Camp Zoe Memories
Local Legends
Folklore and local legends were an integral part of attending Camp Zoe. These tales of monsters, ghosts, and spirits were passed on around the campfire during overnight excursions outside the camp perimeter.
The story of the hermit who lived in Hermit's Cave was rather unremarkable. A long time ago, a man lived in this cave. Because he lived in the cave by himself they called him a hermit. Kinda sends a chill up your spine, doesn't it? The cave itself was small and devoid of creepy critters. It was an excellent place for city kids to explore. I don't think he really lived there.
The Gambodi cave legend is intriguing. The Gambodi was a freak of nature; half man, half beast. His cave was located directly across the Sinking Creek from Camp Zoe. A steep hike up the bluff on the far bank led to the small round entrance. The main passage jutted off in two directions. One passage turned into a dead end. The limestone and dolomite walls in the other passage grew smaller and smaller until you couldn't crawl any further. It was not for the claustrophobic camper. Once you reached the back you couldn't turn around. You had to back out. Grown-ups were too big but a child slid through the small passage for quite a distance. I crawled through the Gambodi cave passage and gained confidence. I went somewhere an adult couldn't go. Youthful spelunkers who crawled the estimated 30 feet through cave mud and spring water glimpsed an unusual natural rock formation. The "Dill Pickle" resembled a large stone gherkin. It was a smooth stalagmite rounded off at the top. The Dill Pickle marked the cavern limit. By the way, the teenage guys in Tent Cabin had another name for the Dill Pickle. It started with dil. I'll bet you can guess what they called it.
The legend of Charcoal Willie was the most chilling Camp Zoe legend of them all. A man and his wife built a cabin in the woods somewhere outside of camp. Willie went nuts and killed his wife and set the cabin on fire. Somehow he got burnt up in the blaze but didn't die. His ghost/corpse haunted the surrounding countryside. Charcoal marks on rocks, trees or buildings was a sign that Charcoal Willie was there.
Willie was known as the "Missouri Reaper" during the '60s according to former counselor Kent Jones. The legend of his day said the reaper became enraged at the site of the Zoe bonfires and picked one camper to extract revenge upon. I imagine kept curious campers from wandering too far from the fire on overnight excursions.
Willie himself has a story to tell. Find out more about the lost silver mine of Sinking Creek.
I never saw Charcoal Willie. We encountered unwelcome visitors at times, but they weren't ghosts. Trespassers wandered on the grounds, usually at night. One year a strange man wandered into camp on the main road after taps and threw rocks at the roof of Mac's Cabin. This happened more than once, so the counselors in Mac's Cabin rounded up all the other male counselors and set a trap. The counselors arrived at Mac's Cabin to wait for the rock thrower after taps the next night. They waited for over an hour. Some guys nodded off until the sound of a rock hitting the tin roof awakened them. They gathered themselves together and, with a rebel yell, emerged from both ends of the cabin waving lanterns and canoe paddles. They chased that guy down the entrance road until he ran back to his car and speed off. Some of the defenders even fired a few rocks at the interloper. He never bothered us again.
Another trespassing incident followed a similar pattern. In this case, someone walked up to camp from the creek side after dark. Instead of lobbing rocks at the buildings, the vandal decided to let the horses out of the corral. I remember lying in my bunk and hearing horses stampede past my cabin in the middle of the night. This happened two or three times in a single summer. The horses were always rounded up the next morning. They often went up to the pasture near the canoe pond on the north side of camp. It's quite possible that one or two escaped recapture. ABC news featured a segment on the wild horses of the Ozark Mountains several years later. The report originated from Eminence, Missouri. A pack of wild horses roamed the forest and there was a debate about what to do with them. No one seemed to know where the horses came from. I think I know, and now you do as well, although reports of wild horses in the area go back to the 1940's. The wild horses roam to this day, protected by law (up to a certain number). By the way, whoever opened the gate down at the barn was never captured.
A power line shoots straight up between the trees across the creek from the mess hall to an open space at the top of the bluff. That's Jeremiah's pasture up there. Jeremiah's pasture was a favorite destination for horse riders who often cut a trail through the flat, grassy meadow. A local legend stated that a civil war skirmish occurred there. I heard that the head riding counselor discovered a revolver while riding there in 1975. I never saw the gun but it was rumored to be a vintage 19th century pistol.
In 1976, the Boys Cabin guys, including myself, hiked up the Sinking Creek to a favorite overnight spot, Thompson's Hole. We built a camp fire and rolled out our sleeping bags. We swam and jumped from the rocky ledges on the far shore. Everyone gathered around the fire after sundown. Counselor Larry Eberle began a scary story.
"No, I can't go on, it's too scary," he said. "I can't tell you anymore." This tactic drove us mad. We begged him to tell us the full story. After pretending to hesitate for a few minutes, he started in again with the story. It was something about lost love and a broken heart. I don't remember the details, but the man in the story ended up dead and returned as a ghost. Larry mentioned that he was buried less than a mile away.
"Show us the tombstone, please, please," we cried. Larry agreed to show us the marker and the spirit stomping grounds if we promised not to say a word once we entered the cemetery. We crossed our hearts and grabbed our flashlights. He led us down a dirt road away from the safety of our fire. There was no moon. A quarter mile along we spotted the old county cemetery. Larry and another counselor held open the barbed wire fence that surrounded the twenty five markers in the cemetery. We listened in silence as Larry whispered additional details about the man who was buried in the corner plot.
"What was that? I heard something over there," he said. "Let's get the hell out of here!" Some of us looked around but any apparitions blured into darkness as we hustled through the fence. We ran all the way back to Thompson's hole. He pretended to be scared himself. That had me worried. It was a great ghost story. Well done, Larry.
Political correctness reared its ugly head at Camp Zoe in the late '70s. In the summer of 1979, a 12 year-old girl from a St. Louis suburb heard a scary story at camp. She had a nightmares when she got home and the parents complained. The net result was that ghost stories were not allowed the following summer.