Mike Kiley

Kiley home in Pickwick Park (#745 – present configuration of his house is circa 1929), was built in 1897 by Zook, a Nappanee kitchen cabinet maker. The Park also included Coppes (#746), another cabinet maker at the time, and people from the Milford area. Pickwick Park, according to Mike, got its name from his uncle, Peter Pickwick Cleeter, born in the 1890s. Pete Cleeter’s father, a pharmacist in Milford, was one of the founders of Pickwick Park. His house is now McKinney’s (#743). In the 1920s, Pickwick Road was called Zook Ave. In 1904, Mike’s grandfather, J.W. Stephenson, leased the cottage; buying it in 1914. Mr. Stephenson was in truck manufacturing in Marion, Indiana. Mike’s mother, Louise Stephenson, was born 1910. Coming for the summer (day before Memorial Day to day after Labor Day) when the roads were practically non-existent involved taking the train from Marion to Kokomo, Kokomo to Milford (Junction) on the Big 4, then taking a buggy or the B and O to the lake. Pickwick (train) station was at the corner where Eastshore Drive (then – the cement bridge abutment is now still visible behind Pickwick Park) crossed the railroad (now, somewhere in the area of Cornelius Road and Eastshore Drive). By the early 1920s, they came up SR15 to Milford or Leesburg and came across the back road past the Tippecanoe Country Club. The car had to back up the big hill because cars didn’t have fuel pumps; the engine would be gas-starved if it went up forward. Mike Kiley was born in July, 1934, the hottest summer on record at that time. He came to the lake at 10 days old.

Pickwick Park, as it is today, started in the 1920s. Mr. Lamb was on the point. There is a trust to take care of common property. Wawasee Marina leases their west bank from Pickwick Park. The caretaker’s house was moved from its original location next to Kiley’s house. In 1993, Jesse Hann was the caretaker and had been on the job for well over 40 years. There are 17 houses. Mike Kiley, in 1993, was the senior most continuous resident. McKee is next in line. There hasn’t been much ownership change. Frank McKinney family bought the old Torrance/Kleder house (#743 – 2 doors from Kiley). Bill Hurst (#741 – Needham’s brother) bought the Wilson/Ferguson house (4 or 5 doors west of Kiley). Pickwick Park is a close-knit group; own little community with a private entrance. They have a biannual picnic on the 4th of July weekend.

The Slip had been excavated by the cement company. Wales Macy started (not the original owner) the business maybe 1924. He was one of the original Chris Craft dealers. At about 12 years old (c. 1946), Mike Kiley worked for Grace and Wales Macy. Mike remembers a Chris Craft 16 ft. Rocket with a 60 horsepower, 4 horse/cylinder Gray Machine engine selling for $1,600; a Chris Craft 17 ft., mahogany, utility (engine in the middle so you could walk around it) runabout and some of the most popular 22 ft. utility. In 1947 or ’48, the Cadillac of the Chris Craft line was the Riveria 19’ and 21’ runabout which had a blond strip over the transom. J.K. Lilly had one. In the 1950s, Chris Craft started making lapstrake boats – overlapping planks on the hull. Macy never was in a real big hurry to sell things. “Going through Macy’s warehouses and storage sheds was like going back in history in the boating business.” There were Evinrude motors in the warehouse still in packing cases from the late teens and early ‘20s. Most people who came only on weekends kept their boats on “in and out” service. (Many times, fathers who drove the bigger boats, were only at the lake on weekends.) Some of the busiest times at the marinas were when the big boats were taken off their cradle and put in the lake to “soak” in preparation to be picked up on Friday afternoon. The process was reversed when the boats were returned to the marina on Sunday afternoon. This was prior to boat houses and boat lifts. Mr. Eli Lilly kept his speedboats at Macys. His business associates would come up on Wednesdays during the 1930s –‘50s; Mike would take his Chris Craft Utility boat over to the Lilly house; wait on the dock until their meetings were over; then take them on tours of the lake. Macy had 5-6 rental slips on the south side of the channel. The first cruiser ever on this lake as a rental/seasonal belonged to Charlie Chin who owned the Pagoda Inn down by Johnson’s Hotel. He lived on it for the season.

Biggest boat at that time was an enormous, for this lake, 40’ Higgins cruiser. The Noll family bought it right after WWII until the early to mid-‘50s. The Noll boathouse (#007; still standing, large cement structure by the Spink property) is the largest structure with outfall into the lake.

Marina jobs were good jobs for kids. When Mike started working at Macy’s Slip, he was paid 35 cents an hour – considered a “princely sum!” Macy constantly reminded Mike “he wasn’t worth that!”

In the early 1950s, Griffiths had just purchased the marina from Ross’s, and Mike worked there.

