Cottage 1  –  Belvedere Memories Jim Witherspoon –
 
Family
My family started coming to the Belvedere in approximately 1898. My great-grandfather and great-grandmother on my father’s side were James M. Houston and Mary Louise Houston. When she learned her doctor planned to vacation at the Belvedere Hotel in Charlevoix, she (as a hypochondriac) felt she needed to follow him to be close just in case. So, my family’s connection to the Belvedere stems from her paranoia. My family stayed at the Belvedere Hotel each summer until 1911 when they began renting cottage #1. They rented this cottage each summer until 1919 when my great-grandfather purchased it from the Bishop estate for his son-in-law, Leonard Matthews, Jr. On Leonard’s death in 1945, cottage #1 passed to his wife Elvira, and on her death in 1950 it passed to my father. My sister Jane, her daughters Amelia Peltz and Erica Spraker and my sister Bettie and her children Paul Vodra and Katie Schwabach and I now share ownership of cottage #1. Now the next generation, Gavin and Olivia Spraker and Oliver Lazlett (Amelia’s son) and Noah Schwabach are learning to enjoy the charms of the Belvedere.

Cottage #1
In 2009-2010 my sisters and I decided to undertake a major upgrade of cottage #1, by adding three new bedrooms a bathroom and a library/computer room over the garage and extending the kitchen layout to the north. The west side of cottage #1 was a hodge-podge of architectural quirks, generated by previous additions to the cottage made in 1920 and 1956. In 1920, bedrooms were added on the south side of the cottage on both the first and second floors. In 1956 the existing lattice-enclosed woodshed was replaced with an attached garage with a flat roof. The garage addition required removal of a very large, prolific apple tree whose branches covered the entire back yard. Once this tree was gone, the original gable of the west side of the cottage was exposed to prominent view, truncated abruptly and awkwardly to the south because of the bedroom additions of 1920. I thought the appearance might be improved with a judicious choice of design for the planned addition. Our good friend, Charles Bell, a St. Louis architect was hired to draw plans. A large false chimney to cover the awkward-looking gable (the false chimney to double both as a skylight and a place to re-locate a large exhaust fan that had been on the west wall of the cottage) helped improve the look from the west. One of the best outcomes of the addition turned out to be the new expanded kitchen with a wonderful view out the new bay window onto Moerland Park. Another big improvement was the addition of a long workroom on the north side of the garage. Many of the furnishings for the new addition came from my parents St. Louis home. I rented a U-Haul and Darcie and I drove a truckload of furnishings from St. Louis to Charlevoix in March of 2010.

In 1986 my sister Jane helped me transplant three small birch saplings we found growing along the old railway right of way south of the Kiddie Koop to the front and back yards of #1. The birch now in the front yard replaced a huge basswood tree that had succumbed to disease and old age after a lightning strike.   Keeping these birch trees healthy has proved to be a challenge. They need to be treated with insecticide, poured around their roots, every year in order to prevent serious damage from leaf miners. Now the trees may be entering their last few years of viability. Birch trees do not live as long as maples. In general the trees on the Belvedere are quite old, many of the maples and oaks being over one hundred years old. So, judicious planning for tree replacement on the Club will be needed. The ardent affection that members have for the Club is typified by a generous monetary gift from the estate of Louise Rolwing, which the Board of Trustees, in its wisdom, decided to dedicate to tree replacement on the Club grounds.
 Some of the signature trees on the Club are the large white pines along the old railroad right of way, the tall blue spruce on the Yacht Club grounds (unfortunately its twin was damaged by a storm and needed to be cut down several years ago), and several large beech trees, many of which have been cut down and removed in recent years because of disease.

Every year, as a Christmas gift from Bettie and Roland McElroy,  family members eagerly anticipate receiving a Belvedere calendar for the coming year featuring Charlevoix photos that Roland had taken during the previous summer. This helps keep the joys of the Belvedere front and center even during the bleak winter months.


Sailing
Several years ago, due to Darcie’s increasing infirmities, we had to curtail our sailing adventures to the North Channel on my sailboat, Algonquin. I remember how Darcie used to be able to go below and prepare lunch in rough conditions, which would have been impossible for me to do without getting seasick. I remember clambering with her over rocky islets while collecting blueberries in the Turnbull island archipelago and rowing over to the small islet that was the site of an active bald eagle nest. Darcie became quite interested in identifying and recording the passage of the large freighters we encountered on these trips.

Coupled with increasing challenges to Darcie’s health and my advancing age as well, in the fall of 2017 I decided to downsize to a more manageable sailboat.  That September I bought, at auction, a Herreshoff 31 cat-ketch sailboat, Harmony, from the Chesapeake Bay Marine Museum and had it shipped to Charlevoix. Harmony is a rather unusual sailboat — no jib, with free standing carbon fibre masts. She was in sad shape when I bought her, but I had commissioned Bettie and Roland, who live near the Chesapeake, to conduct an informal survey for me before I bid on the boat. I judged from their survey that she was within my capabilities of restoring to reasonable condition. It turned out to be a much bigger challenge than I thought, but working on her has been satisfying and rewarding. In the summer Harmony resides in slip #2 in the Belvedere Bayou, replacing Algonquin that had called this spot home since 1966.


I served as Commodore of the Belvedere Yacht Club for several years. In 2001, the Club replaced part of our fleet of ten Pearson Hawk 16’ sailboats, which the Club had owned since 1963, with six Catalina 16.5 sailboats. We still kept two Hawks for those members that preferred the old boats. There were some plusses and minuses with the Catalinas. They are faster and sportier than the Hawks, but also less forgiving. They can capsize just as the Hawks could, but the Catalinas, with a good and agile crew, could be self-rescued. Unfortunately, usually capsizes occurred with an inexperienced crew, so in practice self rescue was seldom possible. The biggest problem when capsized was their tendency to quickly turn turtle, which also would happen with the Hawks. It was very difficult if not impossible to rescue a capsized boat from a turtled position without assistance from another source. To help solve this problem we stuffed the top of the Catalina masts with pool noodles as far down as the spreader. This enabled the masts to float, but barely. But still when a boat capsized, the shape of the hull and the windage on the hull would cause the boat to turtle. So the next step was to install flotation panels in the head of the mainsail. Finally this was sufficient to overcome the turtling problem. However, the Catalinas still did not prove to be a rousing success for the Club, because many users thought the boats were too unforgiving. In 2015 the Club saw an opportunity to purchase a Precision 18.5 keel boat to provide a more comfortable sailing experience. This boat is not susceptible to capsize like the Catalinas and it also has an outboard motor making it easier to take in and out the channel. So, when this boat’s advantage over the Catalinas became apparent, A couple of years later another Precision 18.5 with motor was purchased by the Club.

Nuisances
Bats have been a perpetual problem at many cottages on the Belvedere. At #203 several years ago, an exterminator was hired to rid the attic of bats. A smoke bomb was planted in the attic and we stood watching as swarms of the critters escaped from the attic through a crack in the louvered vent. This vent was then sealed with wire mesh to prevent further access.

 At cottage #1 about year 2011 I discovered a couple of bats caught behind the screen across the fireplace. This astounded me because I knew that the chimney cap already had a mesh screen to prevent just such access to the cottage. So, I devised a plan to get up on the roof behind the chimney where I could stand up to inspect the chimney cap carefully. What I found was an ever-so-small gap that I doubted a bat could get through. But there was no other way. So, I purchased some even finer wire mesh, measured it precisely bent it into shape and secured the new mesh to the chimney cap. We have had no more bats at #1 since making this fix. But it was not just those couple of bats that I found behind the fireplace screen that had gotten into the cottage. More were observed flitting through the cottage that evening. When I heard rustling on the top of a bookshelf I pulled down a 3-ring binder and could see bat wings protruding from pages of the binder. Quickly I put the binder on a chair on the front porch to get the bats out of the house. Another flock of bats were discovered hunkered down behind a wall mirror in an upstairs bedroom. An old unused pot-bellied wood stove in that room that had a stove pipe connected to the chimney, mentioned previously, was discovered to have several dead bats in the stove when the stove was relocated to the new kitchen. Trying to hit the bats with tennis racquets proved futile. The bats could sense the racquets and dodge them effectively The night when the bats were discovered was very warm, so we had several ceiling fans operating, and the fans were left on all night. The next morning we were surprised to find three dead bats on the floor beneath one of the ceiling fans. Apparently the speed of the fan blades was sufficient to avoid detection by the bats, and the bats were stunned by hitting the fan blades.

We had a very large bat in cottage #210 in the summer of 2019. The ceiling fan in the kitchen was left on that night. The next morning the bat was found in the sink, stunned apparently by a fan blade, but still alive. I grabbed its leg with a pair of pliers and carried the bat, wings flapping wildly, to be released outside.

Dave Grumman tells of success using his skill as a star lacrosse player catching bats using his lacrosse stick.

Bats are not all bad. They occupy an important nitch in the ecosystem, and are instrumental in controlling mosquitoes and other insects. So some folks have placed bat houses high on tree trunks around the club. One of those bat houses is on the big oak tree between #210 and #212. Hopefully we can keep bats happy but outside cottages.

The swimming pier at the Belvedere beach had long been a haven for resting seagulls, and an annoyance to beachgoers trying to navigate along the pier amidst the numerous seagull droppings. When the reconstruction of the pier was completed in the early 1990’s some ingenious person found that stretching monofilament fishing line at about 8’ above the pier would deter the seagulls. Apparently, once a seagull had encountered the unwelcome monofilament line on attempting to land on the pier it learned never to attempt that again! And apparently the message soon got passed to its friends as well.

Geese droppings have also been an annoyance at both the beach and other areas on the club grounds. In 2019, Glenn Mueller discovered a solution that has proved to be amazingly effective at the club boat slips. The solution is simply a large cutout image of a dog attached to a swiveling post driven into the ground. The wind causes this dog to swing and bounce, thus scaring away the geese. Geese droppings near the shoreline has been one of the primary causes of “swimmers itch.”

In the spring of 2017 the infestation of gnats at the beach was truly amazing. Looking toward the beach from Ferry avenue one could see large black clouds of the swarming critters hovering over the cedars behind the cabanas. Trying to do any work on a cabana with these pests in the air was virtually impossible; painting was out of the question. Fortunately, as the summer wore on this nuisance diminished.

Zebra and quagga mussels, invasive species, have been a serious problem in recent years. The mussels attach to any thing — pilings bottoms of boats, intake pipes. They are causing major changes to the Great Lakes ecosystem. By filtering the water they make the water clearer, which might be thought of as a positive, but this allows sunlight to penetrate deeper thus encouraging marine plant growth and large algae blooms that are harmful and can lead to other health problems


Band Concerts
For several years Darcie and I have enjoyed attending the city band concerts on Tuesday evenings in downtown Charlevoix. In advance we usually order sandwiches from Scovies and have a picnic at Michigan beach before returning to Kilwins for ice cream before the concert. When children and grandchildren are with us, this has been a standard weekly event.

Cottage 210
In 2015 Darcie decided to upgrade cottage #210 by adding a bedroom to the expanded garage, connecting the garage directly to the house while making a more-friendly, handicap accessible entrance to the cottage, reconfiguring and expanding two upstairs bedrooms to make them more useful, and adding another upstairs bathroom. Again, our friend Charles Bell was retained as the architect for these improvements. In the process, several existing aesthetic issues were addressed and improved. Also, a supporting structural issue was discovered and resolved. This modification to #210 has proved to be invaluable.

Cabana #21
Cabana #21 is now the only one to retain the original design four-panel bi-fold doors. Many cabana owners, frustrated by dragging, ill-fitting doors, opted to switch to a three panel style. On Cabana #21 I solved the problem  by using some high-tech, low stretch cord to support the doors under constant tension, adjustable occasionally as needed by means of a simple Spanish windlass. The cabana may be opened up completely and easily by folding the doors back against the cabana walls.

