Descriptive Summary

Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

An appointment for research is required. No Inter-Library Loan. Photographs are stored within a temperature controlled chamber and require additional time to acclimate to room temperature.

Copyright Notice

Copyright of materials are governed by applicable federal laws. Originals of Fritz Neugass' photographs are owned by SUNY-Albany.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], Collection 214. Camp Catawba - Vera Lachmann Papers, W. L. Eury Appalachian Collection, Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina, NC, USA.

Acquisitions Information

Processing Information

Processed by Kathryn Staley, August 2008, Tui St. George Tucker Series is currently being processed

Encoded by Kathryn Staley, Holly Riddle, August 2008, Tui St. George Tucker Series is currently being processed

Transcriptions by J. McTaggart, August 2008

Biographical and Historical Note

Vera Regina Lachmann (1904-1985) was a Jewish German educator and poet who immigrated to the United States in 1939. Her parents, Louis and Carolina Rosenbach Lachmann, were wealthy, assimilated Berlin Jews. Mr. Lachmann, a well-known Berlin architect, designed the Comic Opera building and the Tietz department store. Carolina Lachmann was a Warburg descendant, one of the most prominent Jewish families in Germany. Her father died in 1909 and her brother died in 1914. In the turmoil after World War I, the Lachmann family took in Magdalena Friedlander, who later married Hitler's Minister of Propoganda, Joseph Goebbels. Prior to her university studies, Vera studied under Helene Hermann at Dr. Sigmund Auerbach's school. She was a participant in the 1920s German youth movement. She studied classics and German languages at the Universities of Berlin and Basel, Switzerland. Her 1930 dissertation was on "The Origins of the Harthar Saga," an Icelandic saga. From 1933 to 1938, she directed a Jagowstrasse School, a progressive private school in Berlin-Grunewald for Jewish and other non-Aryan children. She also worked in the children's emigration department of the Reichsvertretung der deutschen Juden (the representative body of German Jews). Her sister Nina and her family fled Germany to London in the summer of 1939. Vera resisted leaving Germany but her friends Erika Weigand and Renata von Scheliha convinced her to leave. She left in November, 1939. Lachmann met her life partner, musician Tui St. George Tucker, in the mid-1940s through Erika Weigand, who committed suicide in 1946. Lachmann became a naturalized American citizen in 1946.

In 1943, Lachmann opened Camp Rena to eight boys, whose parents fled Nazi Germany. Rena is a shortened form of renata, Latin for "rebirth." After locating land for a boys' summer camp near Blowing Rock, North Carolina, Lachmann operated Camp Catawba for Boys in Blowing Rock, North Carolina from 1944 to 1970. This property had previously been the site of Camp Cherokee, operated by E.T. Hodgkin. Over four hundred campers came to Camp Catawba. It was an annual eight week overnight camp for boys from 6 to 12 years old. Camp Catawba consisted of twenty acres and three buildings (the Mainhouse, the Citadel, and the Cottage) and emphasized art through music and drama. The Cottage contained the Arts and Crafts Room and the camp office.

Camp Catawba was named after the American Indian tribe. It was accredited by the American Camping Association. Early campers and staffers were German immigrants. Lachmann told campers Greek myths, directed them in theater productions, and through Tui St. George Tucker's guidance, offered musical instruction. The campers also rode horses, swam, and hiked. The polio epidemic, particularly in 1948 and 1953, impacted the camp. Neighbors Ira Bolick and his grandson Bill helped Camp Catawba. In 1956, Morris Miller acted as Lachmann's lawyer against Child Placement, an agency that matched potential campers to summer camps and had not paid Lachmann fees due her. In 1964, the camp integrated. The camp regularly dealt with non-payment and debt. The camp closed in 1970 due to Lachmann's age.

