As a young girl from Marietta, Georgia, Peggy Holbrook wasn’t sure what to expect from her first camp experience in 1959.
“They told me we were going to eat Welsh rarebit and veggies,” she says, recalling her first meal at Camp Juliette Low in Cloudland, Georgia. “I thought they said ‘Welsh rabbit,’ and I didn’t want to eat rabbit. I wanted to get out of there and go home!”
That feeling didn’t last long once she was greeted with a plate of toasted bread covered in melted cheese. She also got comfortable with taking cold showers and using an outhouse, and, by the end of her stay, she and the other girls sobbed as they said their goodbyes.
Holbrook’s voice dances with excitement as she talks about her time at Juliette Low, founded nearly 100 years ago by its namesake, who also started the Girl Scouts. Holbrook spent four years as a camper and then as a counselor in training, only missing one year when her family took her out west for the summer. “I hated not being at camp,” she says.
Her love of camp resonated with her daughter, Heather Holbrook Vansaint, who in turn sent her own daughter, Mary Margaret Vansaint, to Camp Juliette Low. Holbrook’s granddaughter began attending when she was 7, and ultimately worked as the horseback director until she entered medical school recently.