Tada! Pokono Ramona - The Beginning

At long last, here are the memories of the earliest days of Camp Pokono Ramona, as compiled by my uncle, Dave Herman, and my aunt, Judy Herman Turner. (Posted by Sharon Dombey Baseman.)

POKONO-RAMONA....THE BEGINNING
by Dave Herman with additional facts from Judy Herman Turner

My earliest memory that there was going to be a camp in our family's future goes back to 1943 when I was 7 years old. I was sitting at our kitchen table with my mom and dad, listening to my father telling my mother where he had been that day. He had gone to visit an abandoned old camp site on the NJ/PA border that was for sale. I most remember how he described to her the huge kitchen, with its own bakery that had a giant bread slicing machine and the biggest pots and pans he had ever seen. He told her he thought they should buy it, but he needed her to see the place and give her approval. So, the following Sunday I went with them and saw what would become my summer home for the next 14 or 15 years. As I recall, my sisters, Judy and Fayga, were not with us that Sunday.

Since it would be many years before there would be a Route 80, we crossed the Geo. Washington bridge onto route 46 and took it all the way to Dover. Then my dad, driving his black 1939 Chevy, turned onto Route 15 and took it to Route 206. The last leg of the trip was the left off 206 onto the county road, the left fork at the big tree, on thru Walpack Center, the left over the bridge crossing the brook, and finally the right turn into camp. Little did I know that I would be taking this very drive several hundred times before I was an adult. I also didn't know at the time that 11 years later, when I was 18, I would total my dad's green 1952 DeSoto when I slammed it into the big tree at the fork in the road.

As a young boy, my first sight of the camp scared me. It was completely overgrown, with the grass over our knees. The bunks and buildings were sagging and, for a city boy, the whistling, blowing wind and deafening silence were eerie and foreboding. What I was too small to realize was the incredible natural beauty and the almost mystical quality of those 300 plus acres that we all learned to love. My parents decided on that late winter day in 1943 that they would somehow get the money together and buy it!

The reason this dilapidated place was for sale is the following: It had been a camp called Delaware Cliff Camps throughout the 1930s, but a terrible tragedy caused its sudden demise. A camper was killed one summer in an accident, so the camp never re-opened. Judy and I have different memories of that event. I recall it was a drowning. Judy thinks it was a tractor accident. But either way, the camp closed, went on the market, and feel into disrepair.

At the time, my father, Rabbi Mayer Herman, was employed as the rabbi of The Mosholu Jewish Center, one of the largest congregations in the Bronx. He had two older brothers, my uncles Saul Herman, an attorney in Queens, and David Herman, a wealthy Brooklyn landlord and realtor. The three of them purchased the camp later that year, with Uncle Dave being a silent partner (and putting up a lot of the money) and my father and Uncle Saul to be the hands-on owner/directors. Saul ultimately ran the office and business end of camp, while my Dad, the rabbi, ran the kitchen and did all the hiring of kitchen staff.

Somehow they were able to open camp for its first season a year later in 1944 with about 150 campers. Much of the credit for registering those campers must go to mom, Lois Herman, who went out literally every evening to people's homes, signing them up, usually coming home on the subway with a bag full of cash from collecting deposits. That first season the camp was still pretty rundown. There was only the lower campus, the girls' bunks on the hill, Bunk 20, which was the infirmary, half the social hall, and half the kitchen. No pool, no Siberia, no Bunks 1 and 2, none of those bunks near the pool, no canteen, no amphitheatre outside the mess hall. But each year for the next 5 or 6 years, bunks and buildings were added until the camp accommodated 300 campers.

A few years after opening, my father and Uncle Saul bought out their brother Dave and were the sole owners. Then, in 1954, Saul wanted to cut back on his camp workload and sell half of his 50%. But, of course, whoever bought into camp as a 25% owner had to be approved by my dad. And so entered Jerry Turner as a director/owner.

