Bob and Nancy Myers

Bob’s family started vacationing here – uncertain whether the year was 1929 or 1930, but father and mother were from Indianapolis – in the mid ‘20s, they started taking 2 week vacations at Tippecanoe – I would say 1927 or even as early as ’25. Bob was born in August of 1928, and the next summer, 1929, I think we rented a place on Ogden Island – we have photographs dated 1930 that were definitely the Ogden Island area, and I was there.

Nancy’s family: My folks started coming in the early 1940s; we just always rented – we’d stay the summer; we had friends from Muncie that were here, so we started coming then. Both families always came by car. In the 1930s, we had a pretty good sized automobile; Bob’s family came for the summer by that time; in the ‘20s and early ’30s, they had only stayed for a couple of weeks; by mid ‘30s, they rented the Bruce cottage (#556 on Ideal Beach), and Bob remembered his Dad putting extenders on the running boards of the car, and they’d pile things on the running board and tie them down because they couldn’t get everything in the car. Dad would bring us up here and “dump us,” and he’d go back to Indianapolis and practice. He’d take the whole month of August off every year – would turn his office over to young doctors, thus setting a lot of doctors up in practice. Nancy’s family came for the summer, and her Dad drove back and forth from Muncie every weekend – he’d get here Sat. noon and get up about 4:00 early Mon. morning and drive back to the hospital. Nancy was in her early teens here.

In the ‘30s, as a little kid, I just remember playing in the water – used old inner tubes, first inflatable toys were coming along then – made out of rubber; Bob would primarily swim; fish a little with Dad but not a whole lot. I made friends with other summer vacation people; also with the residents who lived here – Floyd Gray’s nephew, George Eddington, the Carey girl (Nancy), Jim Newcomer – who became mayor of Nappanee and died young, Charlie Harrison from Ft. Wayne who lived next door to us, Bud Coffin from Indianapolis – all in the late ‘30s and early 40s. When we got a little older, I remember Newcomer and I and the Brock boys from Chicago hunting turtles – without a net, you’d catch them with your hands, you learned to hold your breath and dive pretty deep, the turtles would go down and get on that sandy bottom and scoot ahead of you; just as you were getting ready to grab them, they’d turn around and swim right back in your face.

High school years: In the mid ‘40s – made real good friends, quite a gang of us – Frank Hiatt, Eddie Rodabaugh, Newell boys from Indy, met Nancy by then, Ginny Spiegel, Betty Cramsey (sp.?) and Pat who was Betty’s girlfriend from Chicago. The war was on; couldn’t do a whole lot, but believe it or not, there was plenty of gasoline to run boats for some reason – you couldn’t get it for your car, in fact Ken Harkless was not opposed taking an R stamp which was for gas for your boat and putting it in your car – just to get rid of it, he had more gas than he knew what to do with it.