After immigration, Lachmann took multiple temporary positions including teaching soldiers German, short-term German positions at Vassar College, Salem College, Bryn Mawr, and Yale, and the part-time Greek lecturer and head of the German House of Bryn Mawr College from 1945 to 1946. In 1949, she joined the faculty of Brooklyn College as a Classics and comparative literature professor. Although she was a popular teacher, she did not receive full professorship until 1972. Lachmann authored three books of poetry, "Golden Dances the Light in the Glass" (1969), "Names Become Islands" (1975), and "Grass Diamonds" (1982). Lachmann always wrote in German and was inspired by nature, ancient Greece, Catawba, Tui St. George Tucker, and the Holocaust. She was close friends with Nelly Sachs, winner of the 1966 Nobel Prize for literature, and regularly corresponded with Sachs until her death in 1970. In 1963, Lachmann received the Distinguished Teaching Award from Brooklyn College. She stressed Hellenic Classics and was interested in Parnassian (German high art). Vera traveled to Greece in 1967, 1970, 1975, and 1976 and left journals of her experiences. She retired from Brooklyn College in 1974 and continued to teach as Adjunct Professor of Classics at Hunter College and at New York University. In 1983, Vera read her poems before the Berlin Academy of Arts, her first visit since she left Germany over forty years earlier. Lachmann was being treated for cancer by 1979. She and Tui remained together until Lachmann's death in 1985.

Lachmann's companion Tui St. George Tucker (1924-2004) was an established musician in her own right. She became renowned as a composer, conductor and virtuoso recorder player and described herself as "underground." Tucker was born in Fullerton, California and named after the tui bird of her mother's native New Zealand. She attended Occidental College of Los Angeles from 1941 to 1944. Her works frequently used extended ranges, quarter-tones, unusual trills, nature sounds and multiphonics and was referred to as "microtonal." She began working as the camp's music director in 1947. During the remainder of the year, she and Lachmann lived together in New York. In 1953, she played at the Carnegie Recital Hall with Josef Marx, Colin Sterne, Grete Sultan, and Werner Torkanowsky. At Lachmann's death in 1985, Tui inherited Camp Catawba and then returned to live permanently at Camp Catawba. There she lived composed music until her death. Locally, the Springhouse Farm Choir of Valle Crucis performed her music. She wrote arrangements for piano, recorder, orchestra, opera, chamber, choral, and solo. As per Lachmann's wishes, Tui sold the property to the Blue Ridge Parkway, retaining a life estate.

Charles A. Miller (born October 27, 1937 in Washington DC) is an author and Professor Emeritus of Politics and American Studies at Lake Forest College. He is the son of Morris and Sara Levy Miller. Morris was the Chief Judge of the Washington, D.C. Juvenile Court. His mother was a child psychologist and artist. He was a camper, camp counselor, head counselor (1962) friend, and alternate executor for both Lachmann and Tucker. He studied in Germany after college (1959-1960) and received a Ph.D. in 1968. He taught political science and American Studies at Clark College (Atlanta), Princeton University, and Lake Forest College (Illinois). His brothers Tom and John also attended Camp Catawba. Charles is married to Barbara Preston Brennan. Vera called him Chuckie, his mother Sis, and Morris Chickie.

The "Sonia" mentioned in the poems "Sonia, eingeschlafen" and "Sonia lernt sprechen" was the daughter of Ben and Dorothy Kohn Schwartzberg, who were both at Camp Catawba. During her trips to Greece, Lachmann told the natives that she was married and had a granddaughter named Sonia.

Spencer Holst (1926-2001) was a camp counselor in 1969-1970. An author and poet, he befriended Lachmann and Tucker and worked with them on readings. His reading venues included Westbeth, Max's Kansas City, Judson Memorial Church, and the Village Vanguard. He received the Hilda and Richard Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1977. He wrote "The Language of Cats and Other Stories" and among other stories. Painter Beatte "Bea" Wheeler was his wife.

Chronology

Collection Overview

The Camp Catawba-Vera Lachmann Papers provides a detailed information about the Blowing Rock, North Carolina boys summer camp and the two women who ran it. The bulk of this collection consists of photographs of 1960s era Camp Catawba and Tui St. George Tucker's musical compositions and recordings. However, the Camp Catawba materials and correspondence are rich with details of camp life from director Vera Lachmann's and former camper Charles Miller as well as examples of some camp materials and programs. Another significant aspect of this collection consists of Lachmann's poetry and Classics studies. Her holographic journals from her visits to Greece are particularly insightful into her research interests and considerations.

Collection Arrangement

Online Catalog Headings

Container List

Separated Material

Album Cover for The Hungarian Revolution by Major General Bela Kiraly (1969).

Removed Material

Some materials, particularly scores which Tui St. George Tucker did not compose, were removed from the collection.

Bibliography