You start, I don't know where we were.
We were talking about this stuff in the
different sports
that were out there.
Oh, okay, yeah, but it's all the same things
that everybody, all the other camps did.
They're swimming in horseback riding
and arts and crafts and tennis, and.
Did you, what did you do during this?
Just had a good time, most of the time.
No, I went to Camp Mystic.
Oh, okay.
As a little girl, and for, I think,
three or four years, because then Camp Mystic
was closed.
It was, the war was going on.
And Ag and Bill's father had died,
and they closed the camp, and it was a recreation
for the army, for the service that men came for R&R.
Oh, okay, I wasn't familiar with that, yes.
In those years, which was in the 40s, and you know.
So Bill's parents, the Stacys,
were involved with Mystic, you said?
Yes, they owned it.
Oh, they owned it, okay.
They bought it from the people that had,
Mister, I don't remember if,
but the Camp Stewarts people were named Stewart,
but the developers of Camp Stewart, Mystic,
they developed Mystic and Stewart around the
same time,
and sold Mystic to the Stacys.
Okay, so y'all kind of knew each other
even before college or anything.
Yes. Yes, uh-huh.
You were right down the road from each other.
So was it word of mouth to get the campers,
or did you get a lot from Houston,
or how did you get your campers?
Well, you have a representative in all the
different towns
that you know, people and so forth,
and you take, they take, we took movies,
and I mean, that's what my dad did in the wintertime.
He didn't ever have a secretary.
He did all that part himself.
I mean, it was a, and then hired counselors,
and you went and showed movies,
and you recruited counselors,
and recruited campers, and so forth.
And most of the campers had realistic camp
in the beginning from Houston.
Well, and most, lots, still the same now.
I mean, Houston, and Dallas, and San Antonio,
those are the biggest, because they're the
biggest cities,
that's where the most of the campers come from.
Sure, yeah.
And how many campers do you think
y'all had the first year, maybe?
Oh, probably maybe 150, something like that.
That's pretty big.
And capacity was about 225, is what I remember for,
over the years, and then, you know,
when you got bigger, you built more cabins.
Sure, yeah.
Mystic, I think, is still building cabins.
Cabins, yeah.
So, how many terms did they have back then?
Well, in the beginning, when I went to Mystic,
you went for eight weeks.
Later, I think Realista had two terms,
first term and a second term, that were like
four weeks,
or maybe even six weeks in the beginning.
And then, and I think that's what it,
but it now belonged, a lot of things happened,
and I can't tell you who bought it and sold it.
The Hawkins family have owned it for a long time,
and they have two four-weeks terms,
but you can also come the first two weeks of
the first term,
or the second two weeks of the first term,
and the same thing for the second term.
Camping was different in the olden days.
Mystic and probably camp Honey Creek are more
like camps
in the old days than any of the rest of them.
Is Honey Creek a camp that's in existence now?
It's here, yes.
It was Arrowhead.
Oh, Arrowhead, okay.
And then, Arrowhead was, the Ulysses all died,
and the camp was sold to individuals,
and the people that ran Arrowhead for years
developed Honey Creek, because all of the customers
will encourage the director and all of those people
to start Arrowhead again, except with another name,
which is now called Honey Creek.
Yeah, I was familiar with Arrow Creek.
I just didn't realize, Arrowhead, I mean,
I didn't realize that it changed names, yeah.
And Rio Vista is all male, correct?
Yes, no, it's not.
Now it has, it's a girls' camp and a boys' camp.
Oh, okay, yeah, right.
Are they across the river from each other,
or are they girls?
No, they're, one end of the property is boys,
and the other end of the property is girls.
How long has that been?
Well, since the Hawkins owned it, I think it's
when they,
and I don't remember exactly how long that's been,
but it's been eight or 10 years at least.
You think that's a drawing card?
I don't, you know, I don't know.
Yeah, I don't either, I don't know.
I think, for my, I love going to a girls' camp,
instead of, and I think maybe the girls have to dress,
think they have to dress up and put on makeup,
or whatever, the big ones.
And it was, camping was one of the most fun things
that I ever did in my whole life.
I loved it, and I, you know, enjoyed the whole process.
You didn't get homesick?
Well, of course you were not too far from home.
No, no, no, no, never did get homesick.
Did you make some good friends that you kept from?
Well, when Mystic was closed, I went to another camp
in New Mexico called Simrancita,
and we went out on the train, and it was fun,
and it was an eight weeks camp, too, for girls.
So you really were into camping then, it sounds like.
