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Overcast Reflecting on a lifetime of swimming and service
A lifetime of swimming and service
When Barbara Holzkamp took a lifeguarding course in 1960, she had no idea that that it would result in a six-decade-long adventure in teaching others to swim.
Now at 81, the Glen Head resident has taught three generations of Sea Cliff, Glen Head and Glen Cove children and adults the skills of swimming, making her perhaps the most prolific swimming instructor in the history of the North Shore.
Holzkamp grew up in Glen Cove, where she learned to swim in the local harbor. She said she was always a strong swimmer, and in her freshman year of college at SUNY Oneonta she took the lifeguarding course that changed her life — and the lives of hundreds of people she eventually turned into swimmers.
“At college you had to have passed a swimming course in order to graduate, so when I took the class I also took the lifeguarding class,” Holzkamp explained. “I immediately started teaching people how to swim.”
After graduating from Oneonta in 1963, she married her husband, William, and the young couple moved to Suffolk County, where Barbara worked at Sachem Central School District as a teacher. She also worked at the Tekakwitha Girl Scout Camp in Hampton Bays for two summers.
Throughout her early years as a swimming instructor, Holzkamp taught people how to swim not in pools, but in the ocean. At Tekakwitha, and in her subsequent work at the Glen Cove YMCA and as waterfront director for the Smithtown YMCA, none of the locations had pools, so she had to make do and work with swimmers in local harbors and park beaches.
While working at the YMCAs, Holzkamp said, she taught children and adults, and even one woman who was 84. She remembered one young man who took her course because he wanted to join the Navy, and another elderly man who wanted to learn so he could swim with his grandchildren.
After moving to Glen Head in 1967 to be closer to her parents and in-laws, Holzkamp began working at Glen Head School where she took over their summer swimming program. She remained in that position for the next 25 years.
The program also featured arts and crafts, as well as other fun summer activities for children. Despite this, some parents only sent their children to the swimming portion, which ran for three and a half hours every morning.
As the director of the swimming program, Holzkamp would eventually oversee 14 other instructors. She said throughout the experience, she ensured her staff took things seriously and everyone was safe.
“I ran a tough operation,” Holzkamp reminisced. “I was always so concerned about safety that the instructors knew they had to focus on the kids. They did not chat with each other during the class; their focus had to be on the students.”
Throughout her time running the summer swimming program and working as a teacher, Holzkamp found time to give private lessons to children and adults, primarily people with indoor pools. She would also give private lessons to families throughout the North Shore during her afternoons in the summer, working as far afield as Bayville and Port Washington.
Even after she retired as a teacher and swimming director from North Shore School District in 1982, Holzkamp continued to give private swimming lessons. To this day Holzkamp teaches children how to swim, although she happily added that “I don’t have classes at 8 a.m. anymore.”
Holzkamp worked with people with a variety of disabilities, from injured elderly people to people with Down’s Syndrome. Richard Galati, a Glen Head resident whose four daughters all went through Holzkamp’s summer program, explained that when his second daughter Christina was diagnosed with Type-1 diabetes, Holzkamp worked closely with her, and that Christina went on to work for Holzkamp as a swimming instructor herself.
“Barbara’s no nonsense and she was always kind to the kids,” Galati added. “It was a really good experience because the kids really progressed quickly, and she gave them realistic goals to achieve and made sure that they were successful.”