Nancy and I met at Waco – the Big Band era was gone – I do remember the Big Band era – I remember Glenn Miller playing there one night right before the war; I remember there were so many people the road (old 13) on both sides parked with cars all the way from Waco down to Ideal Beach where the slide was – that was a big crowd. After the Big Band era, that was sort of shut up; then during the late war years, they opened it as a roller rink. In 1943, when Bob was still in high school, he and Bud Coffey (sp.?) went down to go roller skating and met these 2 girls –Shirley Venneman and Nancy (Eissman) from Muncie – Nancy told him she was 14, but really she was only 13 because she turned 14 in October. Nancy never wanted to bring her friends from home up because “I always had my lake friends; people that I only saw in the summer time.” We had quite a group up here, from Cleveland, Chicago, just all over, and it was just fun to be with them all summer long. As Bob said all we did was strictly water activities from morning ‘til night. We sailed, water skied. We were one of the first people to water ski
here on Wawasee. I (Bob) think the first guy was Bob Schacht, then he went to the service and his cousin Cliff taught me (Bob M). Water skis were hard to come by. They kept breaking. My uncle bought me a pair, and they broke. Ken Harkless’ brother was making them in here in Syracuse, and we went down there and watched how he made them. Then Eddie Rodabaugh and I bought some wood in New Paris at the lumberyard and made our own water skis. We spent from morning to night and even into the night on the boats. Ginny had a speedboat. Nancy added, “water skied at night– smoking a cigar – and when the cigar couldn’t be seen anymore, they’d fallen off.”  There weren’t any other boats on the lake. There were very few people in the ‘30s and ‘40s. Cliff Schacht had a Chris Craft racing boat – a 1 or 2 seater; Jack Vanderford running speedboats out of Ideal Beach; then there was the Blue Streak – those boats you saw on the weekends; it was quiet during the week – really quiet – more fishing boats than anything. On the weekends you had the Falcon going out of Sargents, the Deluxe going out of Ideal Beach – these were long launch-type boats that took people around the lake. Not many people had speedboats; in the ‘30s I can remember running out on the end of the pier to watch a speedboat go by; I didn’t know anybody who had a speedboat when I was a kid. Mock putt putts were big; there were fishing guides on the lake – they all had these little putt putt type boats – not like Mocks – generally wooden, flat bottom and had a little engine sat in the middle of them and they had a shaft and a screw – propeller – and I can remember those things putting around the lake. Mr. Spiegel fished with Burt (sp.?) all the time, and he had a green one. The fishing guides were local people, and they knew the lake very, very well – you could go for the day or half-day; they would come by, and they would have a lunch, all the bait, you could take your own pole, or they’d bring poles for you, and ask, “What do you want to fish for?” – do you want to go for pike, or bass or bluegill or whatever you want, and they would take you around the lake. There are still guides on this lake today only they have 115 horsepower outboards and bass boats and everything else. The difference was it was another era – we started coming up here right in the depths of the Depression. There wasn’t much going on at the hotels – the activity at the hotels did pick up in the late ‘30s, then the war came and about shut it down again, then it picked up after the war – then with mysterious fires, etc., the hotels disappeared. It was extremely quiet in the 1930s. A lot of deliveries to houses. The caramel corn boy walked around every Sunday – front yards to front yards – right down the seawall and sold caramel corn. Bob, “I can remember my Dad sitting in the front yard with his money in his hand waiting for that kid to come by.” He had a great huge can and a strap around his shoulder and the packages were waxed bags – it was not a huge big commercial venture, I imagine they came out of Warsaw or Goshen or someplace like that. The baker(y) truck was always here during the week. Pop was very popular. Every town had its own little bottling plant. There was one in Ligonier – they made a cream soda, a lime, a lemon and a strawberry. So Dad bought a Coca Cola cooler – which I still have in my garage – and he made arrangements with the pop man – actually this big pop truck would deliver about every other week a case of assorted pop, and he’d put it in the cooler; the ice man came and he’d put ice in the cooler. We had bakery, ice, pop, milk, caramel corn, vegetable man – early days had horse and wagon. You also had a great variety of grocery stores in Syracuse. You had Mrs. Emerson’s grocery; you had Solt’s (right across from where Myers live in 1993 on South Shore Drive). Solt’s is now where Bob’s septic tank is. The garage over there with the apartment above it (still there in 2013) is where Louie Solt’s son-in-law, Johnny (Scheire) lived. My house across the street – yellow one – where my sister is living now (1993) was Mr. Solt’s home. When Myers remodeled that house about 3 years ago, they found letters that Mrs. Solt evidently intended to send to visitor’s bureaus in different states requesting information.

Syracuse: A lot more grocery stores – Greiger’s, Bachman’s, Klink’s – all 3 on Main St.

Nancy’s family didn’t have a car during the week – they could go by boat to Louie’s and Emerson’s. There were grocery stores all around the lake. The Beacon was a grocery store.