Buildings and Grounds
For several years I served as a member of the Buildings and Grounds Committee. This Committee is one of the most important on the Club. It is charged with reviewing any plans for modifications of any physical feature on the Club grounds. It is a time-consuming job and one that requires study and thoughtful deliberation. During the course of my role on this committee several controversial projects were considered, probably the most notable one, that ultimately was rejected, was plans for the virtual tear-down of cottage #143, and replacement with another massive structure.  It is often difficult to reconcile a member’s desires for his/her cottage with the Club’s desire to maintain the historical architectural integrity of the Club. The prevalence of modern building materials, and the desire to use some of these products in lieu of more traditional materials has also been an issue. A list of the major cottage upgrades that have occurred since 2000, as I recall, follows:
#1
#3
#9
#21
#29
#45
#47
#109
#111
#119
#124
#135
#143
#202
#206
#210
#213
#217
#222
#226
#403
#407
#503
#508
#517
#519



Photos
Several years ago, when large freighters were still transiting the channel to deliver coal to the Advance power plant, Darcie saw a wonderful opportunity for a photo. Her picture shows the backside of ten-year old Garrett Hellman standing on the sailing dock, with one arm akimbo on his hip, seeming to supervise the passage of the huge freighter Myron C. Taylor in the background as it slipped silently past the Belvedere bayou. I understand that Peter kept a copy of this precious photo of his son on the desk in his office.

Darcie always has had a gift for recognizing unique photo opportunities. On the south side of cottage #210 there is a spigot with an orange handle for a garden hose. One year a vine just happened to be growing at the base of this spigot, and when Darcie saw the vine entwining its tendrils in the orange spigot handle, she snapped a picture which makes it appear as if a beautiful zinnia is growing in the garden.

On another occasion one of the Adirondack chairs at the Belvedere beach had been randomly tipped on its side propped precariously against one of the other chairs. Darcie snapped a picture of this improbable amusing situation, which is now a framed conversation piece displayed on the wall of cottage #210.

Accidents
The high water on Lake Michigan in the summer of 2019 came very close to matching the record high water of 1986.  It made access to the boathouses and the slips very difficult, with improvised catwalks necessary. When I stepped on the end of a board that had been slightly displaced from its cement block support, the board promptly gave way, flipping me, fully clothed, into the water of slip #3. Although I was able to climb out ok, a blow from that board or perhaps the dock caused a hematoma to develop on my left knee. Despite my best efforts my cell phone, that went in with me,  could not be saved. I was surprised and relieved to be able to order an exact replacement phone, receive it two days later and then easily recover all my contacts from the cloud! The even higher water in 2020 set an all-time record and made use of the boathouses and slips, and also even the beach more problematic. Coupled with the prospect of global warming, perhaps the pattern of high and low water levels that has prevailed in the past is changing for the worse. It is noteworthy that the geological record shows that at some time in ancient history the first and second terraces of the Belvedere Club were actually beaches of pre-historic Lake Nipissing. During my lifetime highwater marks have occurred at about 33 year intervals — 1953, 1986 and 2020.

Several scary accidents involving people slipping on wet, slimy docks at the Yacht Club, also occurred during the summer of 2019.

Occasionally it was necessary for me to be hauled to the top of the masts on my sailboat, Algonquin, to make repairs. On one occasion Darcie was my helper in cranking me to the top of the mainmast using the halyard winch provided for hoisting the sail. This winch has a handle brake which can be pulled down to release the brake when it is time to descend. But it is tricky to operate safely since one has to apply significant pressure and a sure grip on the crank handle while at the same time releasing the brake lever. Darcie was well acquainted with the procedure. But this time, when I gave her the signal that I was ready to descend, her grip on the crank handle was not sufficient to keep it from spinning rapidly, dropping me like a rock. Fortunately, I had my knees and arms gripping the mast tightly to slow my fall. After recovering from this close call, when I got back down to the deck, I discovered that Darcie had helped retard my fall by thrusting her hands into the path of the rapidly spinning handle. Her hands were badly bruised by her selfless action.

A more serious accident occurred in the fall of 2004. Darcie and I were closing cottage #1 for the winter. At that time Cottage #1 had a flat roof over the garage, on which I had stored some old sheets of plywood that I used in the winter by placing them along the edge of the front porch to protect the porch from winter weather. Darcie, standing on the garage roof, was handing the plywood sheets one- by- one over the railing to me on the ground below. Not realizing, that the wood railing around the edge of the garage roof was not absolutely secure, she leaned over the railing too far, losing her balance so that the full weight of her body was pressing on the railing. The railing gave way, splintered into pieces with long nails exposed, showered down toward the ground beside where I was standing, with Darcie falling close behind. When she hit the turf, basically a belly flop from ten feet up, she was knocked out cold. Immediately I rushed in to call 911. When I got back to attend to Darcie she was coming to, but I didn’t want her to move until help arrived. Skip Schumacher and Dave Scoular were passing by about the time the paramedics arrived and offered their assistance. Darcie was attended to by the staff at Charlevoix hospital, and released, but she had suffered a serious concussion and broken bones in both hands, requiring surgery.

Animals have accidents, too. In the summer of 2019 some women playing tennis at the east end of the tennis courts heard a loud thud nearby. Looking to the east they saw a large raccoon that had fallen from a high limb of a maple tree onto the slanting sidewalk running beside the backyard of cottage #1. That evening the injured raccoon was still in the same spot, still alive, but clearly severely injured. The next morning it was still in the same vicinity. Club workman were able to coax it into an animal trap, where it could be transported to another area, safer for all concerned.

For many years the lakeside bayou boathouse eaves have been attractive locations for swallows to build nests. One summer, the hatchlings must have had some innate defect, maybe from exposure to a pesticide. They all seemed to hatch together and almost immediately drop into the water. The young hatchlings did their very best to swim to a nearby piling, clutching it for dear life. But swarms of seagulls soon sensed their opportunity, swooping down and grabbing the hatchlings in their beaks and swallowing them whole in one gulp. Observing this cruel law of nature at work was quite sobering.

Geyser and waterfall
Who would have guessed that the Belvedere has its very own version of a geyser and a waterfall! These phenomena appear regularly and predictably in heavy downpours.
The tennis court steps, between cottage #109 and #111, becomes a virtual white water Niagara during heavy downpours. Also the lawn north of the tennis courts and behind cottage #508, sprouts a little geyser during heavy downpours as the water from the tennis courts seeps down below the surface and due to a build-up of pressure then erupts from the turf as a geyser. The obvious large lumps in the turf in this area are evidence of this geyser activity. Probably not many folks are aware of these phenomena since most folks aren’t out and about during heavy downpours, but observation of these events from the security inside cottage #1 during downpours has always been an amusement to be anticipated.

Frogs and Toads
 There used to be a railway underpass for an abandoned road to the beach situated due east of cottage#45. With the high water in the early 1950’s the depressed ground under this overpass was flooded and formed a fabulous pond, occupied by many varieties of frogs. My mother, being a former biology teacher, encouraged her children to capture frogs from this pond to examine more closely on the front porch of cottage #1. You could wrap a frog in a wet rag and gently rub its belly that would sort of hypnotize it and make it very docile. We would treat a subject frog accordingly and then place its webbed foot under a microscope to observe first hand the blood corpuscles flowing in its blood vessels. In those days the Club was not only home to many frogs but also toads. One would have to be very careful walking the pathways at night to avoid squashing a toad! Now frogs and toads seem to be extremely rare on the Belvedere, perhaps mirroring the precipitous plunge in amphibian life throughout the world..

Mammals seen on or near the Belvedere
Beaver
Otter
Muskrat
Nutria
Groundhog
Red fox
White-tailed deer
Ground squirrel
Gray squirrel
Black squirrel
Cottontail rabbit
Mouse
Dogs
Cats
Raccoon
Porcupine
Skunk
Bear
Bat
Black bear (tracks observed in snow by Lee Moerland)

Birds seen on or near the Belvedere
Robin
Blue jay
Song sparrow
Cat bird
King bird
Killdeer
Cardinal
Bluebird
Crow
Grackle
Ruby throated hummingbird
Rose-breasted grosbeak
Thrush
Thrasher
House finch
Flicker
Goldfinch
Barn swallow
Cliff swallow
Ring-billed gull
Herring gull
Pileated woodpecker
Sandpiper
Caspian tern
Common tern
Loon
Double crested cormorant
Bald eagle
Turkey vulture
Cowbird
Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
Baltimore oriole
Great blue heron
Long eared owl
Saw whet owl
Great horned owl
Kingfisher
Starling
Yellow bellied sapsucker
Hairy woodpecker
Mallard duck
Black duck
Mute swan
Cedar waxwing
Sparrow hawk
Merganser duck
Merlin

Submission for the third Belvedere book

By Susie Reese LeRoy

Cottages #6/#411

My parents, Susan and Carlos Reese, bought No. 6 in 1966 when I was four years old.  They brought me with them that fall when they came to sign the papers on the musty, dark Rutherford place. It was grey on the outside and brown on the inside- but not for long…

Michigan blue.  Those words conjure many, many shades in my mind.  Michigan blue can be sky blue, almost but not quite robin’s egg blue, or anything in between, but it is never, ever dark or dreary. The Reeses started painting in 1966 and we haven’t stopped yet.  Mom and Dad used to leave the six of us at home and come up every Memorial Day weekend to work on the cottage.  (Well, that is what they told us anyway!!)  I do believe they painted at least a bit because the paint cans multiplied in our basement.  All of them were left partially full and wholly unusable after a frigid winter. And no one kept track of which color went where.  Did I mention Dad’s infamous formula? One quart gin to one gallon of paint seemed to fit the bill.  Boy, did they both love blue.

Painting was not confined to Memorial Day, however.   If there was a rainy day over the summer, Dad would go buy a can of paint and start anew.  Any shade of blue would do.  “I think that’s close, don’t you?” he would ask. Of course, as soon as the sun returned, Dad was back out on the golf course.  By the time he returned to the job, he’d often forgotten which can of paint he’d been using.

 Although our living room was multihued, no one seemed to mind.  No.6 was a bright and happy place with front and back screen doors slapping all day long as we ran in and out to gang, went to town for Jeffs, played capture the flag by the Casino, walked to DQ, visited Amah and Padue (Helen and Richard Moss) at No. 411, rode bikes, and played on the beach.  Summers on the Belvedere were idyllic.

As a teenager I embraced my parents’ DIY work ethic.  They were ahead of their time! I was allowed to choose a color and paint my room.  Let’s just say the color of the sun had nothing on the yellow in my room; the lime green knobs on my dresser and nightstand bordered on neon.  I cut my teeth on that room, and when “the kids” took over No. 411 in 1993, we went to work.

I remember the rainy day we decided we would repaint the kitchen, blue, of course, cabinets and all.   It poured and poured.  We had already seen the one movie at downtown’s single cinema screen.  We were tired of gin rummy.  Yes, let’s paint the kitchen!  We unloaded all the cabinets and unearthed meat grinders, silver bells, crystal, and all manor of ash trays.  The house looked like a bomb went off.  And then the sun came out.  I’m pretty sure we had dinner at the Casino that night…

My siblings and their spouses and kids are scattered all over the country, but we come together when we can on the Belvedere.  We still tackle projects – although none of us is brave enough to try Dad’s gin formula!  But we do laugh a lot and reminisce.   And our summers are still filled with color.  Especially blue.

Memories of #7 Belvedere 

My brother, John MacCarthy and I would come visit our grandmother Dorothy Lund Leland and my grandfather Pete Leland. My grandfather’s sister Florence Gardener and her husband Joe Gardener lived a few cottages away at 21 Wordsworth. It was a blue cottage and we could ride our bikes just to their cottage and back. Leland Ingham would sometimes be at her grandparents’ cottage when we were visiting ours.

In the summer, my grandmother would bring her help from home – Bee and Lillian, and later Bernice. They lived and hung out in the back of the cottage and cooked all our meals. My brother and grandfather loved to fish and the cooks would prepare a lovely fish dinner. I however did not like fish and was not always happy when leftover fish became fish pancakes for breakfast. Susan Reese was right next door at #6, and she always was cooking something chocolate – brownies or chocolate chip cookies.

John and I went to gang. Melissa Chamberlain Bozesky and Susie Reese LeRoy would always welcome me as part of the group. I did not stay at the Belvedere in the summer as long as they did. If you swore at gang they would wash your mouth out with soap – I remember this happening to one of the Alexanders in big gang… We were pretty free to visit other cottages when we were in Big Gang, but we always had to be home by the 9:30 siren which still sounds today.

We did not have teenage gang and did not come as much as teenagers. I did come when I was sixteen to “ Chaperone” my grandmother and her boyfriend Bob Follansbee. We would leave each other notes by the cookie jar in the cottage. It was a great visit and they got married in 1979.

In 1985 I got engaged to Henry Payne and we came up to visit Dodie, my grandmother, and Bob. It rained all weekend but we had a great time playing cards and doing puzzles. Board games and puzzles are still an Up North activities when the kids aren’t on their laptops.

