A Picture of Day Camp at a Boys Club of Boston in the '60s
This is what a day camp outing from the Charlestown Boys Club in 1963 would have looked like. I have no idea if these boys are from South Boston or Charlestown or somewhere else. But this is what the picture would have been.
There are 43 boys in this group, not counting the two older ones in the background, although neither of them looks eighteen, just bigger. But the Club cut corners, apparently. I would love to know who the adult male is, standing left and rear. Anyone know? Please contact me.
At the Charlestown Boys Club in 1963, there were sixty-five boys in one two-week session. Newspaper clippings say there were five groups of thirteen boys each. Moussally told me there were several junior counselors, like what I presume is shown here. But I don’t think there were several. I only remember James Power. And that was the only name Moussally gave me at the Pru Food Court in December of 2000. However, Power and his brother turned eighteen in April of 1963, so they weren’t kids themselves like some junior counselors may have been. I know that for a fact.
The man in the foreground is a sponsor (local rotary Club) who paid for the kids to go to day camp. I think either my mother or another charity paid $5 for a two-week session for me, but I’m not sure.
Day Camp Fun
As a whole of 65 boys, in 1963, at least, we took a field trip everyday, as I remember. And the field trips were fun, until James Power tried to push me into the water at one location or another. We went to Pleasure Island amusement park in Wakefield, the Maparium at the Mary Baker Eddy Library, Breakheart Reservation in Saugus, and places like that. Afterward, we always returned to the Charlestown Boys Club, at which point we were split into groups of 13 boys each, where we did fun activities, like playing games in the Game Room, or doing arts and crafts, or exercises in the gym.
Some days, we did arts and crafts. In this picture, boys are learning to make crafts with gimp, which is multi-colored plastic string. You could make a key chain or a belt (sort of), and it was fun learning to do it and then actually making something that you could keep for yourself when you were done. I specifically remember doing this.
