Summer of 1951, Carsonville, Michigan

By John J. Lesjack

“Too soon old, too late smart.” - Confuscious

A counselor at Camp Ozanam, the summer I was 13, was attracted to me. He watched from the bench as my cabin won the softball championship. He stood and cheered as my cabin won the track championship. He applauded as we won the talent show. I thought, at first, that my counselor supported my cabin because he liked winners, but I was wrong….

The above happened in 1950 and, before I used the opportunity to publish my camp story, and because of negative publicity given the Catholic church and some of its priests recently, I decided I had lived with suspicion long enough. It was time to enlighten myself as to the real motivations of Mr. Loren O’Dey.

His approach had been totally innocent, but it did taint my memories of camp with dark feelings. My intent in writing this piece is to remove the taint.

I loved camp. I had people to play sports with, which I liked because I lived far from other families. Hikes in the woods filled me with the scent of evergreen trees for the first time. Where I lived, we had open fields full of weeds. Then, I got to sleep in a cabin, to eat three times a day without anyone complaining about food prep or cost. Plus, we had leather craft lessons during the day and campfire stories and songs at night. My only disappointment was that I never found any fireflies. I loved fireflies. But, who needed fireflies?

I didn’t want camp to end.

A thin, frail, balding man of 23, Loren sat with me in the mess hall, visited my cabin, stayed on the beach and watched while I went swimming in the cold water of Lake Huron with my group. He waited for me, after church, and we walked around the grounds together. Why was he showing me so much attention? I wondered. Had I done something wrong?

That fall, Loren often called my house and left messages with my mother. He invited me to dinner at the home of his parents. He left his phone number, so I could call him. He sent me a birthday card. He just assumed, or so it seemed, that we were friends. When he did get me on the phone at home, he asked how I was doing in school (terribly), getting along at home (terribly), getting along with people (terribly), doing in sports (great). I never once asked him about himself.

The time he visited my house, I gave him a bone-crushing handshake. I’m embarrassed about that now, but I had been on the football team, lifting weights, growing stronger, and I wanted him to notice my physical strength. He was 10 years older than I was. I didn’t know about his health, at the time, and I didn’t mean to hurt him.

What puzzled me, over the years, was why he had tried for so long to be my friend. He just appeared in camp one day and hung on all during my high school years and well into the Navy. But, the most mysterious thing about him was that he never asked anything of me.

While researching Camp Ozanam for this article, I learned a truth or two that filled in some blanks. The camp, located on the eastern coast of Michigan, was financed in 1950, as it is today, by the St. Vincent de Paul Society. Children who were/are underprivileged and suffering familial hardship were provided an opportunity to enjoy a summer camp environment.

That brochure’s information brought up two startling realizations: 1.) I had been labeled underprivileged, and 2.) My family had suffered familial economic hardship.

All these years, I had thought we were poor because my father, the breadwinner of the family, had died six months before camp. I didn’t know his death caused me to be labeled underprivileged. If I had known I had been provided an opportunity to enjoy a summer camp environment because I was underprivileged, would camp have been as much fun? You bet.

The truth for me is that camp would have been fun at any price. My joke would have been: “Being UNDERprivileged meant I made my own wallet in leather crafts. The OVERprivileged had their wallets made for them.”

I still have the awards I won at Camp Ozanam. But, there I was, having a good time, not knowing that other boys from my school and I had been labeled “underprivileged,” that we were “needy,” that we had suffered “familial economic hardships.” Plus, I had Loren O’Dey hanging around like my shadow. What was his story? And how was all this information related?

Turns out, the St. Vincent de Paul Society maintained the camp for boys in 1950 and hired students from Sacred Heart Seminary to work as camp counselors. Loren O’Dey, a seminarian studying to be a priest, became a camp counselor. Loren was also practicing a philosophy then unique to the St. Vincent de Paul Society.

Society members use their own resources, such as the telephone and the mail services, and they share their possessions, like dinner at the home of their parents, but their specialty is the gift of their presence. Loren O’Dey stuck with me trying to get me to grow spiritually at a time when I had suffered the loss of my father. Loren recognized my neediness and tried to help me by offering person-to-person service in the tradition of the Blessed Frederic Ozanam, a French scholar, and the patron St. Vincent
de Paul.

Loren never became a priest. He left the seminary, due to his poor health, and went home to live with his parents. His health rallied, somewhat, while he was working in downtown Detroit, where he also met a woman he wanted to marry. He proposed, she accepted, but he got sick again. He sent this information to me in a letter while I was in the south Pacific in the Navy. I never heard from him again.

My mother later wrote that Loren had passed away.

All the years that guy contacted me and I didn’t know what he wanted, and neither did anyone else, and now that I understand I also remember that he’s gone. I’m not resentful of anything, however. The poor, the underprivileged, the needy, those of us who had never seen a firefly. We are appreciative, even if it takes 57 years.

Gentle blessings, Counselor, wherever you are. Your efforts were not wasted.

John J. Lesjack, a graduate of East Detroit High School and San Francisco State University, is retired and camps out in Santa Rosa, California.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Monday, February 26th, 2007 | Email This Post

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