the fire was the
fieldstone foundation. By 19xx,
only the chimney remained.
19xx: Yiddish lessons are no longer a required activity.
19xx: Visiting days are no longer held every Sunday.
19xx: No more Tugs of War or Colors War, we now have Labor Olympics
and Shalom Schleps.
1953: No visiting day - polio epidemic, we waved to our parents from a distance.
1954: After a series of court cases, the IWO's core insurance business was
terminated by New York State and the IWO dissolved. The "Sylvan Lake
Corporation" is formed and camp
is purchased from the IWO for $300.000
1954: Wyandot Closes. One of the reasons is that a camper, Marian Cuca, died
of polio.
1954: The Waterfront is completed by lifeguard Label Shulman and Pop Warner.
1955: April 12: The Salk Polio vaccine is approved by the FDA.
1955: The Youth Group builds more benches at the Open Platform.
1955: Many Wyandot campers come to Kinderland.
1955: Pete Seeger chops a log in the Casino. He sings "Take this Hammer."
Take this hammer (huh!) carry it to the captain (huh!)
1956: The oldest group is now called the CITs (Counselors In Training).
1956: The Workgroup (One year younger than the CITs) builds a fence
along the road down to the casino. Why did we do that?
1956: The first UN peace Olympics.
The teams are: US, USSR, England, France, Israel and India.
1956: Morris Salz and Dave Glaser open camp Trywoodie.
1959: To make the Recreation Hall (old bunk A and B) A "better place"
Mike Stein and Paul McGowan remove the rafters (actually the ceiling joists).
The following winter Kinderland acquires an additional open platform.
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1961: CIT program expands to 2 years.
1969: The ceiling in the dining room cracks.
Motor boats are allowed on the lake.
The handwriting is on the wall.
1971: Lyber Katz, Sam Shapiro and ELsie Suller look for another site for Camp.
The camp site on Sylvan Lake is closed and sold because:
1) Taxes were getting higher and the
property was only used for 2 months a year.
2) Some people who had loaned money to purchase
the camp wanted their money returned.
3) The Sylvan Lake area had become a bedroom
community for NYC and
builders were offering a high
price for the property.
4) There was not enough money to maintain the premises.
1972: January 1. The pianos, the pots and cooking utensils, the costumes,
and other stuff is
removed and stored. A collection of books is left
behind.
The liberation crew of 17 consisted of:
Laura Friedman and Paul Shneyer
Harriet, Jody and Ruby Holtzman
Fay, Monie and Randy Itzkowitz
Lyber and Elaine Katz
Julie Nemetz
Jeremy Schneider
Jane Schreiber
Edith Segal and Sam Kamen
Lester and Maddy Simon
1972: Camp Kinderland opens in Fitchville, CT.
1973-1975: Camp Kinderland opens in Honesdale, PA.
1973 or 1974: Edith Segal's last year, Amy Tobol becomes the dance instructor.
1976: Camp Kinderland opens in Tolland, Mass.
1979: 56th anniversary, Felt Forum, Madison Square Garden, 1st yearbook.
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1998: May 15, 75th anniversary reunion, Lehman College, 2nd yearbook.
2005: West coast reunion at Asilomar.
Is anything important missing??