Syracuse: Thornburg’s Drug Store for fudge sundaes and chocolate sodas; we went in the boat –go into town, tie the boat up to the municipal pier, go up to the movies; stop at Thornburg’s to have a cold fudge sundae – not hot fudge; in fact, I (Bob) can remember buying it in bulk and taking it home on Labor Day. Before we could drive, we went to town quite a bit in the boat – the post office. Bob’s Dad bought his mother a car of her own in the late 1930s – at least by 1939. We didn’t have a telephone. Bob remembered his mother driving to a phone – down to Emerson’s – when a neighbor dove off the end of the pier next to us and cracked his vertebrae and pinched his nerve, and they had to get Dr. Clark out here. That was a tragedy.

Neighborhood: Bob and Nancy were 5 doors apart starting in 1943. Bob felt the whole lake was the neighborhood. You didn’t extend past about 4 or 5 houses. Our friends were from Oakwood, down by the Tavern, Wright’s Place – Fanning, Buttermilk Point – Johnson who owned the Johnson Hotel, Natti Crow Beach – Charley Walker. As a preteen you didn’t go very far. Your mother restricted you on how far you could go (on the water), ‘cause she wanted to keep an eye on you. Irv Deister and I were only a year apart in age, spent every summer of our life on this lake, lived within 30-50 piers of each other and did not meet until after college – as adults we learned why, “His mother would not let him go any farther north than Ideal Beach, and my mother would not let me go any farther south than Ideal Beach.” So, we would get in our boats, go down to Ideal Beach, turn around and go the other way, and we never met each other. There are places on the lake that were true neighborhoods. My parents did not socialize much here other than with their friends from Indianapolis. His Dad got to know Mr. Weller until they retired in FL. Nancy’s Dad wasn’t here too much to socialize. Families played miniature golf – now Turtle Bay on curve, went to movie, fish. Both of their parents fished together; Nancy’s Dad – had to get up at 4:00 in the morning – finally quit taking her fishing when she found out that it irritated him when she laid down on the front seat and put her feet in the water on both sides of the boat – sit there and dangle her legs in the water – Nancy, “Catch rays.” Did a lot of sitting in the front yard talking as a family; sit on the porch on rainy days and rock. Dad bought a putt putt, and we’d take rides in that. In the early ‘40s, Bob’s Dad bought a speedboat – a 1938 model Mullins – an all-steel hull boat with about a 65 horsepower, 4-cylinder Lycoming engine in it, and we would take rides in that – my sister and I in the back seat, mother and dad in the front seat. Bob has a marvelous picture of Ken Harkless teaching (Bob’s) mother to drive it – look on Ken’s face is “Boy, am I glad to get home from that ride!”

Adult life: met in summer of 1944, dated next summer, Bob graduated from high school in June 1946 and don’t think he spent that summer here all summer; Nancy graduated from high school in June, 1947; Bob was at Wabash College, and Nancy went to Western College in Oxford, Ohio; married as kids in June, 1949, and Bob left Wabash and went to Ball State and worked in hospital lab for Nancy’s Dad. She and her mother came up to the lake and left Bob (Nancy’s dad) and Bob (Myers) working in Muncie. We got a little double in Muncie, and Bob finished school, and they would come to the lake on weekends. Bob got a job as a salesman for Alka Seltzer division of Miles Laboratories. By then they had a little boy, and they stayed with one of the sets of parents all summer long, and Bob and both Dads commuted. Had 2 more boys and did that (stayed with parents) until 1960 when Miles moved Bob to Elkhart. Bob rented a working farm in June, and Nancy and boys immediately moved out to lake, and Bob commuted. Next Feb., Miles moved Bob to Philadelphia (lived in Haddonfield, NJ), and Nancy remained on farm until school was out. Then we only came out for 2-3 week vacation –even with Jersey Shore so near. Boys really loved this place – really the only constant place they called home in their life because they were always moving. Then they moved to the Chicago area – Mt. Prospect and came out a little more frequently but not that much.

