Bement Center Camp, my happy place

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When I was a kid, the summer consisted of swimming lessons, staying up a little bit later than usual, and hanging out with my friends. I was outside most of the day.  I climbed a lot of trees, played in the brook next to my parents’ house, and spent a lot of time reading outside, usually on an old quilt on the lawn, or in the field on the Sibley farm, which was next door to my house.  It was a lovely time to be a kid:  so much unstructured time.  A lot of playing; a lot of dreaming.

One of the things I dreamed of was my favorite part of summer:  the last two weeks of August, when my sister Pat and I went to summer camp.

The camp was called Bement Center Camp, and it was an Episcopal church camp, located in Charlton, Massachusetts.  (When I got old enough to drive I was surprised to find out how close Charlton was to Auburn.  It was such a magical place to me, and the anticipation was so great the drive seemed to take hours.  It was only 30 minutes.) Every year Pat and I spent two glorious weeks at Bement.

It wasn’t a fancy camp.  There were cabins and tents for the campers and counselors with bunk beds.  We spent mornings attending our classes, one of which was always swimming, and after lunch, we had an hour of rest called ‘siesta’ which I thought was created by the Episcopal church. 

Bement Center Camp

After siesta (where you had to lay on your bunk and be quiet) there was swimming and boating and free time.  Then there was dinner, and after dinner there was always an evening activity, like a campfire, or the alphabet game, and during the camp games, whatever game was on for the day.  I loved it.  The first time I attempted to meditate, I was not particularly surprised when the instructor told us to “find our happy place” to find myself in a canoe on Jones Pond at Bement.

Bement was an Episcopal church camp, and we could go because it was subsidized by the Diocese of Western Massachusetts for the children of the Diocese.  My mother told me at one time that a two-week session at Bement (an overnight camp) cost my parents’ $60 per child.  I nearly keeled over.  

“Sixty dollars?”

“Sixty dollars.  And it was a lot of money at the time, but even then, that was a bargain.  Other people I knew paid twice that for a week of camp for their children. And remember when you went to Girl Scout camp?  That was almost as much, for a day camp. But it made you girls so happy.”

It did.

It was a church camp, and we said grace at every meal, and went to services – in the outdoor chapel. I don’t think I have ever felt as close to God as I felt at Bement.

One of the traditions at Bement was the Angelus.  


There was a bell – a church bell – at Bement, at the dining hall. And if you were the counselor-of-the-day, you had to run from wherever you were in camp (which was acres wide) to get to the dining hall to ring the bell, solemnly.  I think it was 11 peals, but I could  be wrong.  And at Bement, no matter what you were doing, you stopped doing it while Angelus rang, and remained silent. 

Angelus rang twice a day.  In the late morning and the late afternoon. I remember being in a rowboat in Jones Pond, and hearing Angelus, having to ship my oars and drift for however long it took for the bell to finish ringing.  I sat, surrounded by lilies, smelling the sun-warmed pine needles, and feeling totally and completely at one with – what?  God? The universe?  Nature?

Those questions came later.  But what Bement did for me – and for many other children – was to give us faith.  Not necessarily in God, but in the beauty of the world and in each other.  

Bement is gone now. I have not driven out there since the camp was sold and the land was developed, so it remains perfect in my mind.  But I am no longer a child.  I live in a far more complicated world now.  And for me, the memory of Bement is summer.  To this day, when I smell that combination of pine needles and fresh water, I am transported back to my childhood, a time of joy and possibility.

And I do not know about you, but I need every ounce of joy and possibility that I can get now.


You can reach June Lemen at junelemen18@gmail.com