How I learned of the MacJannet Realm: A chance encounter at a lodge in Costa Rica and the Camp summer of 1948

By Robert Schmalz, MacJannet Camp Counselor in 1948. 
Two items which may be of interest:  At the time Donald came to Tufts, my mother was serving on the Board of Trustees.  Consequently the family had relatively frequent contact with Donald and Charlotte.  I studied French at
their house in Arlington during  the summer of 1946, I believe, and subsequently invited Charlotte to speak  to the High School French Club on several occasions.  Both of the MacJannets were dinner guests at my parents' house, as well. I was a counselor at the camp during the summer of 1948  - 

I believe that was the second season the camp was open after the War.  Jack Rich was more  or less in charge, and Mrs. Foster was a frequent guest at camp.  At the end of camp, several of us spent two weeks driving through the south of France  with Jack; others went off on their own  -  two girls hitch-hiking with the goal of seeing Italy; two of the boys touring on bicycles. 

In February, 1996, my wife and I were shivering in a dense fog at a lodge said to command a view of Arenal volcano in Costa Rica.  It was the coldest day on record and the fog was so thick that we could not see 100 yards  - certainly not as far as the volcano which could hear erupting happily  somewhere across the valley.  After dinner we joined the couple at a nearby table for coffee  -  he seemed vaguely familiar, perhaps because of a strong resemblance to actor Peter O'Toole.  We fell into the usual strangers-in-a-foreign-land routine: "You're from New Hampshire?  Concord?  Oh, you may know...?"  He turned out to be a historian, Harvard '52,  who  had written a book on the history of a summer camp operated by my  father-in-law's best man and to which my son had gone for several summers. When I challenged his assertion that there were no summer camps of the American style in Europe, he admitted that he knew of just two; one in France at which he had spent one summer as a counselor.  It finally dawned on us that we had been at MacJannet's together; he was Charlie Platt, one of the 'bicycle boys'.

This chance meeting led me to try to locate others of the group who were at Talloires that summer  -  with little success, I am afraid.  Perhaps you  could help me locate others. Jack Rich was easy, as were Charles Platt and his friend Ames (Joe) Coney. Helen Conant I learned had died (as had he brother, Rick); when or how I could not determine.  I corresponded with George Harris, but my letter to Richard Kleaveland elicited no response.  I had no success in reaching any of the others who were in France that summer.  Perhaps you have recent  addresses for (inter alia) Nancy Baldwin, Sara Cross, Dorothy Etz, Anna  Kiely, Roselle Rice, Gardner Soule, Madeleine Wilson or Betsy Wood. I would be delighted to have any information about them that you can provide. It was good to hear from you, and I will be pleased to hear more about the  Foundation.

Robert Schmalz