When we were 31, Henry Payne and I returned with our children Henry ( 3) and Sam (1). Mom and Dad rented a cottage. John and Katie and their daughter Annie (1) also came. This was the summer before my grandmother died so it was very special to all be together.

The next summer, 1994, mom and dad took over #7. This cottage became, and still is, a central meeting place for us living in Bloomfield Hills, MI, John and Katie living in Chicago, and Mom and Dad living in St. Louis. Meals moved from the formal dining room to the front porch. Mom and Dad rented another cottage for John and Katie’s expanding family. With their four children, Annie, Jack, Peter and Clare we had outgrown number 7. The kids learned everything at gang, tennis with Erik Lundteigen, golf, sailing, swimming, and overnights. Cookouts at the beach – smores and the Jordan River Canoe trips are still favorites. A visit to Mackinaw Island was always the last week of gang.

Mom and Dad bought number 23 is 2005. Now there is more room as our family expands. When John’s family arrives we spend a lot of time boating. We have dock number 21,and the MacCarthys rent a boat. We have advanced from tubing to water skiing to wake boarding. Sometimes it is just nice to cruise down over to the Landing for lunch or to Boyne and hope it doesn’t get rough on the return trip.

Sam Payne married Erica in 2018. We hope our children will continue to gather here in the summers to write the next chapter of life at the Belvedere Club.

1993 

1999  

2011 cottage #23 

 Cottage #35 Hinodeso     

House of the Rising Sun

Our great-grandparents Homer D. Jones and Jessie W. Jones bought the cottage in 1924.  Eventually, it was passed down to their three children, Marion J. Hales, Homer D. Jones II and David L. Jones. Our grandmother, Marion, and her husband, Burton W. Hales Sr., enjoyed the cottage with Marion as the member.

Marion and Burton had three sons: Burton W. Hales Jr., Thomas W. Hales, and Daniel B. Hales.  In 1989 the cottage was passed down to her two sons, Burton W. Hales Jr. (as the member) and Daniel B. Hales. Sadly, Tommy had passed away by this time.

Burton W. Hales Jr. was married to Ellin W. Hales, our mother, for forty-four years until she passed away in 1997.  A few years later he married Barbara L. Hales, they remained married until his death in 2013.

When Burt passed away, his half of the cottage went to his three daughters Fleur H. Testa, Cynthia W. Hales and Martha H. Patterson. Presently the cottage member is Martha H. Patterson.

 No. 35

Leased by Association to C. Gardner in 1901                        Transferred to Harry S. Kitzelman in 1913                                                   Sold to Homer D. Jones in 1924                                                Transferred to Marion J. Hales in 1953                                          Transferred to Burton W. Hales Jr in 1989                                     Transferred to Martha Hales Patterson in 2013

Story:                                                                                                             Cottage 35 was our father’s slice of Heaven here on earth; he would visit as often as he could.  He loved spending his time at the cottage surrounded by all of his family.  When people ventured off the club grounds, he would always say, “Why?”  Once you got to the front porch there wasn’t a good reason to leave unless it was to go out on the boat.  Each sunny day he would be sure to get some boat time on beautiful Lake Charlevoix.

Cottage 35 is filled with so many traditions and family history, it  is indeed a very special place for all of us. Five generations have laughed and told their stories on the front porch and four generations have been bathed in the claw-footed bathtub.

Times have changed, formerly scheduled mealtimes and the rule of no blue jeans allowed on the front porch have given way to dinner on the porch in our casual wear while watching the Regatta sailboats on Wednesday evenings.  What hasn’t changed is our love for family and the gratitude we feel to our forefathers and mothers for choosing the Belvedere Club, a beautiful, treasured place to bring our families together every year.

Belvedere. How do you explain this place, this magic really, to someone who has never been here?

This place of shiny copper pennies carefully placed on the railroad tracks, gleaming, then gloriously flattened by a passing train. Warming up on a beach towel thrown on the hot sand after jumping off the pier. Remembering the distinct aroma of Bain de Soleil, red-orange from who-knows-what they made it of, melting the minute it hit your skin, inevitably a little gritty from the sand. The comfort and yes, joy, of hearing the constant rhythm of the waves, murmuring, sometimes thundering, on the beach.

This place of riding bikes (often too big) to the beach when you were young, speeding up as you flew under the tunnel below the tracks, boldly avoiding spiders and whatever lurked in that muddy water beneath your tires.

This place of pine tinged breezes that awaken your winter-dulled senses in a heartbeat. The turquoise hue of the water, so clear you can see the tadpoles swimming by your toes. So gray and dark on a stormy day it doesn’t seem possible to be the same water, the same lake. This place of electric blue skies that holds the sun in its hand.

This place of porch visits and playing games of hearts late into the night, of being warned not to jump off the railroad bridge because of eels in the channel. Of sneaking in a bit too late after dark, giggling, hoping no one would notice the time.

This place of lasting memories and friendships, even for those of us who seldom visited, for those of us whose hearts became gently and inextricably wrapped in the magic of this northern place.

Lori Wiseman
Cottage 39

45 – Ginger Payne

My husband, Chris, encouraged me to write a chapter for this book as well, since
he only had 17 years at our beloved Belvedere before I started coming yearly over
50 years ago. Our courting years were most special at the Belvedere, while we ran
Big Gang together from 1971-1975. Our last year as Gang leaders we were
married and thus made great chaperones!
I first arrived at the Belvedere on Labor Day weekend in 1969. I immediately fell in
love with the environs. It was a warm weekend, so Chris and I spent time at the
beach. While at the beach, Mike Meyer was the first Belvedere person I met
outside of Chris’ family. He was warm and friendly, and I felt welcomed. Later that
weekend, we found a jelly jar on the beach and Chris found some paper and a
pencil in the lifeguard shack, so he put a note in the bottle stating his love for me
and threw it out as far as he could into Lake Charlevoix. To our incredible surprise,
25 years later, we got a call out of the blue from Chris’ mom. She asked, “Chris,
did you ever put a note in a bottle at the beach?” Mike Meyer’s son, Nicholas, and
a friend were “digging to China” in the sand that day at the Belvedere beach and
they dug up that very same bottle from deep in the sand. It still was intact.
Amazing that Mike was the first person from the Belvedere I met in 1969, and
that it was his son who dug up that bottle 25 years later! We had the jar with the
note in the cottage for many years after that, but it disappeared during the
cottage renovation in 2016. We hope it reappears once again someday. Maybe I
need to ask Nick or his sister, Brooke to look for it!
The summer of 1970, I was invited to #45 to spend two weeks. Chris’ parents
were so very gracious in accepting me into their family from the very beginning.
Jane and Ken Payne become true second parents to me, a relationship I have
always cherished.
During my two weeks in July of 1970, it was “prime time” at the Belvedere. I had
the opportunity to meet many people. Everyone seemed so friendly and
welcoming. It was not until a couple years later that I realized I had been “under
scrutiny”. Good friends later informed me of this. I was so very thankful that I
“passed”!
Our summers running Big Gang were glorious! Because of the lower size of the
Gangs when we began leading, we combined the Boys’ and Girls’ Gangs and

• formed Big Gang, which has continued to this day. Our days were so full of tennis,
  golf, swimming, sailing, archery, playing Capture the Flag in the lawn by the
  Casino, arts and crafts, dodge ball in the Casino and one or two overnights both
  July and August.
  Our Gang kids will remember some crazy overnights, like when there was a
  deluge of rain all night in Grayling, where we had gone to purchase archery
  equipment from the Fred Baer Company for the Gangs. We camped in Hartwick
  Pines State Park, but had no tents. The girls ended up sleeping in the cars while
  the only shelter available to the boys were the restrooms! We finally bailed out
  before dawn and headed back to the Club, with stories to tell.
  After another rainy overnight, Chris came up with the idea of stringing a big tarp
  over a line strung between several trees to keep us warm and dry. He fastened
  the corners by wrapping the tarp around tennis balls and holding them with
  shower curtain hooks. It was a wonderful improvement! On one such occasion,
  with the tarp already hung at a new campsite in the Jordon River Valley, we had
  settled down by the fire to tell ghost stories. We and the other older chaperones
  became a little alarmed by the noises of crackling dry leaves we heard coming
  toward us from outside our campsite. Without trying to alarm the kids, we
  climbed into our various vehicles, leaving Chris and John Fox and some of the
  braver kids on the hoods of our vehicles shining out big, bright flashlights at the
  oncoming noises and holding big sticks to use as clubs. Every time the flashlights
  and headlights went on, the noises stopped. When the lights went off, the noises
  started again. Bear in mind, we were in the middle of nowhere, so our
  imaginations were running wild. Long story short, our menacing intruders turned
  out to be a pair of toads travelling around the area leapfrog style on dry leaves.
  The sound was much louder than you might imagine. To a vivid imagination it
  sounded like an animal (possibly rabid!) jogging towards us! We laughed about
  that one for a long time!
  I have such fond memories of those Gang summers. I fell in love with my Gang
  girls, as well as the boys. I’ve never let Susie Reese LeRoy forget about when our
  sailboat capsized and turtled after a line squall passed overhead, that she
  unknowingly sat on top of my head while I was trying to untangle the mainsheet
  wrapped around me underwater and get some air. She, of course, had no idea she
  was sitting on my head, but I did have my life flash before my eyes for a moment.
  Those girls were my “first children”.
  The years went by and our girls, Katie (Kat) and Kristy became Gang kids and
  enjoyed many of the wonderful times our Gang kids had experienced. Their
  leaders were special as well. Many of those summers, we spent many weeks at
  the Belvedere. Kristy’s son, Connor, experienced his first Gang summer in Tots
  Gang during the infamous summer of 2020 with the record high water and the
  COVID-19 epidemic. What a great job Pete Scholten and the Gang leaders did
  adapting to that challenging summer!
  Chris and I experienced a sad hiatus of many years from prime time at the
  Belvedere, due to severe allergies to mold that I developed. We still tried to go
  every year at the end of the summer for Jane’s birthday, but often had to stay off
  the Belvedere due to the mold at #45.
  It has been such a joy for us to be able to renovate #45 and rid the cottage of the
  sources of mold. Our last several summers there have been heavenly. Dear
  friendships have been rekindled and new friendships made. With Chris’
  retirement, we now are spending almost half the year on the Belvedere. We feel
  like we have come back home!

My Belvedere Memories

When Peter and I were married, there was an understanding between us that I would never miss a summer in Charlevoix, even if our visit was only a brief one.  That actually happened following a June  business  conference on  Mackinaw Island, before we flew back to NYC, we drove to the Belvedere where we found Jim Witherspoon getting the Algonquin ready for summer sailing.  He couldn’t resist our begging eyes and took us for a long, frigid sail on Lake Charlevoix.   That was the extent of our visit that summer, a few hours!

By sharing his many stories growing up on the Belvedere, my father, Gordon Ware, taught me and my siblings, Vicki, Keith, Janie, to love our summers there.  Indeed, he was the 3rd generation Ware and, to dad, continuing that legacy meant a lot to him.  It resonated with us as well until, as adults, we each created our own plan for summertime and mine was to return to the place I loved. 

Among my many childhood memories, these stand out as the most memorable: preparing for and parading around in crazy homemade costumes in the Casino on  Masquerade Nights; being a target of thrown balloons off the bridge over the Jordan River by the boys gang; playing evening capture the flag and Commandos with flashlights around the Casino; being terrified of tacking around the train trestle during gang sailing; stepping on a bee hive under the old rustic bridge during a gang scavenger hunt that sent 3 of us to the hospital for stings; and many Sunday family picnics in front of the Cabanas.

The Teenage years created different activities and fun, to say the least!   What would we all have done without the incredible scavenger hunts, treasure hunts and games created by George McKay and Rosemary Mueller???  They were a highlight for all of us young teens. Then, being a Gang Leader with Ginger Payne was the best fun as I relived being a gangster myself! Overnights included water balloons and egg fights, which were new to me as our camp grounds moved closer to the resort, thereby being more available to others for a little raiding fun!

Other memories include: waterskiing behind the Bug after gang, Mt McSauba beach bonfires followed by late night donut making at the bakery in town, sneaking into the Grey Gables to hear and dance to the piano music by Al Breeze.  Oh, too many memories to share!

Finally, returning as a parent and now a grandparent, the Belvedere has become a deeply meaningful place for me. Many of those friends with whom I played in gang have also returned, allowing us to reconnect with each other and grow old together. This is a place that is in my heart for many reasons; I can revisit moments with my parents there, I enjoy watching Sydney and Connor, my grandkids (and the 6th generation) do the same things I did when I was their age and I am warmed by watching our daughter reconnect with her gang friends, sharing their stories that bond them together. Where else can this happen but here, in this special place, where we are all uniquely different, have varied views of our world and chose different paths to travel in life, yet we can all come together in love and memories we share.

