As young women, they liked leading hikes and teaching camp songs. They liked baking a huge batch of biscuits and watching young campers devour them.
Most of all they loved talking with the campers, listening to the secret joys and worries that girls will only confide late at night, in whispers from one bunk to another.This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Brighton LDS Girls' Camp. On Aug. 10 and 11, several hundred women who worked at Brighton as counselors, cooks or camp directors will be coming back to renew their memories.
Alice Edvalson is planning the reunion. She was, for 20 years, the chairman of the Young Women's Executive Committee, which runs the camp.
Edvalson says some of the former staff members haven't seen the camp since they were 19-year-old counselors. Women as old as 80 will be coming from as far away as Alaska.
Edvalson's been thinking about what makes Brighton a place to return to. "The camp gives girls a sense of who they are," Edvalson says. Thousands of girls had their first experience away from home at the camp in Big Cottonwood Canyon.
The women who worked there watched girls take their first strides toward independence. "The counselors totally love the kids and a lot of them stay in touch with notes or phone calls after camp is over," says Edvalson.
"As a rose unclasps its petals, So a girl expands her soul," wrote Bessie Liddle, a half century ago, in a poem about the camp.
Edvalson reprinted that poem along with letters, camp logs and photos, compiling a history book of the camp.
The book proves that some things about camp haven't changed since the Brighton Home was built in 1921.
Still popular: short-sheeting and frogs-in-the-bed pranks, nicknames, twilight hikes and 2 a.m. treks to the top of Mount Majestic to watch the sun rise.
Still important: The girls contribute to their Home. The first campers donated quilts they'd made and food they'd canned themselves. Their families helped, too and family members, especially mothers, were welcome to come stay the night or have Sunday dinner at the camp.
"No parent need ever hesitate to send daughters to the Mutual camp at Brighton," read a brochure about the camp from the 1930s. "The house mother in charge is carefully selected for those remarkable gifts of heart and mind which are best expressed in the art of making girls happy - of keeping them well and wholesome in homelike environments."
The first campers stayed as many days as they wanted, paying $9 a week. A Brighton bus left each morning of the summer from the Lion House. Today's campers stay five days and pay $52.
By the summer of 1929, 150 girls were coming to camp. This summer 1,200 to 1,500 are expected.
Early campers started their mornings with a prayer, then hiked, rode (horseback riding cost 50 ) or played games. After lunch they were free to nap, write letters or wander in the hills. Each day ended with songs around the campfire.
Though the camp's arts and recreation program has expanded considerably over the years, and though the original home burned in 1963 and has been replaced with a new home and six chalets, the spirit of the camp hasn't changed.
The young women who come to be counselors are, Edvalson says, as dedicated today as at any time in the past. "The staff are paid, but every year the kids figure it out and they are making just pennies an hour for all the work they do.
"Working at the camp is a sacrifice," she says, yet the camp is never lacking for women willing to make that sacrifice.
For details of the 70th anniversary celebration call Edvalson, 485-1663.