The Sad Passing of Fort Scott
By Mary McDonald
Cincinnati Enquirer - 4/8/89

When my children were growing up, it was about this time of year 
that I would be registering them for Fort Scott Camps.  They went 
every year, as a gift from my eldest son's godmother.
Now the camps, run for 66 years by the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, 
are closing "for the foreseeable future." Fear of contamination 
from the nearby Fernald uranium-processing plant is the reason, 
the archdiocese says.
Parents have been reluctant to send children to the camp, as I 
would be today, and registrations have dropped.  Groups that 
sometimes rented the camps' facilities were hesitant.  The 
archdiocese itself was concerned.

Always worries

What a pity.  It was a wonderful place for children to spend two 
safe weeks of their summers, free of the city.  I worried anyway, 
unnecessarily as I knew at the time.  But what's a mother for?  
It's that silver cord.  It stretches, but never breaks.
I remember, when we took my eldest son to camp for' the first 
time, I was worried that he would be homesick.  I worded my 
letters carefully: "We love and miss you, but we are happy you 
having such fun."
It was an obvious sort of psychology, but I wanted to reassure 
him that he was valuable to us and yet not give him an opening to 
come home on the pretense that Mom was unhappy without him.
I needn't have worried.  When the day came to pick up Mark, I 
thought he would be hopping from foot to foot, eagerly waiting to 
see my husband and me.  Instead, we had to search the camp to 
find him.  He was busy helping his counselor do some chores.  
Volunteer work was not his forte at home, but the counselor had 
become his summer hero.
It was a little different with my daughter when we picked her up 
after her first stay.  I had left a little girl of 7, with 
strawberry-blonde hair, Irish-white skin and a faint sprinkle of 
freckles across her nose.  I noticed no such child when I walked 
into room where the little girls waited.
I tried not to panic as I watched child after child swooped up by 
her mother.  I remembered wandering Mark.  Finally, I asked, as 
casually as I could, "Where is Melinda?" The counselor at the 
desk pointed across the room.  "Right over there."
- I had walked right by the little girl who had seemed inches 
taller than -my Melinda. A deep tan had absorbed her freckles.  
And her hair - the sun had stolen the strawberry and left it a 
bright blond.
She stared at me reproachfully.  I don't think 1. have ever felt 
so guilty.  Not to recognize my own child.  Unforgivable.  Later 
she told me that she had wondered briefly, terribly, whether I 
had decided to leave her there and was checking her in again.  
She loved the place, but enough was enough.
That wasn't the only moment of panic I felt.  The first thing all 
of the children did, once the physicals were over, was head for 
the swimming pools.  I would watch them for a time, glad that 
they had learned how to swim at camp.
Then came the day when I watched a little blond boy clamber up 
the ladder to the highest diving board.  I don't know now high, 
just too high for my taste.  That looks like Jonathan (Son No. 
3), I thought. !t was Jonathan.  With a wave and a shout tie 
plunged, and so did my heart.  A born water baby, he survived.  I 
almost didn't.
But I knew they were in safe hands.  I also knew that Michael 
(Son No. 2) would probably come home with a case of poison ivy, 
carefully treated by the camp physician, and more mosquito bites 
than freckles.  Yet, to this day, he loves the outdoors, cruel as 
it is to his fair skin.  For better or worse, it's his Fort Scott 
legacy.
Jamie (Son No. 4), still proud of the year he was named "camper 
of the period," looks back with awe on the time actress Loretta 
Young visited the camp.  She kissed him when he gave her a wooden 
candlestick he had carved.  He wasn't quite sure who she was, but 
she was pretty and glamorous, and that was enough for a 12-year-
old boy.
Whenever Fort Scott comes up, the children reminisce with 
laughter.  The senior dances, those painful encounters, where the 
"older" boys and girls were supposed to practice social graces.  
The wild nights of the "markers," when counselors would steal 
into each others' cabins and scrawl on sleeping campers, "The 
Blue Marker Strikes Again!" The tennis. The horseback riding.  
The swimming.  The nature studies.
Those were good days, wonderful in retrospect until now.  Now, 
almost 25 years since we took our first child to camp, I wonder 
if there will be a belated price for that happiness.
The company that operates the federally-owned plant has assured 
the archdiocese that "routine sampling and monitoring of air, 
water and soil near the camp has consistently shown there is no 
public-health concern." I hope that's true.  I want it to be 
true.

Too many lies

But there have been so many lies and cover-ups for so many years.  
The U.S. Department of Energy did more than jeopardize fives and 
jobs when it refused to provide the resources to control 
pollution from the plant over decades.  It destroyed peace of 
mind.
The seed of doubt - the nagging worry planted at the back of the 
mind, the what-ifs is its legacy.
Like the workers and other neighbors the plant, Fort Scott is a 
victim of its of negligence.  Once a happy playground for 
thousands of children, the camp's wooded 204 acres will be 
deserted, both past and future blighted by doubt.
The spill from polluted governmental thinking reaches far beyond 
Fernald.  It reaches into memories that once were carefree.
Mary McDonald is assistant editor of The Enquirer's editorial 
page.