As a kid, I went for a lot of years, yes, Mm-hmm.
Okay, and did your kids camp then, too?
Yes, all of my children, and when the boys,
I mean, when they grew up, they were, you know,
Sidney went to Mystic, yes, for years,
and the boys all went to Rio Vista,
and then they were counselors at Rio Vista,
and then they ran some of the different programs
at Rio Vista, uh-huh.
And did your grandchildren go then, too?
No, no, well, my grandchildren are just now
getting to be at the age that they are going to camp.
Is that right, yeah, okay.
Well, the grandchildren all have children
that are now going to camp.
Okay, yeah.
It's that many generations there.
Yeah, and they still probably have the same things
where you, at the end of the term, you get all
the things?
I'm sure so, I really don't have anything to do,
except that we're friendly with the people that we,
because, but we drive through the camp
to get to the River House, which is where,
you know, that my mother and father built.
Now, do you go out there and study some in York? Sure.
Uh-huh, okay.
Phillip lives outside of Ingraham,
and I've built a playhouse next door to Phillip
that I have. Oh, how fun.
That overlooks the property that's in behind
Rio Vista,
so that that's now a new project. Yeah.
But my children mostly now take care of the
River House,
because it's too big for me to deal with. Yeah.
And I'm very grateful that my daughter's come
to live there
with her husband, who's a pharmacist,
and her Walgreens, and they, Walgreens, you know,
they schedule in here and in Fredericksburg,
and there's none in Comfort,
but Bernie, they have a Walgreens,
and he's happy to be here out of Wisconsin,
which yesterday was two degrees above zero.
Oh, yeah. Wow.
Something like that.
That is a cold state, that's for sure.
So, what has involved you in Kerrville?
What has involved?
Mostly part type things in my church.
I was, a lot of things in the,
yes, I was the first woman Vesterman
elected to the diocese of Texas in the
Episcopal Church.
That was a long time ago.
And, I don't know, I've always,
there were two people that came to Kerrville,
one was named Keith Miller,
and one was named Gert Maetta,
who knew who Jesus was, and introduced me.
Even after, before I was just a good church member,
and now I'm a Christian lover of the Lord. Yes.
So, was that a big change to make
from the Episcopal to the Methodist?
There's not quite as much formal.
No, it's not, but, and I love,
I still love the Episcopal Church,
but I love the Methodist Church, too.
I'm really happy to be there with my children,
because it's fun to go to see your grandchildren
going to Sunday school.
Absolutely, yeah.
What do you think has changed the most about Kerrville,
or do you think it's changed at all since you?
It's a big time change.
It's more people, it's more things,
it's more, it was a small, medium-sized town
when we came, and you knew, I mean,
you walked in the store, and you knew the
clerk's names,
and they knew who you were. Right.
You knew your banker as a friend.
It's very different.
You knew your way around trainers, too, yeah. Yes.
And the,
it's just bigger.
I still love Kerrville, but it's bigger.
It's harder to get around in.
It's more, it's complicated there.
I was, when I woke up, I told you that I was,
woke up and wondered what you were going to ask me
at 2:00 this morning.
And I thought about the people that lived in Kerrville
and who were the, you know, there was kind of like
a group of six or eight or 10 men that traded
being the mayor and traded being on the whatever,
I don't remember who the commissioners were
or any of those kind of things,
but the different families were, you know,
you took turns who was going to be the mayor. Yeah.
And you didn't.
In the early days.
Yeah, you didn't remarry after.
No, I did not.
Okay, and Bill Stacey is deceased, correct?
Yes, that's correct.
But he has a very nice wife, and she and I are friends,
which is rather strange, but nice.
I think that's wonderful.
For both of us.
Sure, yeah, and there's children involved, too.
Oh, yeah, and they all look crazy about
Charlene Stacey
as her name.
Uh-huh, okay, and she lives in Kerrville? Uh-huh.
Well, let's see, is there anything particular
you'd like us to talk about that we can get
on your oral history?
I don't, I can't think of anything particularly pertaining
that would have anything to do with Kerrville.
I think the KACC is a wonderful spot now.
I love them.
I've always been involved with the Hill Country Arts
Foundation and gone to lots of classes out there.
Do you paint? Yes.
Oh, you do?
Well, I'm now into quilting.
Oh, wonderful.
So my daughter and I right now have dual sewing machines
set up in the river house, too,
and we're making quilts, and I've always
liked to do all kinds of things.
I paint, and I have a new friend that taught me
how to,
and we've done decoupage, and I've made clothes,
and I don't know, I've just done all artistic things.
