For nearly half a century, Betty and Terry Carmine ran Camp Arrowhead near Angola. They raised three children in the woods, living in a cabin on Rehoboth Bay, and have seen nine bishops come and go at the camp, owned by the Episcopal Church Diocese of Delaware.
Children of high-powered executives and orphans, elementary school age children and high-schoolers have stayed at the camp, many became good friends of the Carmines.
A few who had no other place to go, even lived with the couple, said Betty. They still receive letters from former campers and frequent pop-in visits.
Terry, who was born in Millsboro, has a slight southern Sussex County accent. His words run into each other in a way that makes his sentences sound like one, long word. Betty was born in Bridgeville.
The Carmines have also been members of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Lewes for 55 years.
“We never thought of it as a job, it was a ministry for youth,” she said. Betty is a self-admitted talker, but, Terry jumps into the fold with details now and again and they both finish each other’s sentences. The camp is nearly 170 acres and in the late 1950s, Camp Arrowhead was the only development at the end of Camp Arrowhead Road.
As they toured the end of Camp Arrowhead Road, a dirt road in the 1950s, they point out houses that are sprouting up on the now-paved road. Numerous “for sale” signs pepper the wooded lots.
“Lord, there’s a house going up there, Terry,” said Betty. “There’s another building they tore down Betty,” said Terry. In the late 1960s, Westbay, a manufactured-home park, moved in next to the camp.
Today, 12 homes rest along the bayshore and 20 lots are for sale, but Camp Arrowhead is protected as property of the Episcopal Church. Delaware Wildlands owns the rest – roughly 400 acres across from the camp on the west side of the road.
But, the two told tales – too many to count - about the camp’s early days under their direction.
Back in the day, children used to sleep in covered wagons, sleds and teepees. In the 1980s, the state outlawed hand pumps and latrines. “They called them ‘kybos’: keep your bowels open,” joked Terry.
But when the Carmines first came to the camp, said Betty, “We were the only light on Rehoboth Bay. Terry said, “Back then, it was nothing to get bushels of oysters from the bay.”
Terry was hired in 1954 as the grounds keeper. In 1974, he became the camp manager. Betty at first raised her family in the camp. Later, she became the camp cook, planning menus and other activities.
Terry reconfigured the camp chapel, which had served as a former stable. A dining hall, cabins, a pool, tennis courts and infirmary also sit on the land and Carmine Environmental Center, named after the two, was established in 1995. The dining hall is a former Silver Lake dancehall that was floated on Rehoboth Bay to the camp, said Betty.
Just beyond Terry’s workshop, he staked osprey poles in the bay.
After a bird was rejected by its mother, Terry raised it outside his workshop, placing a bucket of minnows underneath the bird perch.
“She disappeared one night. Three years later, she came back,” said Terry.
Campers used to swim in the bay until the 1960s, said Betty. Workers dredged a hole to make it deep enough for the campers to swim.
“I used to call it ‘The Black Hole of Calcutta,’ ” said Betty. “Oh, the water was so clear, back way when.” Never once in their tenure, did the Carmines evacuate, said Betty.
“We never ever left because of a hurricane. We rode each one out,” said Betty.
Raising her children in what was then a segregated Sussex County, she remembered an incident in 1954.
“The schools first integrated then,” she said. Near the end of summer, a group of campers wished to visit the Atlantic beaches. With one black camper in the group, they were wary of visiting Rehoboth all together. After calling around to Rehoboth and Lewes beaches, they realized they would have to be separated, as blacks had “special beaches” back then, said Betty.
“The kids took a vote. It was 100 percent – if he couldn’t go, no one could go,” she said.
“I’ve always felt, if you left it up to the young people, there would never be a problem,” Betty said.
In 1998, the couple decided to retire as camp administrators, but a day does not pass without thoughts about the camp and their experiences there.
They no longer live at the camp, but they’ve taken Arrowhead home with them. An outhouse picture hangs in their bathroom. Betty’s charm bracelet features a horsefly and an Indian. Terry wears an arrowhead belt buckle and he remains busy archiving early camp photos.
As for their former charges, Terry said, “Many married there and some became ministers.”
“We still receive letters and visitors from pupils,” said Betty.
“There’s not enough money in the world I would trade away for those 44 years,” said Betty. “It’s not easy to go back, you know.”