1950s – lived up here when the kids were little; both sets of grandparents got along well as did Bob and his brother-in-law; the difference in the lake – lot more boats of all kinds – outboards got up to 35/40 horsepower. As a young couple with kids; we all had kids about the same size; we’d all get together on one pier or the other with the kids would play in the water and sit on one pier and talk and mess around; we’d pile in the speedboat and go into Syracuse and watch fireworks with little kids of all shapes and forms; we did a lot of kid-oriented things; at night got together with all the kids in bed somewhere – Carol and Les Popp, Irv and Jane Deister, Bill and Elise (Irv’s sister) Macomber, Marilyn and Harold Elliott – all right along here. Cheap entertainment.

1960s: kids began to grow up. During the 1940s, Tippy Dance Hall had local Big Bands from surrounding communities; every Sat. night we’d get in Cliff Schacht’s car and go over there; the girls would take candles, tablecloths and really do up the tables; the great thing about that was – nobody drank or even smoked cigarettes – huge crowds; paid your dollar and they stamped your hands; it was packed; don’t remember any problems – any trouble; it was the only thing for kids to do; that and the movies – Ligonier, Goshen, Syracuse, Elkhart – they’d be late, her Dad would always be watching, and Bob would “blame” the trains. After the war again –Bob and Nancy liked to dance, liked music – they started bringing back Big Bands; in 1946, they went down to see Tony Pastor and his band, they’d come up from Cincinnati and they had 2 young girl singers –we thought they were hot looking, big town girls, probably 25 years old, and I remember Nancy and I listening to them and thinking how really good they were – 30 years later Bob and Nancy were listening to an interview with Rosemary and Betty Clooney and found out that was their first professional band gig! They were 15 and 16 years old with big long eyelashes, all made up.

Dining out: In the ‘30s I don’t remember going out much; there were chicken dinner places, in fact, Bales house on the (SR 13) curve was Dingbat Wogoman’s place, and I think his mother or grandmother on Sundays served chicken dinners in that house. My earliest recollection of eating out here is what used to be the license branch which was a restaurant – a cafeteria; our family (Bob’s) did eat out a lot, at least once a week, in Indianapolis, but we didn’t up here until that place opened up, and we’d go in there once a week to eat. Some Sundays we would go out somewhere – not the hotels or North Webster – then Louie’s opened up. We (Bob’s family) started eating at Foo and Faye’s at Buttermilk Pt. As young adults used to be a drive in where Colonel Sanders is – Bob had a summer job, would mow lawns and was a garbage man, worked for Vic Niles on his garbage route earning about $5 a day, and we (Nancy and Bob) would buy one hamburger and one chocolate malt and split it between the 2 of us, that was our big date. Foo and Faye’s was the class act – when they got a little older, they opened a restaurant on South Shore Drive, it became a pizza place. As young adults, we entertained each other in our homes; going to Thornburg’s for a sundae, Nancy thought it would be a great idea to take a big raft and anchor it on the flats out in the middle of the lake and sell hamburgers and hot dogs and so forth – she wanted me to do that – Chris Graff, whose parents owned the Checkerberry Inn in Goshen did that, it was his first restaurant venture while he was in college, finally I guess the Board of Health got on him and made him stop it – he went around and sold hot dogs to fishermen and people on the sand bar – a great idea.

Jobs: started helping mowing lawns with George Eddington; worked for Vic Niles on the garbage and trash route; worked one summer for Ken Harkless during the war – pumping gas; caddied a little – didn’t like that