Sunnie Ware Hellman

8/20/2019       
Just came home from a night out with “the girls”. It’s 10:27, very very late!
But thinking about what makes the Belvedere great, there is only one answer – the friendships!! It’s great knowing that your friends will ALWAYS be there for you. Sometimes we remember the sad times, but we mainly laugh and reminisce about the wild and crazy fun we’ve all had together. I’m quite sure that every generation thinks that their “gang” had the most fun, but I bet that every generation has had an equal amount of fun. I challenge my friends to tell some wild stories before we forget them, and challenge Potter and Chris to publish them.

Happily, our gang missed out on the serious drug years (ok, maybe just a little pot) but booze was our drug of choice. One day Stella, Carol, Sissy, Amy and I were making raspberry daiquiris at #220.  We kept blending and tasting and blending and tasting, but something was wrong. We discovered that our kids had replaced our rum with water. After severely punishing those kids, the next time we started blending, they had replaced our rum with gin – such great thinking!

The kids thought they were having the MOST fun, but trust me, their parents always had a ball. We short sheeted each other, sent Eddie Mannion to DQ to buy ice cream for hummers every night, marched around the resort singing “The Bridge on the River Kwai” – who knows why? Only Jeffrey Buntin.  We wore raincoats and tried to drown everyone – especially Em and George – thank you Cathy Howe!  We often marched home from the GG singing Eeny Meeny Miny ——Mo, and Uncle Bud would yell out his window words that I cannot repeat in this family book. We sang with Breezy night after night, drank vodka stingers with a shot of vodka on the side, played Cardinal Puff with the Alexander boys, and  I had to borrow money from my kids’ piggy banks to pay my bar bill. No surprise, those darling kids were able to open a GG charge account in my name, and paid me back big time.

Sissy Chamberlain could talk us all into anything. If she wanted to go to The Argonne to hear her favorite one-legged guitarist, Tusco Heath, we went. The Crooks would plan dinner outings to far away restaurants and would have a full bar in the back of their car so we could reload. Ann Denison was famous for her Hat Parties. We would all dress up at the drop of one of those hats. We are still convinced that we “made” Josie and Bill Connett’s anniversary party by restaging their wedding. And at Josie’s first funeral, we all dressed in black mantillas. Em rented a horse and put a Jack Rogers sandal upside down in the stirrups. It was a fabulous party. Josie flew  Irene Allen’s band in, Bill and Lilly Connett played their violins, Max played the bagpipes and William learned to play the banjo for the party – what a family!!  So happy I’ve gotten to know my wonderful Judith.

Bill Connett was a great President, a great friend and made super biscuits, but for me, Josie was the heart of The Belvedere – the best bridge player ever (according to her) and truly someone who cared deeply about her kids and grandkids, and always shared her wisdom with her friends who ranged in age from 6 to 86. We all adored her, and she and Bill were the perfect example of how your age just doesn’t matter on The Belvedere.

I want to take credit for some stuff I did for the club in case you think I was just partying all the time. When on the Golf Board, ALL my pals and I revived the Member-Guest golf tournament. I promised the warden that we would “break even” so I had to sell the extra plastic cups out of the #15 garage. The next year we (and you know who you are) made chocolate chess pie for 120 people and the chef (Banar – enough said) never served them. Potter and Sandy and Ted and Liz Orr ran a chipping event that made enough money to finally tip our wonderful bag boys.

When my Billy was President, he asked me to help him find someone to run “Games in the Park”. When I asked around, I discovered that all the young mothers were going to a cocktail party. What?! So Sheila and Rick Tomkinson and Bill and I gave a “Games” party down at Moerland Park. It was nothing like today’s extravaganza , but we rented a helium machine for balloons, served nothing but hot dogs and persuaded Sandy and Potter to run the games. Since the entire resort was invited, no surprise, they ALL came. We are very proud to have restarted this tradition, and those who followed us have been magnificent.

As long as I’m bragging, I have to say that Erik (40 year tennis pro) and I came up with the idea for The Venetian Tennis.  Erik seeded the men, and we drew the lady partners out of a hat – you have no idea how annoyed I was that it took 5 years before I drew a partner who could carry me to a victory. Thank you John Crawford.

OMG – blah blah blah and I haven’t even discussed our Cabaret years. Ann Denison, my darling precious genius friend, Billy and I had a ball!!  Don Kelley would write lyrics while driving up from Grand Rapids on Friday nights. No one could star like Em, George, Dan, Susan Reese, Sheila, John and Louise – the list is way too long. Everyone pitched in! And if we heard Bud’s laugh, we knew we were funny.

I love this place. i miss those who are in heaven, and I thank Stella Alexander, Ann and Don Kelley, Betty B. and Missie McDonnell for being the dearest friends ever.

Barbie Claggett   happily ensconced in #49 with my dearest Billy

McDougall’s – 101 Dana

These are a few noteworthy items since the last Belvedere book came out relative to Cottage 101, but here is my effort to bring you up to date.

We have added the “Taj Garage” between ourselves and Cottage 105 where we have managed to entertain royally at least once a year.

Around the year 2000, we started the “McDougall ‘s Sheep Dip Invitational Golf Tournament”. It was held every other year alternating with the member-guest golf tournament.

It was made up of about 9 cottage owners, each of whom brought a foursome of house guests from home.

Included were Mike McDonald, Jim McDonnell, Joe Orgill, and Bobby Leatherman from Memphis… Rick Meyer, Drew Baur, and Peter Flanagan from Saint Louis… Rick Tomkinson from Fort Wayne and Jeff Buntin and John McDougall from Nashville.

Festivities began with dinner at what was then Whitney’s Oyster Bar, with drinks and toasts. The next day started with eighteen holes, with each member partnering with one of his guests and the other two guests being partners. We then after lunch had a nine-hole scramble, each guest playing with their host.

Then that night – dinner at the McDougall’s – catered by the Grey Gables. The next day was another 18 holes, with each member partnering with another guest. Dinner that night was at Mike McDonald’s with cocktails overlooking the lake.

Breakfast the next morning was Southern style at Joe Orgill’s and then the final eighteen holes were played with the 3rd guest. Lunch and awards at the clubhouse catered by the GG. The remainder of the foursomes had dinner that night at the Buntins and returned home on Sunday.

I believe the final year was 2014 and a good time was had by all. Steve Braun our pro at the time and Marty Joy, our assistant pro, joined in the fun. Steve managed to find some Scotch of questionable quality named “Sheep Dip”, which he gave as prizes.

I mention all of this because the golf course is such a key to life at the Belvedere.

Also, water activities have come heavily into play.

So, I might mention one of my more dramatic experiences on Lake Charlevoix.

When I was asked to skipper with Frank Crump as a crew member – in memory of a regatta we had won many years earlier – I am mistakenly accepted.

It was later determined that our lack of agility should have been given more consideration. We did turn over and had to call a day.

And a good time was had by all.

Cottage #105 – Quin and Martha Claire Breland

As part of the Leatherman clan, my family history at the Belvedere Club extends back generations to my great-great grandfather, R.G. Morrow, who first visited the Club in the late 1800’s.  However, I first started coming up to the Club in the summer of 1988 as a seven-year old as my immediate family had taken a brief hiatus from Charlevoix trips when I was a small child.  My grandparents, R.M. and Camille Leatherman, rented what are now the McClelland (#119) and Flanigan (#109) cottages those first few summers before moving on to what are now the Smith (#207), Austin (#209), and Kuhn (#131) cottages.  I was fortunate being the oldest grandchild and usually got my own room.  After many failed attempts at buying a cottage, my grandparents acquired Cottage #115 and we finally had a place to spend the summer.

Overnights were always the highlight of gang, especially overnights Sleeping Bear Dunes (Collis Parrish can attest).  There was nothing quite like being free to explore the dunes, camp out, and of course set booby traps for the “raiders”.  The raiders were the other gang leaders who would attack our campsite with shaving cream and water balloons.  Luckily, we had a secret weapon – William Fox.  William brought a special set of skills to the Gang overnights similar to the Green Berets fortifying an army base.  The perimeter defense started with Coke cans tied to fishing line to alert us to any intruders.  Tree limbs were tied to trip wires, and small trenches were dug to provide additional cover.  An ice chest full of water balloons often gave us more ammunition than the raiders themselves.  Any raiding party attacking our fortified position instantly regretted it.

Bonfires at Belvedere Beach were the highlight of my late teens and early twenties.  Several nights per week, a group of us would head down to the beach for guitar playing, storytelling, joke playing and imbibing.  Looking back, it was pretty much the equivalent of what was happening on the adults’ porches.  A word of warning to future generations who may enjoy a beach bonfire from time to time – your voices carry!  There was nothing more embarrassing than having my grandmother tell me that she heard my voice float up to her lake-facing bedroom from the beach late at night!

We purchased Cottage #105 from the Schwab family in 2019.  I write this note in 2020, a year in which the Coronavirus pandemic caused turmoil across the globe.  Amidst all the instability in the world, the Belvedere Club gave my family a much-needed sense of place, purpose, and tradition.  Our children (McCadden, Margie, and Millie) love everything about the Belvedere Club and I cannot wait to watch them grow up and carry on these wonderful traditions.

Submitted by Camille Breland Rome

I’m not sure where to start in reminiscing about some of the best memories of my life. I suppose a good place to start is with the anticipation I felt year round prior to making the 19-hour drive from south Mississippi up to Charlevoix. As a child, typically starting after Christmas and leading up until June, I would have dreams about the Belvedere. I dreamed I was there, with all of my friends, free and living my best life. These dreams of anticipation happened every year until they were realized upon my arrival to the much cooler weather, the smell of cedar, and sweaters in the summer.

My mother (Camille Leatherman Breland) grew up going to Charlevoix, as had my grandfather and forefathers before him. Thus, every summer — typically for the entire month of July — our family packed up our fire engine red Suburban topped with a massive luggage pod and made the 1,200-mile journey.

In those days, we rented the Forker cottage (#207), followed by the Austin cottage (#209). The memories I’ll share here are from the days when we were packed into the Forker cottage. I shared a bedroom with my cousin Vaughan (Leatherman Stewart). Vaughan is my first cousin and daughter of Leslie and Lauren Leatherman. We slept in twin beds in a wood-planked room. The walls were thin and decorated with gang awards from the Forkers’ past, and my parents would often have to come tell us to go to sleep when they could hear us still up late into the evening — enraptured with giggling fits.

I think my anticipation of these days at the Belvedere was largely due to the pure joy and freedom I experienced there. I loved Gang. Some kids may have wanted to skip Gang, but I was never one (except for sailing lessons…). I reveled in the activities, the games, the competition, the new skills.

Some of my fellow Gang members during this time were Vaughan, Katie Alexander, Lilly and Charene Connett, Jayne Herman, Drew Flanigan, Nick Fox, Shaun Lyons, John Schumacher and many more. One of the highlights of every summer were the Big Gang overnights. I remember one overnight in particular — when we were epically raided. I’m not sure if we were at Sleeping Bear dunes or another location, but I do remember we had borrowed the big red Suburban to haul kids to our overnight location. Overnights often consisted of games of Capture the Flag, making s’mores, telling ghost stories, Truth or Dare, exploring the woods around us, cooking over the fire … just being kids.

Some time late into the night, as we were tucked into our sleeping bags, I remember waking up to the sound of a “splat.” I think Mark or John Herschede may have been the first victim — an egg splat open on his sleeping bag. I heard another egg land and crumble, juices running. “We’re being raided!” someone exclaimed, and the chaos ensued.

Eggs flew in every direction, yolks bursting and running down our sweatshirts. The teens were upon us, grabbing kids and spraying shaving cream in our hair. We ran, hiding, but were unable to outmaneuver the older teens and young adults who had driven from the Belvie to raid us. It was a complete mess. Shaving cream, eggs, water balloons … no one was spared. No one was dry. There were tears. There were angry words. We had to sleep in our wet clothing, hair sticky and matted. But there were also memories. The memory that we had survived one of the greatest raids of Belvedere history. I realize raids are now a thing of the past. I’ll leave the pros and cons for others to debate, but I do now cherish the memory of both raiding others when I was older and also of being raided.

