Photo of the Week
FROM THE SCHS LIBRARY ARCHIVES
“How shall we know it is us without our past?”
– John Steinbeck
Lake-by-the-Sea, Camp Dunes, Peconic, c. 1920s
by Wendy Polhemus-Annibell, Head Librarian
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Campgoers at Lake-by-the-Sea, Camp Dunes, Peconic, c. 1920s. (From the Camp Dunes Collection of the Suffolk County Historical Society Library Archives. Image copyright © Suffolk County Historical Society. All rights reserved.)
Camp Dunes was an all-girls summer camp located on over 26 acres on the Long Island Sound and included access to Great Pond Lake. The Peconic camp was owned and operated by Luvia Willard, M.D., of Jamaica, NY (who also owned a home on Great Pond Lake); Marian Wood of Philadelphia was co-director. The rate was $150 for 8 weeks of summer camp for girls aged 14 to 18, according to a 1924 ad in the Long Island Daily Press. Food for the camp was purchased from neighboring farms and village markets, and the female campgoers engaged in various activities: swimming, boating, play-acting, and the like.
“The maritime climate together with the unusual amount of sunshine peculiar to this locality make for an unusually healthful environment. The Geodetic Survey shows that the region around Peconic, Long Island, averages to the year one hundred days more sunshine than New York City,” notes a Camp Dunes brochure in our collection, which also features this poem:
Far from the city’s maddening din,
Out where the Sunrise Trails begin,
Where the toes of the dunes are kissed by the sea,
Is a camp that seems just made for me.
Where the birches dress in their silvery white,
And gnarled oaks squirm in sheer delight,
Where tall pines frame a sapphire sea,
Is a camp that seems just made for me.
There are hill camps, and lake camps, and camps by the sea,
But there’s only one camp by the lake and the sea.
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Mark Your Calendar! You don’t want to miss our LAST CALL CLOSING RECEPTION for Downtown Reflections on Saturday, July 31 – 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm, featuring live music, a meet-and-greet with the artist, and light refreshments. Free to members, $5 non-members.
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Enjoy an Opening Reception / Meet the Curator event for SEEKING SANCTUARY: 125 Years of Synagogues on Long Island on Thursday, August 12, 6:00 pm. This event is free to members; $5 / non-members. Includes light refreshments.
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AAQ / Resource: Riverhead Bay Motors
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