The camp has always served as a near-flawless training ground for archetypal
Texas women. For the current fee of $4,375 for a thirty-day session, Mystic girls learn to shoot rifles, ride horses, catch bass, hike in the August sun without complaint, and face down a rattlesnake or two. In blistering tribe competitions-campers are divided into Kiowas and Tonkawas-they learn the value of teamwork. Along line of notable alumnae reveals the kind of girl that Mystic attracts:
Mary Martin, who famously played a sprightly, tirelessly cheerful boy, was the first celebrity camper; she was followed by the daughters of governors Price Daniel, Dan Moody, and John Connally. LBJ's daughtersgranddaughters, and great-granddaughters attended; James Baker sent a daughter and a granddaughter. Laura Bush worked as a counselor between terms at Southern Methodist University. Mystic girls say their camp days prepare them for the real world:
They become executives for Neiman Marcus, dance with London's Royal Ballet, own a Gymboree franchise in the former Soviet Union, or marry well and become the kind of intensely focused volunteers who would probably be happier as CEOs.
But most important, Mystic girls make friendships that last forever. Not only do they form a "Mystic mafia" that stretches all over the world, but they also help one another get into Kappa Kappa Gamma at theUniversity of Texas, the Junior League, and, if need be, a clinical trial at MD Anderson.
These bonds are forged in no small part by the history and ethos of the camp itself. The current incarnation of Mystic was founded on the eve of World War II by Agnes Stacy and has been owned by the same family for three generations. There's a legacy of strong women: Campers remember how Agnes swam nearly a mile each morning in the Guadalupe;
…
On its face, the case of Camp Mystic, Inc., Richard G. Eastland, Willetta ("Tweety") Eastland, and James Eastland v. S. Stacy Eastland, Nancy Eastland Leaton, and Natural Fountains Properties, Inc. was, as Dick's lawyer, Bill Arnold, put it, "a third--generation problem." The Eastland siblings were once partners, but as the camp and the land it sits on increased in value, they began quarreling over the usual things: money and power. "When the parents are not alive to keep things in line, many times it all goes to heck," said Arnold.
That is an understatement. The case has raged for four years and has cost the parties in excess of $6 million in legal fees. It involves accusations most people would never dream of hurling at a sibling: fraud, malpractice, and, especially, greed. Hanging in the balance are Dick and Tweety's reputation as the financial and ethical stewards of a Texas institution-what they call "the mission and the ministry" of Mystic
-and Stacy's reputation as one of the country's finest trust and estate planners.
Not to mention the future of Camp Mystic itself. "The whole group of'em ought to be taken into the woodshed and spanked till they come up with a settlement," one longtime Kerrville attorney told me.
…
The image speaks to another era, when wholesome, gorgeous, churchgoing white kids ran the world, or at least Texas. Over the years, the two have put all that natural enthusiasm into Mystic. Dick waxes rhapsodic when he talks about his grandfather building the sign on Sky High or when he recalls how J.C. Mattox, the camp's senior supervisor and longtime handyman, took him on his first successful hunting trip when he was eight. He and Tweety never see just hills or a creek at Mystic: They see Chapel Hill and Cypress Creek. The infirmary isn't the infirmary; it is Heaven Can Wait. The library, with its complete set of Nancy Drew mysteries, is Ag's Attic.
as if Dick and Tweety are the protectors of a magical kingdom. Only when Dick points out Stacy's camp quarters-a sprawling mini-mansion more befitting Santa Fe-does he become slightly less jovial.
Although they have been upgraded over the years, most of Mystic's buildings date to its earliest days, when Dick, Stacy, and Nancy's grandmother Agnes Doran Stacy owned the camp.
One of the few things the siblings agree on is that "Ag," as she was known, was "a character." The debutante daughter of a prominent Dallas banker and the youngest of ten children, Ag demanded that her father send her to college instead of finishing school, but he refused. In turn, Ag displayed the kind of resourcefulness Mystic girls would become famous for: She went to one of her father's competitors for a college loan.
Her father was so mortified that he paid the note and allowed Ag to attend the University of Texas at Austin in 1915, where she distinguished herself as a great beauty and as one of the school's first physical education majors. Women, Ag believed, missed out by being excluded from sports.
They never got physically strong or learned to lead and compete in healthy ways.