My summers in Gang at the Belvedere are some of the best memories of my life. As all of us know, the Belvedere is something very special. I am grateful to those who volunteer their time to ensure that the Belvie thrives for generations to come, and I look forward to many more years of memories from one of my happy places.

Memories of Gang By George Schwab IV

 As most of us who’ve grown up at the Belvedere Club during our Summers with our families and “Summertime friends”, there is an activity known as “Gang”. It’s been around for decades and will continue to be around long after I’ve gone, and my Family have departed this wonder place.

 So as I ponder the many memories of my childhood Summers at the Belvedere and gang days, I recall one particular gang outing that will remain forever etched in my long term memory along with my punishment(s) for “potty mouth” at the hands of the gang leaders. Bless their souls too for putting up with us. We were a rather interesting bunch of kids with some standout misfits.

 The time was around 1973 or thereabouts. The country was going in different directions depending on what state you grew up in at this unique period known as the “70’s”. Yes, I date myself and yes, I grew up in Berkeley California till 1975. Yet everything at the Belvedere Club was status quo as has been prior and following my sentence to “gang”. I’d never have learned how to make leather wallets, sail a sailboat, horseback ride, or play capture the flag had it not been for gang.

 So, the gang outing that is burnt into my mind and Jimmy Kinnaird’s sleeping forever, is our overnight camping trip to Gaylord State Park and the Call of the Wild Museum. We all took off in the various counselor’s vehicles, which included station wagons and other vehicles. Chris Payne and Ginger were the presiding ring masters of gang with help from “Stretch” Bill MacDonald, Doug Kuhn, John Fox, and Brad Schade. Yes, our group of “big gang” members was both large and filled with various folks who like to raid the girls’ campsite; henceforth, all the chaperones! I believe the boys outnumbered the girls too.

 So, the camping trip went a week and then we can do that at night and I ooooo KOp fairly well as the separate campsites were set up to help reduce conjugal visiting or outright terror raids on Ginger and the girls. I really do not remember much of our visit to the Museum beyond pictures of these old men with their bow and arrows next to some record book size dead animal and possibly a lot of taxidermy mounts. Oh, I forgot to mention that gang taught us how to shoot a bow and arrow and not each other. Too bad we didn’t have lawn darts back then!

 So, Gang also taught us how to build fires and cook on open fires. This included campfire safety and that you can’t smoke banana peels Teddy O’Brien. Some of us learned quicker than others. So, anything cooked in an open fire tastes good no matter what it is. This goes for burnt S’mores, canned beans, canned corn, and burnt sleeping bags Sandy Rogers!

 So, we came packed with various goodies by our parents to cook on the campfire. Mind you this is the early 1970s and predates pop top lids on canned goods. So Sandy Rogers excitedly put his can of corn into the campfire along with someone’s baked beans and potatoes wrapped in foil. All of our sleeping bags were unrolled and ready to the nighttime. I and my long-time childhood friend Jimmy Kinnaird were monitoring the campfire and maybe playing with the fire like ignorant cavemen.

 All of a sudden, the fire explodes. I mean a huge KABOOM! I recall a piece of burning wood striking me in the face. Jimmy jumps up trying to put out the flaming projectiles that are quickly burning large holes in his sleeping bag. Once the mayhem and commotion settles, the source of the explosion is quickly determined. Alas someone’s can of corn is now destroyed as was all the food blow away by the explosion. Did I forget to mention that Sandy didn’t know you have to open your canned good prior to placing in a campfire? I’m fairly sure Sandy’s plus several other sleeping bags incurred unintentional vent holes as a result but Jimmy’s suffered the most damage. Fortunately, none of us was injured from a potentially dangerous explosion. Oddly, Sandy wasn’t even present for the explosion. I guess he decided to let things simmer and come back later to eat.

But wait, there’s more to this story! So it was a windy evening as dark approached. I mean really windy and then the heat lightening started. So our eventful Gang camping trip was about to turn into pure panic, chaos, and a notable drenching. A severe thunderstorm blew up over us just after dark and we had to rapidly break camp. The rain started rather quickly so most of us and our sleeping bags got wet as a dog. There was not enough room in all the vehicles as I recall.

Turns out more than a couple of us ended hold up inside the outhouses. I recall “Stretch” was one of the counselors who lead or threw the kids into the outhouses! I recall being in a station wagon with John Fox and Doug Kuhn plus a couple of kids as others were banging on the windows to be let in. Problem was the rear of the vehicle was hurriedly packed with wet camping gear. There was literally no more room. I’d say quick thinking on using the outhouses too. However, when its pouring down rain, you either stay out in the rain or seek shelter rapidly. It’s just that simple.

                                                   Cottage 117

                                            Philip G. Chamberlain

My first trip Charlevoix was during the summer of 1960. My Mom often said, “Flip your first visit to Charlevoix that was planned for 10 days turned into a Month” We wondered between my grandparents Melissa & Myron Hickey at 117, and my great grandparents Beulah & Joseph F. Hickey at 127. My maternal great grandmother Olive Meyer McKay at 215 always had a full house otherwise I’m sure our stay would have lasted longer.

My sister Melissa arrived in 1962 and the cottage hopping continued until 1965. That’s when My Grandfather decided it was time to put an end to the this. With hopes that Aunt Judy & Uncle Joe would eventually have families, my parents Melissa and Philip ended up with cottage 231 in 1965 and Aunt Althea & Uncle Carl Schumacher moved from 231 to 127.

As young kids on we often referred to 231 as the “Ghost Cottage” until the hands mural on the front porch was removed and a full kitchen was added. I remember the abundance of stray pregnant cats that Melissa and I would somehow intercept. Tommy Alexander delivered at least two litters in our pantry closet. One summer Cathy Kenny Howe and I drove up with our housekeeper Claire.  Bothtime we  stopped for breakfast and lunch we asked her if she would like anything, and she said no. When we arrived in Charlevoix we picked up a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. We ended up going out with friends at the last minute and passed on the chicken. The next morning, we discovered that Claire had devoured the entire bucket. The memories are full of laughter, endless at 231 and will last us forever.

Gang- Our group consisted of Chip Alexander (when he decided to go), Jimmy Kinnard, Sandy Rodgers, George “Pelt” Schawb, Drew Leakas, John MacCarthy, Bobby Leatherman, Leslie Leatherman, Stuart & Ted Obrien, Steve & Spencer Reese to name a few. Some the best times were always the overnights at Bisbee’s point or, of course, Deadman’s Hill. We could only play capture the flag or red rover so many days without boredom. We had great leaders Chris & Ginger Payne, Bill Mc Donald, Wyatt Gordon, and Moss Alexander (who gave me my first cigarette). Our fearless leaders would often shield us from the raids of Sunny Ware, Brad Schade, John Fox, Janet & Doug Kuhn.

One of my least favorite experiences during Big Gang is when I fell between the dock and one of the hawks and yelled a four-letter word. As a result, my mouth was immediately washed out with a fresh bar of Ivory Soap. Mike Meyer had to tow us in countless times for those of us that could not maneuver in by the trestle.  Rainy days were also a lot of fun I remember skipping gang to do puzzles in the Leatherman’s sunroom at 519

After I was too old for gang Dad said you need to get a summer job in Charlevoix or you will be home with me and work for the family business. I did not want to be in Saint Louis so I swept out Cabanas and Started a car wash business. Most of the fun of course was driving around the resort before I had my license. I did, however, put a huge scrape on the Schumacher’s town car so the carwash business abruptly ended that summer.  The next few summers I worked in the kitchen at the Casino. The main crew consisted of Sally Shade, Lucy McDonald, Elizabeth Reid, Andy Leakas, Ted Mannion & Jimmy McDonald. The real fun was when we needed extras to help with the 4^th of July steak cookout and the Casino party. I remember one year during the Casino Party Dinner had been served and desert was being put on trays which consisted of mini pie tarts Mr. Moss was in the process of handing out his generous cash gratuities to all of us. I walked back into the kitchen to grab a tray and found myself in the middle of a pie fight. The person that threw the first tart has never fessed up to it this day. I remember the summer one of our jobs at the casino was to paint the wooden dining chairs under the guidance of Mrs. Mary Kay Ryder. We started in the project in early August and Mrs. Ryder reminded us that we had over 300 chairs to paint, and they needed to be completed at least four days before the Cabaret. It was a huge job for just two of us since the chairs required two coats of paint. Mr. Moreland was quick to realize our dilemma and added some of Carl Johnsons crew to the project and we got the job done!

I loved going to visit the porches of Aunt Kay & Uncle Dick Shelton and Molly & Mac Goodson. The Shelton’s had a decoy Monkey on the porch to keep the bats away. One morning Aunt Kay discovered the monkey missing. Some friends and I searched the park high and low and the monkey resurfaced. The Goodson’s always had a full jar of M&M’s for me to munch on.  Tootsie Ware at 407 was also known to throw Ice cream parties for us at least once a summer. I remember one early afternoon I was visiting my grandmother Melissa Hickey at 117 and Aunt Kay came over. Shortly after, Uncle George McKay arrived with his bloody Mary. The three of them sat down in the sunroom, and I was asked to go home or to the into the kitchen. During my exit I overheard Aunt Kay & my grandmother say “George sit down and fix yourself a drink we need to talk to you about your drinking problem” Uncle George, Big Bobby Rowe & Rosemary Mueller, were all larger than life fixtures on the resort and always had a good time. They were also some of the same crew who would congregate on various porches for cocktails before the dry dinners at Houston Witherspoon’s.

Our teen group met in the teen room at the casino in the evenings for various activities. It was either the Alexander’s porch, teen room, the McKay cottage or Bells Bay. The stories are endless, some of which are inappropriate for this chapter. . Even when as a teenager I was sent to summer camp I always wanted to be in Charlevoix and I was lucky enough to found a way to get there camp.

David Alexander was the youngest in our group but was always one of the first in line to jump off the boat house roofs or the top of the railroad trestle with us. Rick McKay, Sandy & Didi Rodgers were notorious in creating some mischief for all of us. We had a huge pack consisting of Melissa, Kate Orr, Adele & Irene Orgill, Chip Alexander, Leathermans, MacCarthys, Leakas’s, Mannion’s , Reese’s, Larimore Girls ,Kenny twins,  Cathy, Beth & Lisa Englesmann, Andy Rouse, Anne McDonnell, Elizabeth Reid, Kevin O’Brien Martha Myer, Lucia Million, Susan & Carolyn Claggett,  Pam Lincoln, Howard & Scott Hall. And sometimes our Chicago Club pals would join in along with Buntins & Crooks babysitters.

The movie Grease was at the Palace one summer. We all saw it multiple times and if Rick McKay in the theater he would yell your name out in the middle of the movie. As I recall, it was my sister Melissa & Adele Orgill who were usually Rick’s victims. Rick was also known to discreetly put wet Juicy Fruits in your hair during the movie. Trips to town at 1am to the back door of Boggs donuts were always a fun activity. We would always pick up a few extra ones for Cecil the nightwatchman. The late nights were always fun but especially tough the mornings that Senior George Schwab & Senior Bob Kenny would take to us fishing Lake Susan at dawn.

These lifelong friendships are all treasured, and it gives me such pleasure that much of this group still comes to Charlevoix. It is a great feeling to come back and see old friends and to also see new ones. One good thing about being an adult is that the age gap really doesn’t matter. It is so great to see my friends & cousins’ children & grand children enjoy the Belvedere as much as we did. Last summer my wife Lizz and daughter Mary & I were in the park one afternoon. I noticed the Hickey twins & the Smith girls running between cottages and you could tell that those friendships would last a lifetime.

