Our Good Friends

The Sportsmen's Fund had already been organized before the YMCA received the ranch property from Mrs. Elizabeth Wood. They had had several parties for children at Christmas. When the Triangle Y Ranch Camp started, the Sportsmen’s Fund organized a committee to send children to camp who would not be able to go without a campership. Initially, the Sportsmen’s Funder campers were few in number, but as the Fund attracted more gifts from interested sportsmen, more and more campers were sent to camp. Abe Chanin, “Lope” Loper, Tom Foust, and Chick Hawkins contacted various people in the small towns around Arizona to select some children who would benefit from going to camp.  

Matt Keillor and his wife Ivie would select ten boys from Willcox, see that they had all forms filled out, make sure that they had bedrolls and clothes. After that, the Keillors would drive to Oracle with the children in their cars on the Sunday that they were to be in camp. To top it all off, there would be a beef at the meat plant in Tucson from the people in Willcox for the camp. 

Another good friend of the Sportsmen’s Fund and camp was Clovis Holcomb in San Manuel. Clovis would contact the campers to come from San Manuel, Oracle, Mammoth, and Winkelman, and then he and his wife Grace would bring them to camp. They made sure that the children all had their physical exams in San Manuel. Sometimes, more children turned up than we were expecting, but Clovis would always see that we had enough milk, bread, and rolls we needed. Several times, he would make an early-morning delivery of food to camp on Monday morning so that we wouldn’t run short. 

We had a good friend in Eloy, “Barney” Barnes. Whenever the lettuce and melons were ripe, we would see a big truck roll in loaded with produce for us. “Barney” was always responsible for signing up some good campers from Eloy. He would see that each one of the children was equipped for his stay at camp. He and his family would drive to camp and deliver the children and then pick them up again when camp was over. 

Another family who made it possible for us to have campers outside of Tucson were Mike and Julieta De La Fuente, from Nogales. They selected the children and obtained permission from the Immigration Service for them to cross the border into the U.S. They would drive several cars to camp on a Sunday morning and deliver the boys from Nogales, Sonora. Chick would assign the boys to one of our Spanish-speaking counselors. Then they would all stay in the same cabin together for their stay with us. 

 They seemed to enjoy all of our camp food. They especially ate a lot of our white bread, with butter and jelly. Our canned fruit was another hit. They used their Mexican money to have credit at the camp store. They thought it was great to have a credit card in the store. When they returned home, we had to change their money back into pesos for them. Thankfully, my brother Lester came to camp on Saturday night to help with this financial transaction. When the other campers put on their skits and plays for skit night, the boys from Nogales sang us several Mexican songs. As an encore, they sang our camp song. 

Speaking of boys from Mexico, one our favorites was Carlos, who came to camp four years in a row from the state of Sinaloa, Carlos paid for his own stay at camp because his family was able to send him. He usually would stay for two or three weeks. His sisters would go to Europe on a vacation for the summer, but Carlos thought Europe was boring, and so he chose to come to the Triangle Y Camp. He was a great camper and participated in all the activities with great enthusiasm. 

We had a good friend in Bisbee, named Jim McNulty. He could always be counted on to select some needy boys from that town and take care of necessary arrangements. Being a lawyer, he knew many of the child-care people in Cochise County. Another family who were stalwart helpers were the Martins. George and his wife Bonnie brought the children from Douglas and made sure that all their paperwork had been taken care of. George was the Justice of the Peace in that border town and was very involved with the civic organizations. They always brought us a great group of boys.  

Speaking of the Sportsmen’s Fund, I can’t leave out the message that we received from Lope and Abe about an emergency. The Copper State Chemical Co. had suffered from a fire and in putting out the fire the Fire Department had had to spray lots of water on the plant. As a result, the streets near the plant were full of water with lots of chemicals in the water. There were many homes in the area of the fire, and the children were playing in the streets in the water. Could we take these children as campers for a few days until the water was gone? We had a full camp when Abe and Lope put in their plea, but Chick didn’t hesitate. We would take the kids.

 Our camp truck made a trip to town to borrow some mattresses from the City of Tucson. Phone calls were made to hire several more counselors. By the time the bus arrived in camp with the new campers, the mattresses were in the Conservation Building and the Recreation building, and counselors were all ready. Then we saw the bus, and we were all taken by surprise! Lope and Abe had sent us some girls! Chick said to our Julie and Sarah Ronquillo that they would have to pitch in and be counselors for the girls. Sarah and Julie were all set and then when we went into the dining hall to assign campers to their counselors, the “girls” weren’t females but just several boys with long hair! What a relief! 

As the years went along, some cabins were built with money that various groups and families donated. It was cause for a great celebration when the cabins were built to the east of the present dining hall. We had a big celebration with a special dinner and lots of guests from Tucson.  

One group that helped the camp out a lot were the Indian Guides. They built the Infirmary Building with their funds that they raised by selling Christmas trees. Then they finished it off by painting the inside and out. That infirmary was a great improvement, because the nurse had a small room next to the dining hall.  

As the number of campers grew, it became obvious that we needed a new dining hall. The Arizona Daily Star’s Sportsmen’s Fund got the ball rolling for the new building. Abe Chanin and Tom Foust were aware of how crowded we were and with the help of Eddie Chesin and his construction company, the work began. The whole area in front of the future building was dug up to make a leaching field for the septic tank. When that was completed, Eddie Chesin oversaw 27 brick masons who put up the block walls over one weekend. Equipment was purchased from the Restaurant Supply house. Bill Lovejoy and his father were responsible for buying the beautiful round tables with their comfortable captain’s and mate’s chairs. With the new table and chairs, we could seat 180 people. To top off the furnishing of the dining room, Bill Lovejoy sent us soup spoons to use. He happened to eat a lunch with us when soup was served, and we had used teaspoons. Bill didn’t think that was good enough so the next time the truck came back with supplies from the YMCA, there were enough soup spoons for the whole camp, courtesy of Bill Lovejoy.  

Another person who helped out with the dining room was Bill Breck. He helped select a good gas stove that would fit in our kitchen. He also was responsible for us having a wonderful Dodge stake truck that made many miles back and forth to Tucson. Bill and Alice visited the camp often and always made us feel better because of their positive support.  

Patricia Maguire was a staunch supporter of the camp. She contributed money to build a cabin in memory of her father. She enjoyed seeing the children having a good time and was a wonderful friend of the camp.  

The dining hall wouldn’t have been complete without the beautiful rock work of Bob Canfield. Bob had constructed the fireplace in the old dining hall, and so they thought of him right away to build the new one. He is a fine mason, having worked with stone all his life. He knew just how the stones should be used.