Dr. H. Frayzer Mattson remembered the founding of Crystalaire Camp (then known as Osoha) like this:
"Osoha was started by my parents, mainly by my mother, Elizabeth Dudley Mattson. At the time, my father was pastor of the First Congregational Church in Manistee. There was very little capital to start with-- a situation which never did improve very much. They were able to rent the Mills Cottage, now the Benzonia Library, for two months each summer for the first three or four years."
Then they aquired the property where Crystalaire Camp is located now, at the edge of Lobb Road on the south shore of Crystal Lake.
"I am sure that the realtor's name was Bob Denton and the property consisted of 600 foot frontage and the price was $2.00 per front foot," Mattson recalled in 1984.
By the time the fifth season (1925) rolled around, Osoha-of-the-Dunes had put together a 20 page brochure describing the purposes (one being "to develop the integrity of character that leads to a realization of the finest womanhood"); the location (Osoha-of-the-Dunes, after four seasons at the edge of Benzonia has secured a permanent location directly on the Crystal lake Shore)l equipment and life at camp.
Activity at camp in the twenties amounted to gypsy trips, an overnight camp, horseback riding ($35 insures twenty-four one hour rides), water sports, canoeing and crafts within the camp. A special activity was a special two day trip offered on the S. S. Puritan from Frankfort to Harbor Springs and back.
The official camp costume at the time was khaki middy and bloomers with dark green tie. The girls were required to have at least one official uniform and these could be obtained from Marshall Field's in Chicago.
The fee for the year was $200 and girls could be enrolled for half the season (four weeks) at $115.
Mrs. Mattson, then of Charlevoix, and Miss Lena Morgan of Jackson, Michigan were the directors.
In a 1987 article in the Manistee County Sun Times, Mrs. Kari Franck recalled her years in Manistee (1930's) as a young eacher and that during the summers she taught at Osoha and that one of he campers was Gwen Frostic, the famed Benzie County artist. Dr. Mattson, in his 1984 interview, also recounted the fact that Ms. Frostic was involved with the camp.
Mrs. Franck recalled that the first summer at camp she taught drama, but always a rider and horse fancier, she spent her spare time at the stables. The following year she returned as a riding instructor.
"Priorities were different then, she mused, noting that when she and her young equestriennes were caught on the trail in a rainstorm, the horses were sheltered upon returning to the stables, but the girls sat outdoors on their saddles. There wasn't enough room for all the tack, she explained, and the girls would dry off, but the saddles would have been damaged."
Included in the staff was Northwestern University professor W. G. Waterman, geologist and botanist, whose trips through the dunes were unforgettable experiences for the girls who accompanied him.
By the mid-1930's the camp was open to fifty girls and the tuition for the season had risen to $325. Also, uniforms were not required except on Sundays when all campers wore white. By then, only girls personally known to the director and with satisfactory recommendations were accepted.
The camp cuisine was supervised by a trained dietician and prepared by competent cooks. The food supply was in quantity and the best in quality. Cherries and berries abound in the region and fresh vegetables were brought in daily. An abundant milk supply, bottled under the most sanitary conditions, was furnished by a tuberculin-tested herd. Ice cream was a frequent item.
And, of course, horseback riding had developed into one of the most popular and valuable features of the camp program. This was due to the intelligent, enthusiastic leadership of the riding master and assistants as well as to the fine string of Kentucky bred and trained saddles horses. The riding ring, for many years, was the center of absorbing interest both in the daily instruction and at the time of the horse shows, enjoyed by many visitors.
In the early 1940's, Dr. and Mrs. Fenimore E. Putt bough the camp and ran it as "Crystalaire Camp for Girls."
"When my dad acquired it, it was really run down and he did extensive work on the cabins and lodge," Sally (Putt) Miner of Beulah recalled recently.
"Mostly, the campers came from Shaker Heights (OH) and Grosse Pointe (MI) . . . my dad had a dental practice in Grosse Pointe and some of his cohorts helped him recruit campers," she mentioned.
"Among the campers were the Fords, the Briggs, and the daughters of Vernor's Ginger Ale executives . . . and I recall one time Walter Reuther (the labor leader) came to the house to talk about the camp," Mrs. Miner said.
"And my dad advertised in such publications as Good Housekeeping" she added when noting how the camp was publicized.
"And there were the camp reunions at the Drake Hotel in Chicago," Mrs. Miner mentioned.
"Those were definitely the Mom and Pop Putt days," recalled Nancy Tyler Collins who mentioned that one of the nurses in those days, Ella Porter, wrote a book about the area "Footprints in the Sand."
** "Footprints in the Sand" by Ella Porter Smith is a junior novel with a storyline which takes place at a camp on Crystal Lake-- a thinly veiled description reference to Crystalaire.**
In the late 1950's, Gus and Paula Leinbach of Ann Arbor bought the camp from the Putts and ran a a girls camp until the early seventies, though the present owner/director Dave Reid and his wife, Kathi Houston, took over as director for the Leinbach's in the mid 70's when the Leinbach's formed their Camp Innisfree. In 1996, Dave Reid and Kathi Houston purchased Camp Lookout, a smaller camp located just south of Frankfort on Lower Herring Lake and Lake Michigan and, for ten years, ran both camps. Following the 2007 summer, however, they closed Crystalaire.
Crystalaire ended, not because the camp wasn't needed or that enrollments were too small or anything like that. Crystalaire ended because the property owners, from whom Dave and Kathi leased the site, decided that it was time for them to do something with their property. The reality was that the property had become too valuable to continue as a children's camp; no one could afford to purchase the property and continue to operate a camp on it.
If you have historical information, photos, brochures about the camp and would be willing to share them with us for an eventual donation to the Benzie Area Historical Museum, please contact the camp office.