Personalities: “This place is loaded with characters”: Ralph Thornburg, Sr. – a very nice man, always wore a white shirt and tie; Mrs. Thornburg was quite a proper lady; Ken Harkless was kind of a rough-hewn guy, didn’t have much of a sense of humor, but he was real tolerant of those of us guys who hung around the boatyard all the time; his brother –  one day he was making automobiles, the next day he was making water skis, the next day he was setting up a car dealership – he was going from one thing to another; Joe Rapp ran the Pure Oil Station where the Liquor Locker is now, his son was quite an athlete, he was also the fire chief when the Pickwick Block burned down the 2nd time, I think; Vic Niles was a real character, bib overhauls, slouch hat, Model A truck, and Nancy said, “He was sweaty and smelly,” Bob said, “He chewed tobacco and smoked cigarettes at the same time.” He didn’t always shave, Nancy said, “He offered my mother a cigarette out of a pack that he had in his pocket that had been in the garbage truck all day! Pulled it out and offered my mother a cigarette” Bob, “I’d stand on the running board ‘cause I couldn’t stand to get in the cab with him.” Vic did odd jobs, took care of Dad’s lawn; he “planted” the ivy – showed Bob’s mother how he got it all ready, then he said, “After I’ve got it all ready then I throw it to Skinny, and he plants it!” He always had somebody else do his work for him. Floyd Gray was a local that lived back behind us when the Myers family rented the Bruce cottage –now Mrs. Pigeon’s – he was a (fishing) guide – he fished for food; always had fish; he trapped them (unbeknownst to others); fished a lot at night and would come back with a whole string of fish; one time Bob or Nancy caught his trap and hauled it up on the shore, and he didn’t admit that it was his, but he did say he would take care of it for them. (Jack) Kline was a plumbing contractor from Ft. Wayne and had a half-brother, Bill Kline, that was somewhat of a character – Bill was real mysterious, real quiet, often said he was almost full-blooded Indian – he could have been, he certainly had all the distinguishing features with high cheekbones, he was a great fisherman; Bob saw him come in one time, sit down on the seawall, scale, gut a fish and peel the skin off it and eat the raw fish. Bob will never forget that. Old Jack Vanderford (#546) was somewhat of a local character. I remember him driving speedboats out of Ideal Beach, and when the war was over he bought the place – had a big water slide, it deteriorated, he tore that down, but he operated the picnic grounds which is now the bed and breakfast behind it, and he had a little concession stand there, sold ice cream and things ,and then he closed it and went into the real estate business. Johnny (Scheire), Louie Solt’s son-in-law, was a character; he had a drinking problem; he’d get about half smashed and then Sat. afternoon a lot of people would come in to get their groceries for Sat. night, Nancy’s father being one of them; Nancy’s Dad would say, “Johnny are you feeling lucky today?” Johnny would say, “Sure.” “OK, I’ll roll you a dice for the groceries,” said Nancy’s Dad. Her Dad would come home more than half the time just laughing himself sick because he’d won the groceries shooting dice with Johnny! Nancy added, “He came home with a chicken wrapped up with the legs hanging out one end, and the head hanging out the other.” He’d wrapped it. When he was drinking, he’d say, “What d’yu want?” and he’d just throw it in the paper and throw it across the case at you. He was a character. Chris Schrader – his family has been here longer than ours – had a job working for Louie Solt, a lady from a prominent family around here walked in and said she wanted a quart of hand packed ice cream; Chris said, “Hand packed?; yes, she said, hand packed;” so Chris got out his quart container and, and he packed it by hand!!!!

As I was growing up as a kid, anybody between 18 and 45 was gone – they were in service, they just weren’t here. Some of the trades people in town: The guy who owned the barber shop – Wysong or Wogoman (most likely Bushong) in their family for years and years; grandpa was first chair – he always wore an eyeshade, tie, suspenders, white shirt, sleeves rolled up – the only problem was, he had a palsy, his hand shook, and he’d get the straight razor to shave somebody, and he’d shake and shake and shake, but the minute he touched the guys face, his hand quit shaking; I can remember as a kid sitting in there, boy that place used to be busy, I don’t know why mother always waited ‘til Dad came, but I can remember Saturdays having to go up there and having to spend half a Sat. morning sitting in the barber shop waiting to get a haircut, but once you got in the chair it was all over in 5 minutes.

