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Camp Charming for Children
- Steve Plutt
- Apr 14
- 6 min read
By Steve Plutt
March 29, 2025
Just over 100 years ago, Miss Lavinia Althea Brooks Small established a school in Woodland Park for children who required additional support and a little extra guidance.
Lavinia A. Small was a writer, poet, and child psychologist, who was fluent in six languages; Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian and Spanish.
She also served as the American secretary to Queen Marie of Romania during the queen’s travels through the United States in the 1920s. Miss Small was very well known and famous for her work with children and especially famed for her fierce battles to protect the rights of underprivileged children. And she lived and taught right here in Woodland Park, Colorado.
Lavinia was born on August 14, 1876 in Charleston, West Virginia to Charles (1841-1913) and Althea Brooks Small (1848-1906). She also had a younger brother, Charles Jr. (1879-1905).
Her father was a Civil War Veteran, having served with the Confederate Company A, 1st Regiment, Engineer Troops with a rank of sergeant. He passed away while living at the Tennessee Confederate Soldiers' Home in Memphis, but is interred in Denver.
In 1880, when Lavinia was 4 years old, the family moved to Denver. Later, they relocated to Pueblo where Lavinia entered the public school system in 1887. She graduated with honors when she was 17 from Pueblo Central and was also the Class Valedictorian.
Among other classes, she completed 4 years of Latin, 2 years of Greek, 4 years of English and 2 years of German. For fun, she took 2 years of water color and crayon.
Lavinia continued her education up in Greeley at the State Normal School, studying Physiological Psychology, Pedagogy, Biology, Elementary Psychology and English Literature. She graduated with the Class of 1899. From 1901-1903, she was a student at the University of Chicago studying Psychology, Literature and Economics. She graduated with honors there too. In 1904, after graduating from the University of Chicago, Lavinia went on to teach briefly at the Colorado State Teachers College and the University of California.
From 1904 until 1908, she was head of the Department of History at the exclusive and prestigious Wolcott School in Denver. The students at Wolcott came from families who were the cream of Denver’s High Society. To name just a few; Mamie Dowd, later to be the First Lady to President Dwight D Eisenhower, Buffalo Bill’s granddaughter Clara, Molly Brown’s daughter Helen and Helen Bonfils, who later was the owner of The Denver Post. Lavinia left the Wolcott School and started teaching at several summer camp schools, all in Boulder. She was the head counselor at the Caribou Lodge camp for boys and girls.
She was head of “The Vacation House-School” for kids under ten years of age and the Froebelian House-School for boys and girls.
During this period, Lavinia also was editor of a handful of small, local magazines and wrote lyrics, sonnets and was an occasional speaker on “The Problem Child.” Lavinia wrote that
“The purpose of education was the enhancement of life. Those subjects which touch the greatest number of people have the greatest power of enhancing life. Music touches more hearts than Greek or Latin; Literature is wider in its appeal than Algebra or Trigonometry; artistic home decoration affects more lives than Mythology. So a school’s curriculum should be planned for the happiness of the many.”
Lavinia’s style of teaching was mainly in an outdoor environment. She believed that play is the natural way through which children explore and make sense of the world. Her teaching methods were of Friedrick Froebel, a man who also inspired Lavinia’s mother and two aunts in metaphysics.
So, to perhaps understand Lavinia’s teaching methods, a very brief background on her mother and aunts might help.
The three sisters were Althea, Nona and Fanny Brooks and were born into a wealthy Kentucky family. Their mother and father (Lavinia’s grandparents) moved west during the Civil War.
In 1880, the family moved to Denver for health reasons. While living there, Fanny began teaching metaphysical classes from her home. In 1898, the three sisters opened the Divine Science College (later the Colorado College of Divine Science) in Denver. Its purpose was to train teachers and practitioners, organize churches, and ordain ministers. The following year, sister Nora opened and pastored the first Divine Science Church in Denver. She was also the first female pastor in Colorado. Those three women, by the way, managed to get an amazing house of worship built in Denver in 1922.
The building the ladies had built is still in use as originally intended. It has been renamed and today is known as the Althea Center for Engaged Spirituality in honor of Lavinia’s mother. It keeps its Divine Science foundation but now refers to itself as a "multi-cultural and eclectic spiritual community with a deep focus on global mysticism." The Althea Center for Engaged Spirituality is 100 years old now.
Loosely speaking, the Divine Science foundation and the Althea Center has direct ties to Woodland Park, as the Small family owned property in Woodland and Teller County.
In the 1917 edition of the American Aid Society’s College and Private School Directory, Miss Small was the head counselor at the “Bird’s Nest” camp for both girls and boys, located in Woodland Park.
The Birds Nest and the Froebel House-School were both advertised during the year of 1917 and both located in Woodland Park, although, the Froebel House-School had a mailing address in Colorado Springs. I am not sure why there were two names, but perhaps the curriculum changed and so did the name? Regardless, in Woodland, Lavinia’s school was always a small, co-educational camp that accepted children as young as three years old.
The schools were located on Lot 3, 4 and 5 at 301 W. Gunnison Avenue in Woodland. Those lots are now part of what is today known as the Historic Maytag House.
As mentioned, Lavinia’s teaching methods attracted children from across the United States. Below is a 1925 advertisement in a Omaha, Nebraska newspaper. Miss Small’s school was now known as “Camp Charming for Children”. This was also located on the present day Maytag property. She and her Uncle Henry Brooks were the owners of the lots according to the Teller County Clerk & Recorders office.
Camp Charming happened to be the final days of Miss Small’s schools and education programs. After she closed Camp Charming, she moved on to other goals. Here is a 1927 ad.
Lavinia was a personal friend of the Queen of Romania, the wife of King Ferdinand I. Queen Marie was born Princess Marie Alexandra Victoria of Edinburgh on October 29, 1875. She was the last Queen of Romania.
From 1928 to 1938, Lavinia was Her Majesty’s Literary Secretary in the United States and traveled with the Queen throughout the U.S. on her regular visits here. She and Queen Marie were very close friends.
Beginning in 1925, her fortunes and luck headed south. First she had trouble with an alleged debt she was accused of defaulting on, and ended up in trouble over that, including a lien placed against her. After that, it was at her school property in Woodland Park where John Carroll, the Woodland Park pioneer, had to put a lien on her lots for non payment of lumber and building materials that she had purchased from him.
In 1939, her uncle, for whatever reason, had her declared insane. The police came to her house and forcibly removed her and had her committed to the St. Francis Hospital and Sanatorium. It wasn’t until after her Uncle Henry died that she was able to secure her release, after spending 19 months there as an inmate.
Also after his death, her family permanently cut her off of all money that she always received from them. She then spent a lot of time living at the El Paso County Poor Farm. She died in Denver on July 18, 1952, penniless and living in the Samaritan Nursing Home
Download pdf with footnotes and bibliography
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