Henry Plate, a long-time resident of McWain Pond, passed away on August 30, 2022. He was 96. While he is often remembered crisscrossing the fields on one of his tractors, McWain Pond
also holds many happy memories for him.
He first visited McWain Pond in the summers of 1938 and 1939 as a camper at Camp Waganaki, where early-morning swims were the first of several swim sessions each day (“always nude except on Sunday when there might be visitors in the grove”), and they’d go boating after dinner.
His parents bought what is now known as The Plate Farm in 1940, and he set about building the road to the lake and clearing a beach area. In 1947, he made a red rowboat by hand, using plans he found in a magazine, and he built (and later expanded) the first two wooden docks and floats. He proposed to Mom on the shores of McWain, and, after decades as vacation- and summer residents, they moved to Waterford year-round almost five decades later.
He’d take Karen and me camping by the lake in his old canvas “pup tent,” and we’d go fishing on the mist-covered, ripple-free pond the following day, armed with a can of fresh-dug worms for the fish and cellophane-wrapped chocolate donuts for us.
In later years, he resumed his Waganaki tradition of early-morning swims, taking his kids and his grandkids (along with any unsuspecting guests who couldn’t come up with a good excuse) along for the plunge. If you listen carefully, you may still hear the echoes of his “bwub-bwub-bwub” as he tipped back into the perfectly still early-morning waters of McWain Pond. He enjoyed breaking his records for his earliest and latest (Thanksgiving Day) swims of the season.
A summer afternoon wasn’t complete for Dad without a nap on the dock while pretending to read his newspaper, followed by a glass of Jack Daniels as the setting sun cast a sparkling path from the dock to the western hills. We are so fortunate to have McWain Pond and the surrounding woods and fields as a backdrop to so many of our memories with Dad.