Neighborhood: The old summer cottage is being leveled, and people are building 3-story houses lot line to lot line so the flavor of the lake is going. As an example, our house (on South Shore Drive) is a summer home, built in 1929 by Hogan; then sold to Dietzen from Kokomo; then his son-in-law, Worland decided to live here full time so it became a year round home. We live here year round, so that’s why we bought it. The summer cottage – there’s not many of them left. Our old original cottage that Dad built in 1937, it’s gone – Nancy and I tore it down in 1976, and we put up the house that’s on it now; we put that up as a summer home – nothing more, no basement, electric baseboard heat in each room; Dean Rhodes bought it from us, and he didn’t do much of anything to it; now the people who own it have remodeled it completely, and it’s more than a summer home, but I think they only live there in the summertime. I think there’s more people living on the lake full time – maybe 20%. Places that have changed – Mr. Honeywell’s place next door has undergone quite an evolution over years; hotels are gone and you have condominiums; Millers have done good job on the Spink; little cottages that were over where Rex Parent house is; houses along this bank have been remodeled; Natti Crow Beach looks pretty much like it was when I was a kid; I miss Sargent’s Hotel; Mr. Lilly’s home is just the same; you could hardly miss Waco – that was the probably the ugliest piece of architecture on Lake Wawasee –poorly built, poorly designed, and nothing graceful or charming about it at all; it’s nice to see them upgrade the Episcopal property down here with the Retreat house.

Environment: I miss the reeds; in the 1930s, we didn’t have a good dam, had a millrace, generated electrical power in Syracuse so when it didn’t rain, they’d take water from the lake, and it ran down the race so the lake fluctuated a lot; you had sandy beaches some years. I remember in the early ‘40s they just about drained this lake because we didn’t have any rain; the Harrisons put their pier on the end of our pier, so we could get out into the water enough to keep our boats; I think the fish population probably is better now than it’s ever been –better than it was in the ‘30s – better management. I don’t think I see as many turtles as I used to; the blue herons are still here; the duck population has fallen off from what it was 10 years ago – on a fall or spring day, this place was covered with ducks – today we counted 9 loons! More deer now than when I was a kid. Don’t see the buzzards soar – came out down by Joannie Grays. Stories about some small animals. Had these big tall standing reeds very slim, green with little seed pod on the top of them – The sand bar was covered with them – not like a corn field but 2-3 feet apart sometimes only a foot – you could easily canoe thru them or make you boat go through them – they were beautiful, very graceful; there was another batch of them this side of Ogden Island, down in the Kettle, there still are some of them on either side of the entrance to what used to be Harkless place – they for all intensive purposed disappeared from this lake due to boats.

In the ‘60s we had an overabundance of Elodea type (waterweeds) – squirrel’s tail or whatever you want to call it – of weeds growing up from the bottom of the lake; you would get a patch that would be 10 yards across and in the summertime, they would grow clear up to the top until they were floating on the top of the water; those seemed to have disappeared. I know the weeds are still there, but with the boat traffic on the weekends – down drives/cruisers/IOs – the weeds have been cut off. We still have a lot of weeds – man doing zebra mussel study yesterday wanted weeds with zebra mussels on them to feed the ducks; said in 4 dives, he had a washtub full of weeds; he said, “You’ve got a lot of nice weeds in this lake.” Which supports the fish. Bob was reading History of Water Quality ’71-’92, “The (quality of) water is better today than it was – sewers helped lot.” Spring rains may have contributed to all this algae/cloudiness this year. Too many boats make it too rough because we basically have a “cement bathtub” – putting seawalls all the way around the lake, then with all the boat traffic the waves hit the seawall and go back into the next wave; you get that “Wawasee chop.” Purple loosestrife invading the cattails; saved our wetlands finally; anecdote about ILMS – IN Lakes Management Society and channels –FL lake expert said, “Nothing going to ruin a eutrophic lake quicker than dead-end channels – that’s where all the scuz is going to develop and get into your lake and give you all kinds of problems.” Bob remarked, “I think we’ve got that stopped.”