Ag got to test her theories when Anne
Morgan, the daughter of J. P. Morgan, invited her to France to help with efforts to rebuild the country after World War I. Ag developed a program to heal shell-shocked children that combined physical education with
…
After the Depression hit, Ag saved the camp by leasing it to the federal government as a rehabilitation center for soldiers wounded in World War II. But her troubles weren't over: In 1942, Gillespie died of cancer at 51. A brokenhearted mother of two, Ag needed help running Mystic. Relying on her UT connections, she eventually came into contact with Inez Harrison, a former schoolteacher from South Texas. Inez and her husband, Frank, arrived at Mystic in 1948 and stayed for the next 56 years.
At first, Ag tried the soft sell, promising Tweety all her jewelry if she and Dick moved to Mystic after graduation. When Tweety stalled-she was contemplating graduate school-Ag grew impatient. She pounded her cane on the floor at Dick and Tweety's apartment. "Goddammit," she thundered. "I didn't buy that camp for nothing." Finally, in 1976, when Tweety was pregnant with their first child, she and Dick moved to Mystic.
The couple bunked in a tiny frame house called Sugar Shack. Though meddlesome in-laws could be a challenge ("The Queen Bee has locked her door!" Agnes declared once when Tweety tried to get some privacy), campers and counselors loved the young Eastlands from the start. By 1987 they were Mystic's directors.
…
The Eastlands put a high premium on two things: making money and avoiding taxes. By the mid- to late eighties, camps across the nation were confronting the very expensive problem of personal injury suits. Suddenly a camper accident-or, worse, a camper death
-could spell ruin. Something had to be done.
When Seaborn died, in 1990, finding a solution fell to Stacy.
Stacy's goal was twofold: protect the camp from any devastating legal judgment and maintain the family's shared income. (Anne insisted that she get at least the $200,000 in dividends she'd been receiving every year.)
By 1998 he had devised a solution. He created a holding company that would own the camp's assets, including the land and thebuildings, to be called Natural Fountains Properties, after some springs on the grounds. NFP would be run by Anne, Stacy, Nancy, Dick, and the cousins, with Dick as president. Stacy also created Camp Mystic, Incorporated, which would be owned and operated by Dick and Tweety. Essentially, NFP was the landlord and Mystic was the tenant. To establish a fair rent for the family
-and to keep those dividends coming-Stacy created a mathematical formula based on the idea that land values and camp revenues would grow at the same rate. Every year, Dick was to add the cost of replacing all the buildings to the land value, then multiply that number by a designated factor.
It looked as if Stacy had created a win-win deal for everyone. Anne was happy because the family business and her dividends were assured. Stacy and Nancy were happy because they too wanted the camp's continuity, and they were still getting payouts of about $32,000 a year. Dick was happy because, after 22 years, Mystic was his. He was 44, and whatever he and Tweety made above the rent requirement was theirs to keep. As the president of NFP, he also got the same dividends per share as his siblings.
(He even got a little more in camp stock:
Anne owned 42 percent of Mystic shares, and Dick owned 38 percent.)
Most likely, no one noticed the seeds of a future misunderstanding.
This reminds me of the Great Fire of London 1666. When I learnt that it was a psyop I wondered about the alleged dead. Only a small number of people allegedly died but I still wondered about that small number. Two of the alleged dead were illustrious playwright, James Shirley, and his wife, both 70, and who both allegedly died on the same day a month after the fire from "fright and exposure," the exposure due - supposedly - to their placement in a refugee camp because their house had burnt down. A little odd. I wondered, could Shirley have owed money perhaps? I looked up his oeuvre to find a play, The Gamester, described as "noteworthy for its realistic and detailed picture of gambling in its era."
Oh my. So very, very interesting.
This reminds me of the Great Fire of London 1666. When I learnt that it was a psyop I wondered about the alleged dead. Only a small number of people allegedly died but I still wondered about that small number. Two of the alleged dead were illustrious playwright, James Shirley, and his wife, both 70, and who both allegedly died on the same day a month after the fire from "fright and exposure," the exposure due - supposedly - to their placement in a refugee camp because their house had burnt down. A little odd. I wondered, could Shirley have owed money perhaps? I looked up his oeuvre to find a play, The Gamester, described as "noteworthy for its realistic and detailed picture of gambling in its era."
My goodness Kitten! Great dig- history holds many clues eh?