Mary Goodson (Molly) McClelland
Belvedere Club Cottage 119
Ancestral Chart

Cottage Owner: Mary Daingerfield Goodson McClelland ·         Year Born: 1937 ·         Year Married: 1972 to Geoffrey McClelland ·         Became owner of Cottage 119 in 1993 after death of mother Mary Shipley Goodson	Husband: Geoffrey McClelland ·         Year Born: 1940 ·         Year Married: 1972 to Mary Goodson
Father: McVeigh Goodson·         Year Born: 1906 ·         Year Married: 1935to Mary Shipley ·         Year Died: 1983 ·         Bought Cottage 119 in 1959 (had rented for many years before)	Mother: Mary Shipley Goodson·         Year Born: 1911 ·         Year Married: 1935to McVeigh Goodson ·         Year Died: 1993
Sister: Elizabeth (Betsy) Goodson Van Winkle·         Year Born: 1942 ·         Year Married: 1960 to Daniel Van Winkle ·         No longer has equity interest in Cottage 119	Son: Franklin McVeigh McClelland·         Year Born: 1975 ·         Year Married: 2004 to Susan Keill ·         Is a Cottage Associate of Cottage 119
Daughter in Law: Susan Keill McClelland·         Year Born: 1969 ·         Year Married: 2004 to Franklin McVeigh McClelland	Granddaughter: Elizabeth Harper (Eliza) McClelland·         Year Born: 2006 ·         Parents: Franklin McClelland and Susan Keill McClelland
Daughter: Mary Jeffrey McClelland·         Year Born: 1978 ·         Not married ·         Is a Cottage Associate of Cottage 119

Belvedere Book – McClelland #119

Every summer as August 1^st came upon us, there was a countdown to the annual family trek to Charlevoix. We were an “August family” back when that was still a thing, and for a good part of the month we would descend upon this special place. Our days were filled with playing in gang, trying to convince our parents to let us eat lunch at the teen room, and running around with our friends until we heard the inevitable 9:30 curfew siren causing us to sprint home.

Our grandparents, Molly and Mac Goodson bought #119 in 1959 on a tip from dear friend and soon to be Belvedere neighbor, Myron Hickey. Family lore says our grandfather bought it sight unseen without telling our grandmother as she insisted over the years her preference for renting to the hassle of owning. In a sly and strategic move, he told her about the purchase as they were walking into a school event where he figured she couldn’t publicly protest. While she probably (and let’s admit, validly) had some choice words in the privacy of their own home, their descendants are eternally grateful at Mac’s stealth ways.

This place is not just a beautiful cottage to us, it’s the reason we literally exist. On a fateful Labor Day weekend in 1971, a young Molly Goodson was visiting her parents from San Francisco and attended a party next door at the Hickey cottage where a young Geoff McClelland was a house guest of Judy and Dick Engelsmann. They hit it off and Geoff asked Molly to be his date for a Jordan River outing the next day. With the over-confidence of a rusty canoer, and perhaps wanting to show off for his date, Geoff insisted he paddle stern much to Molly’s chagrin knowing the Jordan’s twists and turns can be tricky…they flipped the first three turns and were married the following Memorial Day.

Growing up here meant playing at the beach, epic games of baseball in the park, dive bombing our bikes down tennis court hill, and laughing until your sides hurt. As a child, the beauty of the Belvedere is the freedom and carefree days that didn’t always exist in the real world. Mary continued that fun as a gang leader during the summers of 1997 and 1998 and still proclaims to this day it was the best job in the world. What’s better than working 10-12 and 2-5, playing capture the flag and watermelon football at the beach? Not much.

Our family welcomed Mac’s wife Susan into the fold when they married in 2004 and we were doubly blessed when their wonderful daughter Eliza arrived in 2006 (along with a subsequent addition to the cottage in 2007 to accommodate our growing family). Eliza carried on the tradition of attending gang and would proclaim as a young girl “this is so fun!” We hear you, kid.

As adults, our appreciation of the Belvedere continues to grow. We are one of the rare families not related to anyone, but the extended Belvedere family is real. They make you laugh, can sometimes make you cry, and most importantly, they show up. Couple that with annual traditions each summer like Wednesday night beach picnics, closing down the GG, and wondering where our golf games went as we tee off #1 all keep us coming back.

As is often proclaimed by many of us every summer, we are so lucky.

~Mary & Mac McClelland

Cottage 121

Wonderful summer memories continue to be made at Cottage121, called the Mint Chip cottage, by many. Yes, it’s still bright green, hence the name. The Park continues to be a hub of activity for those of us who live in its surrounding cottages; kids play games, adults visit, walkers stop by, the 4th of July Parade circles the loop and more. For those of us who live on the Park, we love it there. As with all places the neighbors have changed. Some cottages have changed owners but the fun and conviviality continues.  

After the death of Marc Cunningham in 2015, I, Chris Barrett, became the owner of Cottage 121. I met Bob Barrett, a long-time friend of Dick Engelsmann’s, on the Belvedere Golf Course, which we both love. A romance began and more golf was played and still is! Our marriage took place soon afterward.  

My sons, Marcus and Robert, are long past Gang age, and now come to Charlevoix with their families. Their children enjoy many of the same activities their fathers did as children, another great example of what a great family place the Belvedere is.

The Belvedere continues to be the best summer place we know; porch visiting, golf, tennis, beach picnics while watching Wednesday evening sailboat races, renewing old friendships and making new ones are all part of the anticipation and enjoyment of summers at the Belvedere. My husband, Bob Barrett, and I cherish our summertime at the Belvedere. Memories of so many summers past and looking forward each year to many more make the Belvedere the special summer place that it is. We welcome family members and friends who visit at our cottage as wonderful summer memories continue.

Castle Farms Meets the Mueller Family

    The first time I saw the castle was in 1967. Richard’s family invited me to spend a week at their cottage #129 the summer after Richard and I graduated from high school. We were looking for interesting things to do and the castle was called Castle Van Haver at the time. It had been built in 1918 by Albert Loeb as a farm designed like French Castles with high stone walls and towers for silos.  Many of the roofs were missing, but it still had very beautiful stonework and Mr. Van Haver displayed art work and did metal casting.

     I fell in love with Richard, the Mueller family, and Charlevoix. The next summer I asked him to marry me and he said yes. We were both 19.  I claim he was too young to know how to get away.  We were married in May of 1969 and honeymooned camping in Canada and spent a few days at #129 Belvedere on our way to the University of Michigan married student’s apartments. In 1970 we bought our first Domino’s Pizza store. Richard really preferred making pizzas to going to school.  We came to Charlevoix almost every year bringing one, then two, then three and finally four children. The number of pizza stores increased even more quickly.

   When Art Reibel bought the castle in 1969 he changed the name to Castle Farms. I think we only went to one concert, The Beach Boys, in 1986, and it was a lot of fun. Sometimes it was open for art shows and we went to those whenever we could. The place was magical. It was so beautiful even as a ruin.

     After Art died in 1999 his daughters put it up for sale. My son Richard III came in one day in July of 2000 while we were in Charlevoix on vacation. He suggested we tell the realtor we might be interested and could we go and see the property.  Richard III, his wife, Stephenie, Richard, and I and our one-year-old grandson, Marc, went on the grand tour. Stephenie took videos of all the rooms. They were full of leaves, trash, and appliances and it looked like a homeless person had been camping out. I just wanted to get a broom and sweep out the leaves. We let it pass, but in October my mother-in-law, Rosemary Allen Mueller, called to say the castle was up for auction. Richard, his brother Glenn Mueller, and my brother, Tom Holliday, worked together in Domino’s Pizza buying properties, for the pizza stores. They got together and came up with a plan. They found a real estate lawyer in Traverse City. They asked him to do a quick title search at the Charlevoix Courthouse and then bid for me. The castle was going in my name, Linda Mueller. And by the way, the auction was tomorrow, but it was at the courthouse so he would already be there. They wired him $300,000 and said bid the whole thing, don’t bid it up. There was only one other bidder who had a lean on the property for about $125,000. They thought they would get it for that, and the estate owed that much to them. To their astonishment, we got the sale. Then I got my first lawsuit.  The heir’s father had been a disbarred judge and they automatically thought lawsuit. The girls wanted to make sure the back taxes were going to be paid right away. Then they had six months to redeem the property. My team negotiated the final price which was $550,000 and I received the title January 4, 2001. I had no idea what I was going to do with the property, but I was eager to save those beautiful buildings.

     Since 2001 we restored all the buildings, designed and installed gardens, and developed a business that does as many as 200 weddings a year. Castle Farms has helped the Charlevoix economy by bringing customers to restaurants, hotels, shops, florists, and caterers to name a few businesses. The season has expanded from summer tourists in June thru August to bus tours and wedding guests May thru October and events all year round. The castle is a popular venue for proms, fund raisers, business events, and private parties. The Allen and Mueller Families have spent summers at the Belvedere Club since the earliest days.  Richard and I have tried to give something back to Charlevoix in gratitude for the pleasure Charlevoix has given to us.

                                                                   Model Trains                      

     Richard and his brother, Glenn, played with trains when they were growing up. Glenn liked the scenery, Richard liked complicated track layouts. When they both became grandfathers, they decided it was time to get back into model trains. This time they decided to try outdoor garden scale trains.  Glenn wanted scenery, Richard wanted complicated track layouts as usual. Glenn wanted realistic, to scale scenery, Richard wanted imagination and fantasy. Finally I gave each of them their own train areas at Castle Farms. You can tell who designed which one. Glenn’s layout has landmarks, city buildings, streets and dwarf plants. Richard’s tracks go through the hedges, above the hedges, and disappear out of sight with dragons, castles, toys on wheels, and cartoon characters.

     I was surprised when the Loeb descendants told me that Allen and Ernest Loeb had also been model train enthusiasts. At Christmas time they built extensive track layouts around the dining room and let the children watch from around the walls while they maneuvered electric trains by way of switches. Sometimes a lucky child would be allowed to turn a switch if they paid attention and moved quickly. Ernest Loeb gave his daughter Virginia train cars for Christmas. I think the Loeb brothers would be so happy to know that model trains have a prominent place at the castle.

     Richard and Glenn’s next model train project was the Mississippi Gulf Coast Model Train Museum. It started with one building as a home for a local train club and over the years Richard bought more buildings next door to enlarge the museum including an outdoor garden area. Recently Glenn and Richard expanded the project by moving it to a former shopping center across the street with nearly 50,000 sq ft. It is called Traintastic and it opened May 17, 2023. They expect to have 100,000 visitors the first full year it is open.

     In 2017 the Loeb Farms wooden barns came up for sale with 64 acres of farmland. I was thrilled at the idea of restoring more barns. This time we had an idea of what to do with the property. It seemed like a petting farm would be fun. Of course, there was plenty of room for indoor train layouts as well.   We had put up indoor trains at Castle Farms for Christmas. These trains could stay up all the time. A welcome Center was built to house model trains, baby quilts and vintage children’s memorabilia such as toys, clothing, lunch boxes, and games. The Hungry Ducks Farm opened in 2021. It is still evolving.

     What is the future for Castle Farms and Hungry Ducks Farm? I really don’t know. We will keep operating them and try to be a blessing to Charlevoix until God tells us to stop. God sends really good people to help when we need help. I expect He will send someone special to take care of Castle Farms and Hungry Ducks Farm should He want those properties to continue. Jesus says not to worry about tomorrow or things that I own, and I don’t. God will choose what is best for the farms and the Charlevoix community.

#131  Doug Kuhn –

     I have been known to say that I was born in March and on the Belvedere in June.  Each summer was spent in Charlevoix with my sisters, Janet and Maggie, as was my father’s, and my grandmother’s (Granny) before that.  My great grandfather, Albert Metzger, built the cottage beginning with plans drawn in 1914, and we’ve been there ever since.  Our children, Megan and Amy (fifth generation), are looking forward to many years in the red barn on the Belvedere, the footprint not having changed since building, and the good times continuing.

     Early memories include riding bikes across the Rustic Bridge, Capture the Flag and Spud games in gang at the Casino, “Sugar Beet, Two Mile and Home” sailing races, archery, tennis, and golf lessons, canoe trips (with tipovers) down the Jordan finishing with a jump off Rogers bridge.  We would spend the entire summer up on the Belvedere along with our friends. We had the gangs build a float for the Venetian boat parade, a whale complete with a working mouth and spout.  We won with “Have a “WHALE” of a time in Charlevoix!”

     One “Gang” trip in particular stands out.  We decided to picnic on Bisbee Point sailing there in the Rockets.  We had a good following wind and got there in good shape. We had our lunch, then started to reboard our anchored boats, however gale force westerly winds had come up, and our “anchors” (cement blocks) weren’t up to the task, nor were we able to tack into the wind.  Eventually all the boats ended up beached.  The sailing instructor, when we didn’t return on time and realizing our predicament, came out on the skiff and drug us all in, 2-3 hours past our due time, all the more wiser for the experience.

    A core group of kids spent the entire summer “up north” becoming lifelong friends. Buddies in Indianapolis had no idea of the allure until I would talk them into a visit—an “aha” moment.  The number of activities would bring out their inner FOMO, and they would wear themselves out trying to keep up.  Good friends from gang remain, and now have cottages of their own; Chris Payne, John Fox, Mary (Morris) Larimer, Richard (Dickie) Mueller, Peter Flanagan, Bobby Schrock (my gang leader), Tori (Tower) Folliard, Sunnie (Ware) Hellman, Steve Reese, Faith (McDonald) Campbell, Mike Meyer.

