camp mother

plural camp mothers

1. alternativeAlternative form of Camp Mother.

   I would tell the camp mother, on my way out, so she would take charge while I was away.

   2008, Margaret Norquay, Broad is the Way: Stories from Mayerthorpe, →ISBN, page 78

   4 more examples

   The choice of the Aloha Camps was a happy one; but Mrs. Gulick should be designated as camp director instead of camp mother. Camp mother is used to designate the person in charge of midgets at a boys' camp.

   1937 September 6, Richard Deshon, “Letters to the Editor”, in LIFE, volume 3, number 10, page 6

   A camp mother, who is introduced during registration, has been found a real asset in Massachusetts. She answers questions, solves small difficulties, and is especially in demand in mixed camps.

   1939, Ella Gardner, Short-time Camps: A Manual for 4-H Leaders, page 25

   Here we were met by a rugged individual in khaki shorts and football jersey who introduced herself as Panther-in-Chief, the camp mother to whom we could go with all our troubles.

   2013, G. Singer, M. Wallace, Lost in the Freudian Forest: A Tragedy of Good Intentions, →ISBN, page 33

   I mean people that wanted to drum all day and people were trying to have conversations about stuff that had importance to what was going on politically, and so there was an ongoing sense for me of a kind of young and restless energy, and that without people like Jean McLaren, who was camp mother basically for the whole summer, it wouldn't have been anything like as successful as it was.

   2015, Niamh Moore, The Changing Nature of Eco/Feminism, →ISBN

2. A woman in charge of housekeeping tasks in a camp.

   The camp mother managed to keep the stomachs full and the beds in tip-top shape.

   1994, Albert VanderMey, And the Swamp Flourished, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   Roles for such women were few: Mrs. Perry adopted the role of “camp mother” for her husband's expedition in the arctic; years later, Hannah Breece took a position as teacher in remote arctic villages.

   2009, Daniel G. Payne, Writing the Land: John Burroughs and his Legacy, →ISBN, page 134

   At the entrance, a middle-aged woman with heavy eyebrows, black hair pulled back in a ponytail, and a strong smell of mints, introduced herself as Miss Stoakley, their camp mother.

   2015, Gisela Sherman, Farmerettes, →ISBN

3. historicalA woman who took on the role of adoptive mother to a motherless girl in a concentration camp.

   Adelsberger herself was adopted by two young girls as their 'camp mother'.

   2003, Melissa Raphael, The Female Face of God in Auschwitz, →ISBN, page 96

   3 more examples

   She became known as the little girl who sat on the steps of the TB Block, darting inside whenever she saw authorities, then going back to await the return of her camp mother.

   2000, Jack Gaylord Morrison, Ravensbrück, →ISBN, page 264

   She recalls, for instance, songs about the loss of the mother which were sung in the camp at Stutthof (pp. 7-8) and in Auschwitz (p. 1 8). She often refers to the phenomenon of the "camp mother" or "camp daughter," where one woman would take another under her protection.

   2002, David Patterson, Alan L. Berger, Sarita Cargas, Encyclopedia of Holocaust Literature, →ISBN, page 134

   Claire was sent away to a subcamp, and another camp mother, called Rosanne Lascroux, looked after Stella for a time.

   2015, Sarah Helm, If This Is A Woman: Inside Ravensbruck, →ISBN

plural Camp Mothers

1. A woman employed to look after the youngest children at a summer camp.

   It is no joke to be a "Camp Mother". When I think of it now, all the headaches she must have had. Here are some of the things she had to handle: — One girl was afraid of feathers; another girl afraid of cows;

   1975, St. David's Presbyterian Church (St. John's, N.L.), The Dissenting church of Christ at St. John's, 1775-1975, page 203

   2 more examples

   All campers swam, hiked, and attended campfires, but at many camps the youngest children had their own play spaces, a higher counselor-camper ratio, and the attention of a “Camp Mother” (often the wife or mother of the camp director), while the oldest children enjoyed special privileges such as later bedtimes or intercamp dances.

   2010, Leslie Paris, Children's Nature: The Rise of the American Summer Camp, →ISBN, page 109

   These nicknames ritualized relationships and ways of thinking about community and kinship outside traditional bounds; at many camps, counselors became “Aunt” or “Uncle,” while the youngest children were under the care of a “Camp Mother.”

   2011, Miriam Forman-Brunell, Leslie Paris, The Girls' History and Culture Reader, →ISBN, page 95

2. A woman in charge of housekeeping and the supervision of campers at a summer camp.

   Mrs. Reimann is a true "Camp Mother" to every boy in camp, caring for their intimate needs, helping them tide over lonesome times, sewing on buttons, and doing everything a mother is called on to do at home.

   1929, Camp Charlevoix: A Character Camp for Boys

   3 more examples

   At the bottom of the steep boat-house steps she paused a moment to gather strength, laboriously climbed them, passed under the mosquito-netting portiere, and, strolling leisurely toward the kitchen corner where Camp Mother was busily frying bacon and eggs on the blue-flame burner camp-fire.

   1909, The Unitarian Register - Volume 88, page 1168

   Some years at Camp Winsoki, our mother worked as the camp nurse, but more often she was something called Camp Mother, the woman who tended to the needs of several hundred Jewish children: their allergies, homesickness, bedwetting, ...

   1997, Jay Neugeboren, Imagining Robert: My Brother, Madness, and Survival

   The monstrous thought of going to the Camp Mother occurred to her ("Did you hear about Betsy? Went tearing off to old Auntie Jane to say her roommate was missing, and here all the time the poor girl was...") and she spoke to several other people, wondering and curious, phrasing it each time as a sort of casual question;

   2014, Shirley Jackson, Just an Ordinary Day, →ISBN