News & Features
Camp helped prevent tuberculosis among young locals
By Elyse Reel
Oct 8, 2008 - 8:13:57 AM

Merriewood Rd. remains an important part to the community today. The vacant property was able to provide many “Habitat for Humanity” homes for several area families.

At Camp Merriewood-Harrison, Richmond-area boys and girls engaged in usual summertime activities: swimming, baseball, arts and crafts, and – gaining weight?

Unlike many other summer camps, Merriewood-Harrison wasn’t just about fun and games. Instead, it was aimed at preventing tuberculosis among young children. Every summer, over 400 children applied, though only 180 would be accepted, for the camp’s three four-week sessions. While there, the campers would be exposed to fresh air and sunshine, as well as “generous supplies” of nutritious food, according to an August 26, 1942 issue of the Richmond News Leader.

“They sure can eat,” camp director Mrs. William N. Wickham told the News Leader in 1957. “One day, we cooked 100 eggs for 57 kids. They ate them and wanted more; we had to cook another 37.” The Richmond Times-Dispatch wrote in a 1948 issue, “The matter of weight is taken quite seriously by these children. They are often overheard cautioning each other, ‘You run down to the pool like that and you’ll lose that pound you gained this week.’”

Camp Merriewood was originally founded in 1924 by the Richmond Tuberculosis Association; three years later, it merged with Camp Harrison, which had been founded by the Older Girls Auxiliary of the Instructive Visiting Nurses’ Association. For over 25 years, the camp functioned under the mission “to stamp out tuberculosis by prevention, rather than cure,” wrote the News Leader in 1949.

In order to attend one of Camp Merriewood-Harrison’s sessions, applicants were given a free and complete physical exam, chest X-ray, tuberculin test, and laboratory test by volunteering doctors. However, those already sick were not accepted, according to a 1951 issue of the Richmond News Leader: instead, they were “denied the privilege of attending camp and [we]re sent to institutions providing the proper medical care.” A 1937 issue of the same paper explained, “Each [child] had been singled out, not as a tubercular victim, but as one who had been in such daily contact with a victim as to have been endangered.”

During their stays at Camp Merriewood-Harrison, campers gained an average of five pounds a month. However, camp staffers made sure that their charges kept up the positive habits even after sessions had completed. “All children admitted to Merriewood-Harrison are supervised in their homes for not less than one year,” the Times-Dispatch wrote in 1948. “These children are checked on their diet, exercise, height, weight and health habits and are given a free physical examination at least once a year.” A 1951 News-Leader article added, “Extra milk and vegetables are often added to family diets from the camp budget when children are not receiving the necessary food.”

In order to provide its services, Camp Merriewood-Harrison depended entirely on the donations of private individuals, requiring roughly $14,000 in a summer – or $227.64, according to a 1948 article, per child. Local residents dug deep in their pockets to help out the camp, however; between donations and assistance from groups like the Virginia Tuberculosis Association, Merriewood-Harrison was able to assist over 3,600 children.

Today, no evidence of the camp remains, and Habitat for Humanity houses dot its former location. But, as one camp director, Mrs. Edmund Strudwick noted in a 1947 radio interview, the benefits of Camp Merriewood-Harrison would last much longer. “You cannot measure in dollars and cents the benefits derived from this camping experience,” she told interviewer Mallory Freeman. “The children receive so much more than recreation, rest, fresh air, good food, and sunshine. They develop character and personality and discover latent possibilities and new interests . . . . They find opportunities for friendliness, cooperation, and unselfishness; and while they are being restored to good health by the act of healthy living, they receive many broad and deep mental and emotional experience, which helps [sic] to make a better citizen.”

ereel@villagepublishing.com | 751-0421



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