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Jane Addams Hull-House Museum
UIC College of Architecture and Arts
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Bowen Country Club: The Hull House Summer Camp
PART TWO
We were made of the stuff of stars...star stuff.
Who can ever forget the celestial beauty of the almost touchable sky, with its shooting stars and, if you were lucky to be there at the right time of the year, the northern lights? A billion stars in each of a billion galaxies, as we later learned. During those memorable BCC nights, looking up at the shores of that cosmic ocean, we somehow knew, long before astronomers had discovered, that we were made of the stuff of stars. We were “star stuff!”
A Nursery of Gembas
Lady Em,” (I believe I gave Emily Wells that name during our first encounter) who along with the other North Shore debutantes to be, was/were important and necessary ingredients to this nursery from which emerged that phenomenon we know as the Bowen Country Club. I always felt that we were as much of a Gemba to those who came from the North Shore as they had been to us, their Taylor Street counterparts.
Double jeopardy
Vince Vitullo, another homebred counselor (2nd generation Italian-American I later learned), but not your garden variety Taylor Street resident with their “deez and doze.” (Yeah, we said “deez and doze” instead of “these and those.”) Vince was a crucial part of the BCC mix. He was a subtle but constant reminder of the depth of the gene pool that had been imported from the land of our ancestors. He continues to serve with distinction as a professor of law at DePaul University. How ironic it would have been had Vince Vitullo also been involved in the only trial in history in which the double jeopardy protection afforded by the constitution had been challenged. Both parties, sharing the same BCC cottage, would have met, nearly a half-century later, in a history-making trial.
You’ll boo hoo tonight.
Who could ever forget Tony Barbaro and Jasper in Hutchinson Cottage’s rendition of, I’m a Lonely Little Petunia in an Onion Patch? “Jasper, if you don’t boo-hoo now, you will boo-hoo tonight.” I choose to preserve that memory of Jasper and Tony Barbaro, along with some of my other BCC Gembas. Their names are harbored among the bricks making up the recently dedicated memorial for Bob and Ada Hicks.
California who???
Had anyone ever taken the time to say, “Thank you” to Mrs. Caruso (and Kirby Caruso for that matter) for that Caruso smile?
We all remember that Caruso smile (Lu, Sis, et al.). Greeting us each day, it seemed to say, “We’re mighty glad you’re here.” You just knew this was going to be a great day. I always wondered whether anyone had ever taken the time to say, “Thank you” to Mrs. Caruso (and Kirby Caruso for that matter) for that Caruso smile. As an aside, who can ever forget Kirby’s reaction when Lu Caruso announced that she was going to California to teach, “California (avenue)…that’s close. You won’t have to travel too far to get to work.”
Luke Skywalker had Yoda.
On another note, how many of us still remember the botanist, brought into the mix, by whomever, to enhance and elevate our knowledge of nature? As I recall, he, the botanist, managed to get only one tree correctly labeled. But we did not need to know the scientific names of the trees to become aware of our relationship with that ocean of green, which began at the steps of Rosenwald Cottage and reached out to and beyond the physical boundaries of our BCC world…and the cosmos that opened to us on that first overnight hike to those isolated beaches. Yes, Luke Skywalker had Yoda, but we had our Bowen Country Club.
A THOUSAND MEMORIES
There are a thousand memories that impacted upon us: Being greeted by the Hicks’ and the emerald blue swimming pool at the end of our long march from the train station…Becky and Goodfellow Hall… The ravines that wound around and through Hutchinson, Mary Smith, Lansing, and eventually beyond the boundaries that made up Camp French (“girls coming”) …Oscar’s first appearance in the dining hall (“Come in, come in…”) …Rose Ann and her gentian violet crusade…and on…and on…and on…and on. Treasured memories too numerous to list here.
And there were the CDAs awakening every morning long before the rest of the camp to attack the daily repairs and assist in the day’s activities. Who can forget John Barone, Ralph Maciak, and Mike Vitallo with dresses, lipstick, etc. trotting out to the softball field to bolster the Mother’s roster in their traditional softball game against the Camp French Boys?
Some of those memories we mutually shared with our fellow campers. Some of those memories were special to us alone and not mutually shared with others. And then there were some memories which we, only later, came to realize were not ours alone but were memories others had also carefully packed away and stored in their BCC treasure chests.
Away from the hot asphalt streets…away from sidewalks shielded from the lake breezes…and away from the mattressed fire escapes, we were afforded the opportunity to grow beyond the restrictions of our isolated and secluded neighborhood. Bowen Country Club, above all else, was a Nursery…a Gemba Nursery. While we sought and received sustenance from it, each of us, in turn, had contributed to and enriched the random orchestration of that cosmic fugue.
“…remember, when you’re away. For you all belong to Bowen and Bowen belongs to you.”
During our last evening at BCC, the entire camp gathered at the Bowen Field campsite. It was time to say goodbye…not just to the new faces and names we met there, but to the new friends that emerged from old acquaintances. As the flames gave way to the glowing embers, we, reluctantly, began our final trip back to our respective cottages. The words and the melody finally succumbed to the silence of that night. The memories, however, we carried with us…beyond our cottages…beyond those 72 acres…beyond that brief span of time.
vincent