Eleanor Cheley didn’t hike, ride horses or camp out, but she was the “camp mom” for 1,000 kids every summer.
Cheley, who died June 26 at age 87, made sure “high standards” were in force at the Cheley Camps, 4 miles south of Estes Park, and didn’t put up with frivolity.
The rules are “no food fights, snakes in beds, initiation rites, bad language, alcohol, smoking, sex or drugs” at the camps, said Cheley’s son, Don, of Denver. “We call it a dining room, not a mess hall, and we use china, not Melmac (plastic dinnerware),” said Don Cheley, who now runs the camps with his wife, Carole.
Children ages 9-17 attend to “develop self-confidence and independence and learn how to get along with and respect each other,” Don Cheley said.
Eleanor Cheley, who was born in Chicago, actually had to prove to her future father-in- law, Frank Cheley, that she “could muster up” and help at the camps before she married John Austin Cheley, Don Cheley said. The elder Cheley, who believed kids of his era “were too soft and citified,” started the camps in the early 1920s, Don Cheley said.
Frank Cheley made sure the prospective bride “could rough it, knew how to work and wasn’t afraid of getting her hands dirty,” said Don Cheley. “It’s a good thing she passed, or I wouldn’t be here,” he joked.
Two camps, each hosting 500 youngsters, are held for a month each summer. The cost is $3,750 per camper, which includes hiking, camping, rafting and riding, as well ceramic and leather work, archery and woodworking, rope courses, soccer, fishing and drama.
Campers come from 45 states and 10 countries. Many are repeat campers, and some are second- and third-generation campers.
Eleanor Cheley, called “Sis” by friends and family, “had a huge amount of pride” in the camp and campers, and ran the camp store as well as performed inspections. “She had high expectations,” her son said.
She could spot a lonely kid or one needing counseling as quickly as she could spot a dirty window.
She believed in Frank Cheley’s dictum: “We want to instill in young people the ability to act spontaneously in the right.”
Eleanor Clark was born on Aug. 24, 1917, and went to Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. There she met John Austin Cheley, and they married Nov. 29, 1939. John Cheley took over the camps when he was 23, after the early death of Frank Cheley. John Cheley died in 1987.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-820-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
