A rare picture of Harlean (Jean Harlow) on a pier at Camp Cha-ton-ka in Michigamme, Michigan, summer 1926. “That camp still remains the worst nightmare of my life,” Harlean shuddered later. “I don’t know how I lived through it.”
On an overnight hike, she used poison oak as toilet paper and was in agony for days. Later that summer Harlean caught scarlet fever and was placed in quarantine with another camper. “They put us in a tent away from the main camp, and there they left us,” she remembered. “Evervone was afraid to come near us except a country doctor.” Everyone, that is, except Mother Jean. Informed of her Baby’s condition, she packed her bags and caught the next train to Cha-ton-ka.
Its director met Mother Jean at the station and told her it would be impossible for her to get to Harlean. Her daughter knew better. “No director of any camp and no quarantine in the world could have kept my mother from me. She completely ignored that woman and rowed herself across the lake to camp.” For the next three weeks Mother Jean stayed at Cha-ton-ka, braving contagion to nurse her Baby.
Mother Jean’s presence delayed Harlean’s pursuit of David Thornton Arnold, a sixteen-year-old camper across the lake. “One afternoon we went behind the mess hall to a little clearing in the woods. She pulled down my swimsuit and gave me the go-ahead.” It was the first sexual experience for both. “There was no real thrill to it because we were so scared,” Arnold added. “We were constantly on the lookout for someone coming. When we were done, I noticed blood on the leaves and panicked. I thought I’d hurt her, which I wouldn’t have done for the world.” Arnold asked if she was OK. Harlean assured him she was. “She was a sweet girl with nothing pretentious about her,” stressed Arnold, and though their rendezvous was not repeated, they stayed friends for the rest of the summer. At its end Mother Jean returned to Cha-ton-ka to bring Harlean home.
Sadly, the consequences of the scarlet fever that Harlean caught at this camp gave her a death sentence, as it weakened her kidneys in the long term.
(This original story was published on jeanharlow.daily)
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