Published April 29, 2004 in The Catholic Standard
By Russ Barnes
SPECIAL TO THE STANDARD
ST. GEORGE ISLAND. This spring, a car filled with school children from St. Bernadette School will climb over an arched bridge just south of Piney Point Lighthouse along Maryland Route 249 toward what one of the parents describes as "another world."
That other world is Camp Merryelande, a much-looked-forward-to vacation spot with rustic cabins and a sandy beach stretching 900 feet along the lower tidal Potomac where the river cuts a wide swath on its way to the Chesapeake Bay.
Happenings in Southern Maryland
The car will not be traveling alone. It will be part of an informal St. Bernadette caravan traveling 100 miles from the Four Corners area of Silver Spring to Camp Merryelande located on St. George Island.
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Cabin from pier |
Rustic cabin at Camp Merryelande |
This year marks the tenth anniversary of the annual three-day get-togethers that the St. Bernadette families have attended at the Southern Maryland camp grounds. And that will be an occasion to celebrate for these 15 families made up of about 40 children and 30 parents.
The yearly trips began almost ten years ago. It was then that Anna Baumgartner spearheaded the popular family retreat by booking Camp Merryelande for Mothers' Day in 1994. "We just kind of stumbled upon it"' explains Baumgartner, a mother of five. "We wanted to get away from soccer and baseball, just get away from it all. Then I said to my husband, 'This is a great place for a bunch of families. It's not hours and hours away. Next year, why don't we bring along all the friends we hang around with?"'
And so the size of the unofficial St. Bernadette assemblage at Camp Merryelande mushroomed. "We learned early on",' says Altah Glasgow, "'that a three-day stay in June is usually better than a three-day stay over Mothers' Day. So we now book the camp in June just alter the school year ends," continues Glasgow, a mother of three and one of the organizers of the yearly trip. "Our Camp Merryelande trip is a big deal with the kids. It's become a real tradition Even cynical teenagers have a soft spot in their heart for the camp. Everyone wants to return for the tenth reunion."
Unlike the fear one often feels in the city concerning the well-being of young people, "At the camp, we just let the kids go," points out Baumgartner. "They feel safe there. They look out for each other. They use their own initiative to find things to do and entertain each other. They're free -- in their element. Kids don't have that kind of opportunity these days. It's great to have an experience like that growing up."
Mike Evans, owner and operator of Camp Merryelande, was born and raised in Southern Maryland. He acquired the site in l994 at a St. Mary's County courthouse bankruptcy sale. Once be owned the camp, which was built by the Sisters of the Holy Cross in l930 to serve as a camp for girls, Evans decided to make families and church groups the main focus of his camp.
Camp Merryelande has eight cabins with one to six bedrooms each, some with the capacity to sleep up to 24 people. "People cook for themselves, sometimes over fires they build from driftwood -- right out in front of their cottages. But there are refrigerators and stoves in each cabin too,"' Evans points out. "They set up their own stuff, bring their own linens and sleeping bags, make their own beds. Stuff like that," he says.
The St. Bernadette School entourage seems to revel in the necessity for the informality and improvisation at the camp as described by Evans. "We bring beach chairs, kites, and water rafts," explains Glasgow. "Everyone contributes money. We shop at Price Club. We buy the biggest bags of Potato chips, pork roasts, seafood, hamburger, and graham crackers and marshmallows to roast over the camp fires at night. Billy Silk is our master chef. We usually all eat together."
Evans, a former construction worker turned host-of-the-inn, supplies his guests with other amenities and options. He rents out kayaks, canoes, and motor scooters to campers who want to explore the island's waterways and spare but one-of-a-kind attractions. He sells bait to fathers turned fishermen who hang out on the camp's pier where one of the favorite catches is croakers.
Enjoying the sun on Camp Merryelande's 900-foot beach are,
left to right,
Shannon Gallagher, Mirta Gallagher and Anna Baumgartner.
Photo courtesy of Altah Glascow and Beth Ernst.
When the Four Corners party reaches the camp this June, they will discover that not only the camp, but the entire island, has been "made-over." The unplanned-for change came about because of a September visit from Hurricane Isabelle. Evans reports that 80 percent of St. George Island went under water during Isabelle's visit. A six-foot tidal surge, driven by a prevailing southern wind, destroyed the camp's fishing pier and seawall, damaged many of the cabins, and moved the beach inland. Evans plans to rebuild the pier by May of next year. Cottages are fully repaired for the upcoming season.
The Isabelle calamity prompted the St. Bernadette campers, safely back in Silver Spring, to send their Merryelande host a store gift certificate for $1,450. When he received the certificate, he was cleaning up the grounds. The gift profoundly touched Mike Evans. I couldn't believe it. People just don't do things like this." Evans commented. '"These people are serious. They definitely want this place up and running."
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