At Interlochen, on a sandy hill between Green Lake and Pinecrest, there is a grove of stately pines. And every time I see them, lyrics by Bobby Goldsboro pop into my head:
See the tree, how big it’s grown
But friend, it hasn’t been too long
It wasn’t big
The first day that she planted it,
Was just a twig.
It doesn’t seem that long ago, but it’s been about sixty years now — back when we were still known as the National Music Camp — a young woman named Emily Boyd, then the Director of Lower Intermediate Girls, looked at the scrubby hillside and decided it needed to become a forest.
Under her direction, knicker-clad campers marched off with shovels and mop buckets, returning from the woods with sixty little white pine trees, no bigger than twigs. Emily and the campers planted those trees.
And they thrived, likely because, before the Lumber Era, the hill probably had been a pine forest, and because the girls had planted local trees— pines adapted to Interlochen’s sandy soil and climate. For years afterward, generations of Intermediate Girls nurtured their trees.
And Emily Boyd spent decades nurturing generations of Interlochen campers, faculty, staff, families and visitors.
As Goldsboro’s song continues:
It was in the early spring
When flowers bloom, and robins sing,
She went away...
And Emily, we miss you.
We’re being good.
And we’d love to be with you,
If only we could.
During summers at Interlochen, Emily Boyd served for nearly two decades as host of the Minnesota Building, a lakeside gathering place for faculty, staff, parents, children and visitors. (read more)
Through decades of service and volunteerism, Emily is beloved by many and remembered for quickly embracing people's life stories through conversation.