Oh, that's wonderful.
And have done that.
Did you take a quilting license, or did you just?
In the beginning, yeah, or maybe I just started out,
you know, I don't remember how I learned to sew truthfully.
So you're doing it on a machine.
I'm doing it on the techiest old plumbing machine.
It's not a trennel machine, but it's one step up.
It's called, let's see what it's called.
It's a Singer, or?
That's it, it's a featherweight Singer.
Oh, okay.
It's about this big, truly.
The sewing machine is like this, this,
and it just suits me fine, and Cindy has a grand,
big new one that I tried out the other day,
and I don't want to do that.
I like the little old one.
Some of them you have to almost computerize,
don't you?
Oh yeah, big time, and you have to think a lot harder
than just stepping on the pedal.
Do you design run quilts, or? Yes.
Oh, wonderful, yeah.
Well, lots of them.
I mean, yes, I've done all different kinds of things.
Quilting is probably the, I haven't painted anything
in a really long time, and I have sketched something
on a big canvas that I'm now dying to do,
but I have to wait till the weather's better,
because I have a little place outside that I
can do it.
So you like to do landscapes, or?
All different, anything.
Anything, yeah.
Anything, uh-huh, and the first painting I sold,
I remember, I was so excited.
It wasn't a relative, so you.
That's good, that's fine, that makes you feel
like you're really an artist,
and somebody's gonna pay money for something.
So you've entered art, oh, sure.
Yes, I used to belong to the art club,
and I'm too old to do that at 87.
I'm gonna be 88 on February the 26th of this year.
You sure don't look like it in my name.
There are days that I feel like it, and days
that I don't.
Beautiful complexion, yes, that's great.
Can you, wanna ask any questions, how did you know?
I think we oughta be done, don't you?
Yeah, I do, and thank you.
Is there anything that you would do different
if you had the chance to do it,
or would you live your life just like you've lived?
Well, I think I've really been very happy,
and I was sad to be divorced, and that was not
a happy time,
but I never was interested,
and nobody else was interested in me to be
married again,
and I'm married, I mean, I've had a grand life.
Have you traveled any?
Yeah, I've traveled lots.
You travel with groups?
Well, I've done that.
I, when I had that work, first of all,
I worked as a secretary,
but I didn't know anything about that,
for a realist, after Bill and I were divorced,
by the people that bought it,
and it changed things three or four different times,
but don't ask me, I don't remember all that too well.
But, tell me again what I was talking about.
You worked there for a while.
Oh, yeah, so then, there was some people that came,
I was the secretary, Philip was badly burned,
and he spent a couple of years back and forth
to the Burned Institute in Galveston,
and that was a hard time for everybody.
How was he burned?
He threw gasoline on fire,
there was, a man had been trimming the web worms
out of the trees, and I'd rather not get into
any of that kind of thing.
But, no, I worked.
There was a family that came and had a lack of delicatessen,
except that it also was a store for all things
about cooking
and I've been a cook ever since I got married.
I'm gonna start reading the Joy of Cooking
and learn how to cook, and I love to cook.
So, I worked for Roy Spears, who was the chef
at King Waldemar at that time,
and I set up a cooking school for him
at this place that we had,
and then he asked me to come and work.
He was a caterer out of Waldemar for those years,
and we catered all kinds of parties in Kerrville.
And even, I remember, I was the decorator,
I would decorate the Christmas parties
and so forth and so on.
And then, we were in Bandera, the bank in Bandera
had a Christmas party, and things like,
they were frying oysters outside the drive-through
bank window.
Anyway, that was a wonderful part of my working job.
And then they had some
corporate, mid-corporate, I don't know exactly
what to call it,
but AT&T would send 60 or 70 people to Waldemar,
and they had a team out of Florida
that did all of the programs for these people
that came from the AT&T company.
And I ran that office for a while.
And then, but the most fun was catering,
and I was the decorator that I liked over the years.
What's your specialty cooking?
Oh, no, I don't know.
You don't have one, huh?
Whatever's pleasing to whoever I'm feeding at
that point.
Yeah, that's...
But I still like to entertain and...
Yeah, you like to bake too?
No. No?
No, no, I can make.
Now I'm mostly into soup.
Oh, good for you, I love soup, yeah.
I think that's enough.
Uh-huh, okay.
Well, thank you.
We appreciate the time that you gave us today.
Well, I had fun with you, thank you.
Good, good.
I was a little nervous.
Oh, you wouldn't...