Away to camp, and the children's room

Away to camp + the children's room

Lead: Two rooms of childhood stand in this row: the camp a township's children went away to, across the state line, and the children's room of their own library, at home.

The camps, at boundary size and from the carriers' own records. The area's YMCA camp is Camp Eberhart, on Corey Lake at Three Rivers, Michigan — a branch of the YMCA of Greater Michiana, South Bend's YMCA in its present form — founded in 1909 when the South Bend YMCA started the camp, forty miles from South Bend on the Michigan Central line as its early record puts it, open at its founding to boys of northern Indiana aged twelve to sixteen for a season running 20 June to 1 August, the first YMCA camp in the country to offer a summer programme for young women on its record, fully co-educational by the 1970s, and standing today on 200 acres with over a mile of Corey Lake shoreline. A New Carlisle child going to “the Y camp” went there, into Michigan, and the camp is printed here at that boundary strength — the carrier's camp, documented as the area's camp, with no New Carlisle camper roll claimed, because no camper roll was reached. The same boundary discipline covers the neighbouring carriers whose own histories were read: Camp Wakeshma, at Three Rivers since 1925, whose 1940s enrolment record shows its weeks given to Camp Fire Girls, 4-H clubs, junior boys and high-school bands — the 4-H camp course at carrier size, a camp that hosted 4-H weeks rather than a county-owned 4-H camp — and Amigo Centre at Sturgis, the Indiana-Michigan Mennonite Conference's camp, organised as a camp association on 8 October 1956 and buying its Perrin Lake property in 1957, the church-camp carrier for the conference's congregations. Scout camps of the area stand in the same posture: used across the line, owned elsewhere, and not enumerated here beyond that statement, because no troop-level New Carlisle camp record was reached in this section. The children's room, at pointer-plus and from the library's own present record: the New Carlisle–Olive Township Public Library at 408 South Bray Street keeps a children's department as a named place in the building, with an Exploration Garden situated just outside the children's department — a maintained space, in the library's own biodiversity account of 2025, for interactive engagement and recreation in a natural setting — and outdoor spaces for kids carried on its visitor record alongside its Local History Room and class visits for teachers. The room as fun, on the library's own showing, is a department with a garden door: story-hour ground inside, exploration ground outside. The longer course of the room — its earlier quarters and furnishings — belongs to the library's institutional telling in this build's libraries file, and is pointed to, not retold; what this row adds is the room's present, documented character as a place built for children to enjoy, and the camps' names and lines across the state boundary.

Sources:

1. YMCA Camp Eberhart — camp and YMCA of Greater Michiana record; South Bend YMCA Camp Eberhart at Corey Lake (Michiana Memory, St. Joseph County Public Library) — started 1909; 40 miles from South Bend; boys 12–16, 20 June–1 August at founding; 200 acres, Corey Lake shoreline.
2. Camp Wakeshma, History (campwakeshma.com) — established 1925, Three Rivers, Michigan; 1940s weeks for Camp Fire Girls, 4-H Clubs, junior boys, high school bands.
3. Amigo Centre, Mission & History (amigocentre.org; GAMEO) — Indiana-Michigan Mennonite Camp Association organised 8 October 1956; Perrin Lake property purchased 1957; Sturgis, Michigan.
4. New Carlisle–Olive Township Public Library (ncpl.lib.in.us) — 408 S. Bray St.; Exploration Garden “situated just outside the children's department”; outdoor spaces for kids; Visit page.