     New members to the Kuhn’s, as well as other families, were vetted by the membership.  Whether meeting at a party, during sports contests, at the beach, the light was always on the newbie.

     Trips to Beaver Island, Mackinaw Island, and Petoskey were on the list of things doing for the summer. I remember taking the train to Petoskey—-nothing like my great grandparents who took the train from Indianapolis to Chicago, a ferry to Ludington, then another train to the Belvedere stop, and with four kids!

     Changes through the years—new boathouses, new pier, golf course irrigation, Rustic Bridge destruction, hotel tear down, gazebo construction, new Kiddie Koop and lifeguard shack with bathrooms!  Even with those changes, I have correspondence from my great grandfather concerning money matters of the Belvedere, and the view….the issues remain the same today!

COTTAGE 135 –

So how did the Crumps find the Belvedere and ultimately Cottage 135? It started with my parents, Marie Louise and Frank  ̶  who were close Memphis friends of the McCallums, Leathermans, and Orgills  ̶  visiting in the mid-1960’s, initially visiting the McCallums in 505. I subsequently visited my close friend Robert McCallum, Jr., during our high school/college days.

My parents began renting somewhat regularly in the late 60’s/early 70’s. The summer before Sherrill and I were engaged in 1968, she made her first trip to the Belvedere when we visited my parents, who were then renting the Forrester (Valier) cottage.

After college and a 3-year tour of duty in the Army, we returned to Memphis and decided on a summer rental at the Belvedere. My dilemma was matching up my $650 per month salary with a $600 two-week rental at Dieffenbach #222. (I believe I shared the expense with dear friends who joined us on the trip.)

From that point in 1972 forward, we rented every year but one – mostly at 222, but eventually in a majority of the cottages offered for rent. Certainly we must be one of the longest rental families ever on the resort.

To some, “The Dieff” was a bit primitive, but to our children it became the coziest place on the resort, and Sherrill and I too were quite comfortable. Sherrill does remind me of the several years when a washer and dryer were not part of the rental package, and while I was on the golf course, she was at the laundromat. One of the great acts of friendship was Chris Cunningham’s (Barrett) inviting Sherrill to use her washer/dryer whenever she needed.

After my father died in 1984, Sherrill and I invited my mother (Baba) to spend a week with us. She played a lot of tennis, and Mike Ware would frequently remind me of mother’s demand to “Guard your alley, honey” when they were doubles partners. Mother loved the Belvedere and her many Belvedere friends, and – well into her 90’s – was spending weeks with us and often a week with her dear friend Elizabeth Boyle in 139.

For years, “The Dieff” was our annual headquarters, but in time it was not available to rent. Our last three rentals were at the Heitner Cottage (#9). When we learned of their proposed renovation, however, we suspected that their rental opportunity was likely over. Perhaps tiring of the challenge of renting, Sherrill and I sadly pondered the idea of exploring other vacation opportunities.

Then came the news of #135…While we had not heard any of the “for sale” rumblings during our 2017 summer stay, upon receiving the offering flyer while in Memphis, we decided to inquire and made a quick and quiet trip up to tour the cottage. We made an offer, and the rest is history. We did not even advise our children of our interest in advance, as we did not want them disappointed should we not be the successful bidder. Needless to say, they were overjoyed with the news.

Although my retirement allowed us to spend more time up north, it was our family’s joy at having a cottage that really made the purchase practical. Their love of the Belvedere and their excitement to finally have a cottage of our own has created such great family joy. Our nine grandchildren (ages 3 – 13) are enthusiastic gangsters and Belvedere veterans. My prediction is they will continue for multiple generations our family’s cherished tradition of summer life at the Belvedere.

What is it about the Belvedere that sets it apart from the host of lovely vacation spots? In our minds, the reconnecting with dear friends, the rich traditions of community and shared summer experiences…all in such a picture-perfect setting with delightful weather to boot.

With so many Crumps now roaming the grounds, I offer the following to help those of you trying to figure out “who goes with whom”:

Marie Louise and Frank Crump

(1913-2014)       (1909-1984)

׀   

Sherrill and Frank Crump 

    ׀   

                                                                                              Anne Ray (Michael)             Frank Crump IV (Mimsie)            Marie Louise Bowers (Trevor)

                                                                                              Sam, William & George                              Frank & Peter                                  Evelyn, Libby, Louise & Helen

SCHROCK COTTAGE #137
The story of the Schrock cottage #137 from my parents’ purchase in
1946 until 1991 is well covered in the “Blue Book” Belvedere Club
history of 1991. The years since have seen Carolyn’s move from the
organ bench to the plein air artist’s easel in 2001 and Bob’s retirement
from orthopaedic surgery in 2004. Thereafter, our new residence in
Chapel Hill, North Carolina made spending the summer in Charlevoix
essential to escape the heat just as my parents had from Omaha in
the 1950’s. Since 2004 we have spent two or three months in summer
residence yearly, save for 2014 when we were limited to two weeks
due to Bob’s chemotherapy for lymphoma.
A master bedroom and an art studio above it were added to the back
of the cottage in 2004 with the masterful design work of Lori
Wiseman. Her sensitivity for the cottage architecture of the Belvedere
gave it the feel of always having been there. It matched the backs of
the Levi, Grumman and Kuhn cottages. It replaced what was once
the latticed-in back porch that held the ice box and then the the only
shower in the cottage plus the maid’s room.
Carolyn has found wonderful inspiration here for her landscape
painting in pastels. The Lavender Hill Farm on Horton Bay Road, the
many back roads, the vistas over the lakes: all are subjects of her
work.
In the early years of his retirement, Bob took up Charlie Valier’s
challenge to carry on the reinvigoration of the sailing program. With
the critical help of sailing instructors like Mandy Hales Chardoul and
John Schumacher and enthusiasm from the Gang Committee,
renewed effort continued to promote sailing skills. For several years
Bob went out with gangsters as one of the sailing instructors. On one
particularly blustery day with four intermediate gangsters in a Catalina
the jib sheet was stuck in the jam cleat as a puff hit. Bob reached
over to pull and release it because the youngster wasn’t strong
enough. The boat pitched at that moment and he was over the
leeward gunnel and into the water in an instant. He watched, floating
helpless in his life jacket, as four little boys sailed away from him
toward the channel. They managed just fine until the sailing instructor
in the chase boat recognized the problem and came over to solve it.

SCHROCK COTTAGE #137
Bob continued to help with the sailing program thereafter, chagrined
but determined!
The next generation, Suzanne and Bob, got to Charlevoix whenever
they could in their 20’s and 30’s, much as their parents had. They had
not spent as much time as gang members and teenagers as I had.
Still, they developed an appreciation and a love for northern Michigan
that brought them back regularly after marriage and as their families
grew.
After earning a PhD in biochemistry at Vanderbilt, young Bob spent a
four year fellowship at UCSF in San Francisco and moved to Houston
for work in the biotech/pharmaceutical industry. Now in viral-based
therapeutics, he is a regular visitor for a week or ten days every
summer with his wife Marijke and sons Bryan, 26, and Stephen,16.
Bryan is a systems analyst for H-E-B in San Antonio.
Suzanne spent a number of years in genetic research in Baltimore
and Seattle and then got her masters in genetic counseling at UC
Berkeley. She, her husband Jim Kelley and their children Kathryn,20,
and Connor, 18 are regular summer visitors from their home in
Boulder. Kathryn is a sophomore in zoology at the University of
Vermont.
Tennis, sailing, biking, boating, and sleeping are critical for this
generation as much as for Carolyn’s and mine. The more the change
in Life, the more it stays the same!
Bob Schrock

141 Memories

Larry and Midge Perkins purchased Cottage #141 in 1958, figuring Charlevoix to be a perfect way station between home in Chicago, and extended summer sailing adventures in the North Channel, Lake Superior and Lake Michigan. But as the family expanded to the Grumman-Califano-Perkins clans, then the Grumman-Warren-Husman-Perkins-Ehrlich-Califano-Spaete-Arenstein-Schiamberg-McMenamin clans, with some 24 fourth generation little ones ranging in age from 2 to 26 by 2020, Charlevoix became a family tradition, a place for cousins scattered from Seattle to Cambridge, from North Carolina to Malaysia, or from New York City to Beijing, gathered for a week or two nearly every summer.

Midge Perkins’ rule of no TV or radio in the house was intended to foster those bonds, and did just that. Brief exceptions were made for extra special occasions, such as the 1969 Moon landing and the 1981 Royal Wedding of Lady Diana and Prince Charles, watched on a tiny black and white Zenith jerry-rigged from the chimney down, using coat hangers and aluminum foil by engineer David Grumman, Midge’s son-in-law. Other desperate occasions, such as final episodes of the 1975 Masterpiece Theater series “Poldark” (for show addicts and sisters Blair Perkins Grumman and Julia Perkins Califano) had to be viewed by adjusting television channels at Puffs Electronics in downtown Charlevoix, while cousins Caleb Perkins and Eleanor Grumman in 2000 masterminded a special screening of “Survivor” by checking into the Maple Leaf Motel and packing multitudes of cousins into the room for the two hour finale.

Charlevoix served all interests, from artistic to culinary, biking to blobbing. Isabella Califano Ehrlich, a Princeton Tigressions acapella alumna, directed a dozen cousins one summer in a harmonized “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” performance for grandfather Larry Perkins. Educator Judith Perkins stage-managed a 2008 Belvedere Olympics for family athletes under age 10. Gabriel and Sharon Califano masterminded a Belvedere treasure hunt for young pirate, Blair Warren, son of Cornelia Grumman and Jim Warren, with rhyming clues. David Grumman crafted nautically-themed limericks (some PG, and some not), while Mary Ann Grumman, David’s second wife, captured the beauty of the Charlevoix area’s sunflower and lavender fields in photographs with an artist’s eye. Mike Husman, married to Eleanor Grumman. discovered beyond-the-Belvedere supper clubs and other points of interest while training for triathlons. Master fishermen Scott Schiamberg, Phyllis Perkins and Nick Califano perfected pre-dawn fly fishing acumen in the Manistee and other area rivers, sometimes using the aluminum Grumman canoe still hanging in the garage. Family members each contributed a square for a quilt in honor of Julia Califano’s 70^th birthday, and Susanne Grumman and Nick Califano provided the impetus one summer for a family-wide, all-in day of still life watercolor painting.

Sailing, however, persists through generations as the family’s greatest shared love. But just as people age, so do boats. The all-wood, beloved, high-maintenance 1929 Alden schooner, Allegro, eventually was sold for the more manageable fiberglass Allouez, a Pearson 365. In its earlier years Allouez would be cruised up through the Mackinaw straits and into Canada’s North Channel or Lake Superior for weeks-long cruises, hiking, fishing, blueberry picking and swimming. Ultimately, though, the challenging logistics of crew changes, work schedules, small children, border customs and persistent engine failure forced the decision to keep Allouez at Irish Boat Shop, where it’s now used for lovely day sails on Lake Charlevoix.

Food has long played a central role in 141 family gatherings. Third generation cousins share memories of the four Perkins siblings (Dwight, Blair, Brad and Julia) and their spouses (Julie, David, Phyllis and Nick) lingering over meals in the dining room as talk turned to spirited discussions of politics, economics, travel, ancestry, history and art, flipping seamlessly between argument and laughter.

In more recent years, youngsters would be fed an earlier meal at 141, or at another family rental, then Phyllis Perkins would nourish grown-ups with an invariably exquisite feast – admiringly called “culinary bacchanals” and capped at the end by pie and enormous chunks of artisanal cheese hand-selected by Phyllis from Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor along the trip up from Scarsdale.
Each summer, pie superiority provides endless fodder for family debate: Friske’s or Great Lakes? Cherry, cherry berry, or apple caramel crunch?  A family sweet tooth also threads through generations. Had Julierette’s endured, a family epidemic of diabetes surely would have resulted, such was the collective lack of resistance to the former Bridge Street restaurant’s grilled cinnamon rolls. 

Each generation has come to embrace the idiosyncrasies of 141: A refrigerator requiring a shoulder push to seal, shower curtains that must be tucked in just so to prevent dining room waterfalls, an oven door always slightly ajar.  Guests at 141 inevitably develop expertise in toilet tank engineering: flappers, bulbs, flush valves and float arms.  Same with the menagerie of uninvited guests who also call the cottage home: bats, skunks, chipmunks, carpenter ants and racoons (once so bold as to prolifically relieve himself over dinner preparations from the space between the first and second floors.)  David Grumman keeps a lacrosse stick on his sleeping porch in case unwelcome flying critters attempt to interrupt his sleep. The cottage’s collection of baby equipment, cribs and toys used by generations at 141 likely constitutes a large portion of today’s U.S. Consumer Protection Agency’s current recall list.