Jerry first came to camp in 1950. He was hired to be the camp waterfront counselor. It was that summer that he met my sister, Judy, and they became an item almost immediately. In fact, it was at the very first counselor meeting at the start of the season, Judy recalls, that Jerry asked her if she wanted an ice cream. When she repiled "I'd love one," he said "Great! Get me one, too." It was love at first sight and they were married two years later. So, when Saul told my father he wanted to sell half his share of camp, my father said he should sell it to Jerry and Judy, and he did in 1954. They bought the rest of Saul's shares a few years later.

The owner/director coupling of my mom and dad, along with my sister and brother-in-law continued this way until late in the camp season of 1963 when my father suffered a heart attack. That was when I was called into service to our beloved camp, since my dad would be unable to take on his camp responsibilities for a year or two.

I was already 27, married to Jayne, and had two daughters, Jenny and Melissa. I was already involved in my radio career, working on a small station, WHTG, in Asbury Park, NJ, and barely making a living. My dad suggested I drop my radio career, and he would give me his half of the camp. I refused, but offered to help registering campers until he was well, and asked the station for summers off so I could handle his camp responsibilities. The radio station agreed, and I spent the next two years, 1964 and 1965, in camp as director and girl's head counselor. But I couldn't take on my dad's kitchen responsibilities, which were huge, so Mendy Vim entered the owner arena. (And in 1967 I went to WMMR in Philadelphia and my radio career really took off. I was done in camp.)

Mendy had already been at camp as athletic director, as we recall, and really endeared himself to my family. My father and Mendy negotiated a deal in which Mendy bought half of my father's half of camp and became a partner with Judy and Jerry. A few years later, Harold Rosenthal, Jerry's law partner, bought the rest of my father's share, but the end was drawing nearer than any of us knew.

By 1966, there was a persistent rumor going around that the federal government was going to buy the camp in a huge effort to build a national park. Judy and Jerry loved the camp business and had an offer to buy Camp Ranger on Silver Lake in upstate NY where Jerry had spent much time when he was younger. The timing was perfect for them and they decided to buy Camp Ranger and sell their remaining Pokono-Ramona shares to Mendy and Harold. That was the end of a 23-year run for my family in the ownership of the magical place we all loved so much.

By 1972, the US government began purchasing, by eminent domain, every piece of property in almost 13,000 square miles in NY, NJ and PA to make way for what was named The Tocks Island National Park. The idea was born out of the great flood of 1955, which impacted the area, including camp, with devastating loss of life and property. It was also imagined to be the first great federal recreation area in the East, serving a population, at the time, of 20 million people within a two-hour drive from one of its shores. It revolved around damming Tocks Island near the Delaware Water Gap and flooding thousands of square miles and forming a giant lake. Pokono-Ramona would have been at the bottom of the lake. So camp was bought by the Feds along with everything else, and all the buildings were demolished.

It turned out to be one of the greatest fiascos in the history of the US Deptartment of the Interior. Luckily, it was stopped short close to the beginning due to lack of funds because of the Viet Nam war and a huge outcry from environmentalists. According to a book I have, "The Rise and Fall of Tocks Island Dam," here's some chronology:

1962- Tocks Island Dam project authorized by Congress, 1st appropriations granted in 1964
1970- National Environmental Policy Act becomes law
1971- Army Corp of Engineers delays start of project awaiting environmental impact statement
1972- NJ governor issues a strong condemnation of the proposed project
1974- Congress introduces a bill to deauthorize the project
1975- Delaware River Commission votes 3 to 1 against the project
1975, 1976, 1977- More attempts to deauthorize the project fail in Congress
1980- Decision on Tocks Island project tabled until after 2000

It wasn't until 2001 that the project was deauthorized by Congress and is now a dead issue. The environmental impact on the region would have been devastating, but, of course, no one knew that back in the 60's.

The bottom line for all of us: Pokono-Ramona could still be operating!!!!! You could be sending your kids and grandkids there.