For close to a decade, Gwen Turner fed as many as 120 boys at a time as the Heroes Camp chef in Mishawaka. “Oh, it could get chaotic, and you would usually have a couple of boys who wanted to get rowdy,” she says. “But by the end, they all seemed thankful to have a good meal.”
When she decided to retire from the Heroes Camp kitchen in 2023, she was very familiar with her replacement. She had fed him … well, since he was a baby. That’s her son James. She couldn’t be prouder to hand over the reins to him.
Still a Heroes Camp staffer, Gwen can get a little emotional when she stops by the kitchen and watches James cook. That’s because he often wears an apron that belonged to Gwen’s mother — James’ grandmother. “She was the one who loved to cook for everyone — and who inspired us.”
There obviously is a taste for tradition here.
And here are nine things to know about Gwen:
1
After Gwen’s family moved to South Bend from Pontiac, Michigan, they lived in several houses on the West Side. They eventually moved to “to the white side of Illinois Street” off Western.
“We had a good life on the West Side,” the 1975 Washington High graduate says. “My dad worked for Clark Equipment, and Mom was the first Black elevator operator at Wyman’s Department Store.”
Gwen was their only daughter and her younger brother, Reggie, was an athletic standout at Washington. “My aunt had five daughters and my life was pretty cushy compared to theirs,” she admits. “I remember going over to their house and saying, ‘We don’t eat Kroger bread at my house. Where’s the Butternut?’”
2
Gwen remembers only one incident when she felt threatened by racism. “It was during the riots,” she recalls. “When my school bus got to my street, there was a bunch of white boys with bats. They wouldn’t let me get off the bus.”
She ended up riding through downtown and then to the southeast side of town. “This was long before cell phones and so nobody knew where I was.”
She eventually walked to her aunt’s house and called home, a little shaken but not shattered.
3
She was always active in church and currently attends Antioch Glory Center Church in Mishawaka. She continues to sing in the choir after starting at the age of 12 — almost 60 years of singing. Church was where her family made so many friends.
“My mom had a diversity of friends,” Gwen says. “We had Hispanic, Black and white friends and she was always making food for them. When she worked in The Tribune inserting department, she was always taking in pound cakes, peach cobbler, sweet potato pie, fried chicken. She loved cooking for others.”
There were never any formal lessons her mom, Olivia, gave Gwen, but Gwen kept a keen eye in the kitchen. “Sometimes, she didn’t even know I was watching her but I saw what she was doing and I was learning.”
4
Gwen always has worked hard — sometimes two jobs at a time — while raising her two boys, James and Adrian. She did everything from working as a swing manager at McDonald’s to being a benefits specialist in Dr. George Friend’s office.
“I was hired at Daman Products, partly because the man interviewing me said that I had outstanding penmanship. He said it showed great character.”
5
Of course, her best job has been working at Heroes Camp, where she started cleaning the gym floor part-time in 2011 before becoming its chef a few years later.
Heroes Camp is a faith-based organization whose mission “is to support single-parent, single-income families by offering a safe environment where boys and young men can discover their identity, purpose, and direction.”
Both of Gwen’s sons have been involved and now so are her two grandsons, Cade and Cam’Ron. (She also has three granddaughters.) Boys come in to be fed, acquire clothing and toiletries and get a haircut while enjoying basketball and learning about Christ.
“And it is all for free,” Gwen says.
6
Pat and B.J. Magley started Heroes Camp in the late 1980s. Their generosity and goodwill to underserved boys and young men have earned them a place in the South Bend Community Hall of Fame.
Gwen met them at church. “Pat has been like a surrogate father to my boys and I know that both he and B.J. have my back.”
When the Heroes Camp’s gym lost its roof during severe storms in 2014, the Magleys continued to pay Gwen even though there was little work to do while the gym was rebuilt. “How many people would do that?” she asks. “Their friendship has been priceless.”
7
When Gwen first started cooking at Heroes Camp, she admits that some of the boys didn’t think she liked them. “I was trying to insert manners with the meals and make sure there was structure in the dining room.”
She soon won them over with her meals.
Gwen’s favorites? “They all seemed to like my sausage and gravy biscuits, shepherd’s pie and spaghetti. James is a little more adventurous than me and can make a good gumbo.”
When James replaced her in the kitchen in early 2023, she received a call several months later from P.J. Perri, the camp’s director and the Magleys’ son-in-law. He talked her into staying on the Heroes Camp staff, often manning the front desk.
8
Pat Magley holds prayer sessions from 3 to 7 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, according to Gwen. Knee surgery affected her attendance over the winter but she is getting back to being there.
“The Bible says that praying in the early morning is the best time,” she says. “I don’t know what I would do without my faith.”
9
Heroes Camp has become a three-generational adventure for Gwen’s family. Actually, make that four generations with 5-year-old Kaelani running around as the only little girl on site. “We’ll have to wait and see where she fits in here,” says Gwen of her great granddaughter.
Heroes Camp is a home away from home for the Turners. “I hate to think of our lives without Heroes Camp and the Magleys,” Gwen says. “I really do.”
Bill Moor, who started at the Tribune in 1973, was the sports editor and human-interest columnist during his tenure. Contact Bill at bry14zzo@gmail.com
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Gwen Turner and Heroes Camp feeds boys’ stomaches, souls | The 9
Reporting by Bill Moor, Special to The Tribune / South Bend Tribune
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