The Spink was in its gambling heyday when Mike Kiley was young. Most people had servants – sometimes a couple (husband and wife); they were part of the family and in Mike’s family, Bea and Caldwell lived over the boathouse. (In other areas, they lived in an apartment over the garage.) Saturday was a big day. Everybody, all done up, went to the Spink in their motor launch. There was a dock on the north side of the property where liveried boats docked. Many of the chauffeurs wore white or grey coats with hats and gloves. Mike’s family had a 28-foot Gar Wood boat. Mike’s grandpa Stephenson was a partner with Gar Wood who was in the trucking business in Detroit. The Spink had penny slot machines in the barbershop. Women would go to the beauty shop; men would gamble, and then they would meet for lunch. Mike remembers the manager (John Butler) running the show in his swallowtail coat, wingtip shoes, and ascot. He never seemed to perspire!

Mike Kiley quote, “Seth Ward was even more of a character than history gives him credit for.” He tells several stories about Seth and Betsy that absolutely capture their personality in a very respectful manner. Ones about: assisting Seth in landing his boat “Betsy” at Macys while Mike rescues his wife Betsy in the Slip under her green tam-o-shanter with a red ball; Mike driving an indisposed Seth to Indianapolis in Seth’s 1946 Lincoln Continental; retrieving him from a cornfield; Seth drove his convertible with the top down in the winter, spray painted it and his shoes silver, had a SMV sign on back; gave commencement address at Wawasee High School in the 1st or 2nd year of its existence. Seth was an elegant man; attended West Point; a claims lawyer in the 1930s; front structure on lake was his law library. His sole heir (Bill Patrick) was the son of his former law partner.

Area in the ‘40s and 50s: We’d meet every Saturday night at the Pickwick Lounge which was run by the Panagos brothers, Greeks out of Chicago. The entertainment was from the nightclub circuit; groups from Florida; 2 week stays. Mike particularly remembered the Tunesmen and Elmo Tanner. The women wore white gloves and hats.

Families left on Labor Day and within a week, the piers were out, and the first-floor cottage windows were boarded up; literally a ghost area.

In the ‘50s, cottages started to be winterized. By that time, not many families stayed all summer.

Servants: There was quite a population of black servants. (also referred to as maids/cooks/chauffeurs)  Live-in servants literally became parts of families of people who were up here. Herb King’s grocery would serve them so they enjoyed gathering there. Another gathering place was the Pickwick Park boathouse area.

Growing up in the ‘40s and into the ‘50s: As a youngster, most of my days were spent in the water, around it or on it. I’d swim; fish; gig gar; catch turtles; had my own rowboat at 7 or 8; thought I’d died and gone to heaven when I got a motorboat (14’ plywood boat with a 5 horsepower Evinrude) (mobility) after graduation from Culver at 11 or 12. Started with surfboards – saw first pair of skis after WWII; you were a sissy if you wore a life jacket; around ’49 or ’50 regulations required ski belts.

There was a good relationship between kids on the lake and town kids – created by goodwill of John Kroh and (Thornburg’s Drug Store). In ’49 or ’50, Jack Darr and Ernie Rogers played basketball for Syracuse High School – best team SHS had! Thornburg’s was a tiny place; at first in the building where the pool shop is now (next to old school). Mike’s Mom would take him by boat (they used a little outboard boat to tend their E-scow (sailboat) which was moored off the dock – about where the buoys are now), through the channel to the public pier then walk to Thornburg’s to have a tin roof sundae. When he acquired “mobility,” he would make the trip with friends. In the late ‘40s/early ‘50s, it moved to the corner of the Pickwick Block; then to the Village in the late ‘50s/early ‘60s.

As a teenager, they’d go out in the middle of the lake, raft up their boats and party. As a junior in high school, Mike was at the last dance of the Big Band era at Waco – Art Mooney Band. Art wrote “I’m Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover,” and Mike thought it must have been played 50 times that night! When he got his driver’s license, they’d go to Tippy Dance Hall which was big stuff. It drew from a wide area. He got acquainted with Tony Papa, the house band leader from Elkhart. They’d also drive to Manitou, at Rochester, which had Big Bands – Stan Kenton, Louis Armstrong – on a fairly regular basis. It was a bigger and a little more sophisticated building than Waco.

As young parents on Friday and Saturday nights, Mike and Carol would get their kids quieted down by floating on their pontoon off the shore listening to music at Waco.

Family History: Mike’s continuous summer presence at the lake came to a screeching halt when he graduated from Notre Dame and enrolled at Georgetown Law School, Washington, DC, in the fall of 1956. He and Carol married in June, 1956 and lived in Washington thru Sept., 1959, where their daughter was born. He’d been gone from the lake awhile, but he started coming back again for weekends starting Spring, 1960. His grandfather had died in 1931 before Mike was born. His grandmother, Edith Stephenson, died in June, 1963, and his mother, Louise Stephenson Kiley inherited the home. She and Mike owned it together from 1970 until 1984 when Louise died, and Mike became the sole owner.

The Milford Clubhouse was cut in two and 2 houses (#739 and 740) were made from it.

Mike paints a wonderful word picture of Eli Lilly’s splendid dress when coming to call on Mike’s mother.

Pat McCarty’s father was the bartender at the Tavern Hotel.