Winter: Love it; about 10 yrs. ago when they were moving in (to live full time), Peanuts (Felts) was out working on their shower grout and commented upon living here full time, “Oh, you’re going to love it, there’s really only 2 bad months of the year on Wawasee.” Nancy thought he was probably referring to Jan. and Feb. Peanuts looked at her and said, “July and August!” “He’s right,” said Bob, “if it weren’t for the kids, we would take our vacations in July and August and go someplace else, but that’s when the kids want to come and bring the grandkids so that’s why we don’t go anyplace in July and August.” First 3 or 4 winters (around 1983-‘87) we were here were just fantastic -20 below zero one week, snow halfway up your leg, ice, beautiful, sunny clear days; what’s pretty – snowmobiles go around the lake with their lights on at night, gorgeous, similar to torch parades with skiers; fishermen always out – they drive trucks, cars out on lake; Levinson gets his iceboat buddies up here and they have a regatta, they are all over everywhere; a lot of people walk the lake; cross country skiers on the lake; we get out on the lake a lot; it’s just really neat up here; it’s quiet; there’s just enough people that you don’t go batty – it’s normal; school busses are here so the roads are clear; don’t think we’ve been snowed in since they’ve been here; really like it here; eat out in the winter – tells about personal experience in Checkerberry Inn and Maria Gall @ Persey (sp.?) in Nappanee; socialize with lake people more in winter because everybody has company in summer.

Fires: Aunt Dorothy just delivered to Bob four canisters, 400’ each, of 16mm color film that his Uncle Jonas took starting in 1939 – a lot of it lake associated; one reel is fires of Wawasee! Cottage fires: down from us, Highland View point, next to Nancy’s Dad’s place; using kerosene stoves/lamps, wood cottages; little old fire truck from town would come out, and they’d try to get a hose down into the lake to pump the water out of the lake; remembered when Hogan cottage burned on Ideal Beach, they all formed a bucket brigade – the fire truck still carried buckets,- “by the time it got up there, you’d sloshed all the water out of the bucket in the first place; then you couldn’t get close enough to the fire to throw it on there.” Story about fire on point and money in dresser drawer.

Other Tragedies: Around 1942 or ’43, a bunch of people rented Mrs. Bruce’s cottage (Bob’s family rented the Bruce cottage until, in 1937, Bob’s Dad built their family cottage); 3 or 4 families rented it; young people; rented a speedboat; had a lot of fun; remembered one guy was hurt – didn’t walk very well; they all wanted to go out on this boat and there was a thunderstorm coming up; Bob remembers somebody hollering to them, “Don’t go out now, it’s going to storm.” and a whole bunch of them got on this boat -a 6 passenger wooden speedboat; there must have been 10/14 people hanging all over this boat; they went out in the middle of the lake, thunderstorm hit, they didn’t know anything about boating, instead of heading the boat into the waves, they tried to run with the storm, and it rolled the boat; 10 or 14 people got dumped in front of Ideal Beach; we just knew they were out there; Bob was in the garage that evening after it rained, and a woman came up to him and asked if he had any lanterns because the
power was out; Bob – about 14 years old, said he only had a red lantern so she took that and wandered off – before she left she said, “Some of our people haven’t come home yet from the boat ride, and we’re looking for them.” Bob went in and told his mother who went down and found out that there were a bunch of people still out on the lake they can’t find; the next morning the people hadn’t come home yet; a gal (Rita Niesse from Indy) Bob knew lived down here in Thoud Hollaby’s (sp.?) place (this was area they were coming ashore/picking people out of the lake – Bob ran into her and; she commented, “Oh, isn’t it terrible about the storm. We were pulling people out of the lake like crazy, but there’s still 3 or 4 missing.” So they got the police and the county; I remember sitting on the back of the boat with a dragline, hoping I didn’t catch anybody; they found all but one, and we looked and looked for that body; forgot who was with me, but there was an adult and 2 of us kids, we were out in front of what is now Schafer’s house (#539) – was Harwood’s then – he had a big Swedish style (sail)boat – similar to Mr. Lillys – with a center keel, had it buoyed, someone said, “You don’t suppose he got stuck…” they went up to the boat and; the body was stuck between the deep keel and the internal rudder – the body had been in the water 3 days.

Personalities: Bob remembers “throwing rocks;-)” at Birch Bayh a couple years ago when he was up here; forgot to go to a cocktail party fund raisers; interested in politics.

A couple of personal stories about widespread popularity of lake – “The most beautiful lake I’ve ever seen in my life!”