Newcomers to 141 almost immediately notice the faded, dated and borderline psychedelic fabric on both living room couches, or nearly as garish knit sofa throws lovingly created to match by Julia Perkins (pro knitter) and her sister, Blair Perkins Grumman (non-pro). Younger generations continue to defend against any attempts to reupholster, only because of the daily reminder they provide of our beloved family matriarch, Midge Perkins, and her unique decorating style.

Rarely a summer passes without at least one memorable bike wipeout or tumble down the terrace hill, resulting in stitches, fractures, broken teeth, and scabs. Edith and Fiona Husman, daughters of Eleanor Grumman and Michael Husman, lead fourth generation frequent flyer points at Charlevoix Hospital’s emergency room.  They follow third generation traditions set by Caleb Perkins in rolling, as a baby in his carriage, from 141 down the hill straight into the street below – unscathed and unaware – and Cornelia Grumman, at age 4, lighting her cherry dress afire with a sparkler.

Littered throughout the Perkins-Grumman family are engineers, architects and tinkerers, evidence of which can be seen inside and outside 141, including the homemade King Pong table (ping pong, but bigger) on the side of the house that has been the gathering spot for family tournaments – usually dominated by Noah Grumman, Roy and Susanne’s son, but with emerging competition from Cornelia (& Jim Warren’s) sons, Blair and Eliot. There’s the self-watering flower basket irrigation system created by Roy, as well as his game that challenges kids and grown-ups to guide metal model airplanes along a string and onto the landing deck of a two-foot aircraft carrier set out in the yard.

The original name given to the house by first owners, the Dissettes, was Mapleshade, but over the years we’ve lost both maples and shade from the back of the house and now are down to a single maple tree. In recent years we’ve embarked on a tree planting blitz thanks to Roy and Eleanor Grumman, mainly to try to cool the back of the house from the blazing afternoon sun.

Over the years we’ve happily welcomed many new family members who breathe new vitality and decibel levels to the Belvedere and, during reunion weeks, comprise a substantial percentage of Gang attendance. In November 2003, we also lost Blair Perkins Grumman after a six-year battle with cancer. Elder Blair was a lover of music, politics, family and laughter, and held on just long enough to welcome her namesake grandson, Blair Grumman Warren, into the world in Chicago before passing two days later. Her presence holding court on the front porch of 141, her curiosity about every family member and every world issue imaginable, remains to this day.

Cottage 201 – Stella Alexander

I’ve been coming here all my life starting when I was six months old. My father was Dick Moss.  He came up before he was married with a friend to play golf and fell in love with the Belvedere golf course. He and mother were married the following fall . I was born couple of years later and that first year we came up and stayed in the Belvedere Hotel. Next year we stayed in what is now Darcy Witherspoon’s cottage and the year after that we rented what is now the McDougall cottage.

Then in the summer of 1935 my father and a friend of his thought cottage 201 which is now my cottage. They bought the cottage on the courthouse steps for $1800.  During that summer my father decided he liked cottage so much that he bought his friend out. The following year my sister, Susan Moss Reese was born. That was the only summer in my life that I was not here.  

Like almost all of the children on Belvedere I went to gang. Gang was originally an offshoot of the children’s dancing school given on the resort.  Calla Travis came up here from Grand Rapids for years and brought an assistant with her to help run the dancing school. She owned the cottage that now belongs to the Reardon’s who bought it from Houston Witherspoon.  Both boys and girls went to dancing school for about an hour in the morning. Then in the afternoon Calla’s assistant teacher ran girls gang and the lifeguard at the beach ran the boys gang.  There was a children’s dance at the casino once a week that always started with a Grand March. It was a much sought after privilege to lead the Grand March at the children’s dance.

Gang activities in the afternoon involved the usual activities. There was a lot of swimming and hide and go seek and other games.  There were tennis and sailing lessons but no golf lessons at  that time.  While I was never a gang leader I was for a while an assistant dancing teacher.

When I first started coming up here we would always go to fabulous buffets at the hotel on Thursday and Sunday (the servants days off). The hotel at that time even had a children’s dining room and the candy counter in the front lobby was always a draw for the children. The year we came up here when my son Tommy Alexander was four years old, he was finally old enough to ride his tricycle to the hotel to buy candy. When we arrived that summer and Tommy discovered that the hotel had been torn down over the winter he almost didn’t recover.

Bud Alexander my husband was originally from Oklahoma City but had moved to St. Louis as a child. He came up here to visit me the summer before we were married. He passed the Belvedere test and fell in love with the place and we were married in September 1953. By 1956 when I was expecting my second child,  my father and mother decided the cottage was too crowded and  bought cottage 411 from Mrs. Fristoe who had previously been married to TJ Moss who even though he was from St. Louis was no relation.

After my sister Susan married Carlos Reese in 1958 we shared the cottage until 1961 when they bought number 6.

Most of the early days I came to Charlevoix by train from St. Louis. There were two different ways to get here by train.

The first was an afternoon train from St. Louis to Chicago. Once in Chicago we not only had to change trains but also had to change train stations. We would go to a restaurant called Cape Cod Room in Chicago for dinner and then go to the other train station and get on the Pere Marquette train that would take us directly to Charlevoix. In the early days the train would stop at the Belvedere station. The bell boys from the hotel would be there to collect hotel guests and their luggage and would also help us bring our luggage to the cottage.

The second way was to take a train from St. Louis to Terre Haute Indiana. The train reached Terre Haute in the middle of the night and the cars destined for Michigan would be removed from the train and switched to a different engine. While I’m sure this woke up our parents with all of the jostling of train cars, the children generally slept through it. The next morning that train would arrive in Petoskey where someone would have to meet us and transport us with our luggage back to Charlevoix.

As a child I always stayed in Charlevoix until the middle of September. Schools in St. Louis would open the day after Labor Day but since I suffered from fall allergies my parents decided that I was going to miss school in St. Louis anyway so we might as well stay in Charlevoix.

We had Cecile and Milton, a married couple, as servants up here and they were part of the large group here at the time.  Milton was a barber and cut his friend’s hair on the back porch. He also played the trumpet and was part of the band made up of servants from around northern Michigan.  The group had a club on Antrim Street near the hotel that used occupy the space where Olesons is now.  This club was so popular it drew servants from all over the area including as far away as Harbor Springs.

I remember that the tennis courts across from our cottage started with a single court and then over the next few years as the resort could come up with the money, they were expanded to the present five courts. In season the courts were always very busy in the morning and seniority seem to determine who got court one. Houston Witherspoon and Dick Shelton were there almost every morning. The porch of our cottage (201) became the informal waiting room for an open tennis court. For many of those waiting gin was involved – both drinking and playing the card game.

Houston Witherspoon was also very famous for his dinner parties but being invited to one of them was a bit of a mixed blessing. Houston did not drink and had no alcohol in his cottage. The discussion on the beach in the morning often involved what time invitees were going to start drinking before they went to Houston’s. Houston himself was the cook and he was known for his popovers and his chocolate sundaes.  Most dinners started with a pear and cottage cheese salad and ended with a chocolate sundae.

The Belvedere golf course was always a strong attraction for the husbands on the resort and on rainy days is almost always a bridge game or two going on. The bridge game always seem to attract one of the great characters of the resort – Lewis (Loogie) Morrow. One of his eccentricities was an inability to sit still for very long. He would often get up from the table and walk around the room during the game coming back to the table to play is next card when required. All of his opponents were very careful to breast their cards.

Wives were equally happy with the arrangements in Charlevoix. For years very few of the cottages at any facility for laundering close so they all went out to the cleaners. Children went to dancing school and then to gang so they were not underfoot.

In addition to going to the hotel for dinner a couple of nights a week, the hotel also served lunch on the beach one day a week. The staff transported and assembled lunch and people would go and get their plate and then retire to their cabana to eat. Despite the setting, everyone was fully dressed in regular clothes for these lunches.

The hotel provided evening entertainment for its guests that were also frequented by Belvedere residents.  A couple of nights a week there was a bingo game in the lobby.  Cards cost 25 cents and winners got small cash prizes.  There was also a perennial hotel guest named Mr. Campbell.  He would show his home movies at the hotel.  While this does not seem much of an attraction, many people would come to see they were in his movies from the previous year.

The Grey Gables, the Argonne and the Red Fox Inn were other options for dinner. Most people from Belvedere who were going to the Red Fox would go by boat to Horton’s Bay. The Red Fox staff would meet people at the dock and transport them up the hill to the restaurant. One night we decided to take the children with us to Red Fox but by the time we were ready to go back it started to rain. We called our parents who came in a caravan of cars to transport the women children back to the cottages. We left the men in charge of getting the boats back through the rain.

The day-to-day needs of running the cottages were mostly supplied by local delivery people.
·         The vegetable man came by in his truck every day. I remember that my mother would take advantage of the scale in the vegetable man’s truck to weigh small children.
·         The milkman made his usual deliveries.
·         The Ice man came a couple of times a week to deliver the big blocks of ice used to keep the food cool and put in the drinks.
·         Neff’s and Edwards IGA both delivered the food that was ordered over the phone.
·         Every morning the pony man would come through the resort offering pony rides for the kids for $0.25.

In addition to the children’s dances, they were dances for adults on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday evenings. The orchestra from the hotel would move down to play at the casino for the evening. The bar at the casino was then in the back room where has recently been moved. The other end of the casino had a stage where the board room is now.

Cottage 207            
Forker-Smith Family
Submitted by Chip Smith


If ever I wonder about the true nature of being blessed, I think for a moment about the amazingly fortuitous circumstances of the family into which I was born.  I am lucky enough to be the descendent of my great grandparents, David Mathews Forker and Annie McClure Forker, who purchased the cottage that is now #207 had it moved to its present location on Dana Avenue around the turn of the 20^th century.  The original cottage was just the six rooms on the east side of the cottage and legend has it that it was pulled over the snow by a team of horses and propped up onto its “foundation” of cedar stumps.  We’re the only family that’s ever owned #207.

My grandfather, David M. Forker Jr., was brought to Charlevoix for the first time as an infant in the summer of 1904, allegedly carried on the train from Cincinnati in a laundry basket.  So began the relationship between the extended Forker family and the Belvedere Club, which is now entering its 120^th year, or so. 

Dave married my grandmother Elizabeth Nichols, known to all as Betty, in the mid-1930s and brought his young bride north to Charlevoix to summer at 207 with her mother-in-law in 1937.  I can’t imagine spending an entire summer in a new place, with few relationships and stuck under a roof with my mother-in-law.  Maybe that’s how she got to be so tough! 

Betty and Dave spent every summer together at the Belvedere until Dave passed in 1979.  Betty made her name for herself on the tennis courts where, as she often reminded me, she never lost a match.  She became part of a tight circle of young brides in similar circumstances – making fast friendships with Dottie Leland (later Follansbee), Helen Fox and others. Later she took up golf and won three club championships in her 70s.  Dave retired in 1974 and the last five summers of his life were spent in Charlevoix playing gin rummy with his group of friends, golfing and teaching an impressionable young grandson how to catch perch. I went to Charlevoix with Betty and Dave and after Dave passed, Betty kept taking me along until I started working during the summer in Cincinnati in 1986.  Sometimes I think she brought me just so she could take me out to Smith’s Little Acres to pick peas or squash or something else.  In those days, it was just $1 for me to play nine holes with her after 4pm, so that was my pay.  I believe it’s fair to say that I was overcompensated for my work!

My mother, Peggy, and my uncle David grew up at the Belvedere.  My mother spent summers there for all her life, while my Uncle spent his formative years there before choosing to spend summers at camp.   My parents (Peggy and Charlie Smith) married in 1969, had me in 1970 and brought me north for the first time in July of 1970.  My sister, Margo joined us in August of 1972 and had her Belvedere Baptism in Lake Charlevoix the following summer.

As I think back on my own Belvedere experience, it’s worth noting that I was sent north in 1974 with my grandparents for the summer.  My sister didn’t speak very much and the goal was to get big brother out of the picture for a few months so she’d talk more (it worked!). On arrival in June of 1974, the first thing Betty & Dave taught me was how to mix their martinis.  Not that there was much mixing involved – the entire process consisted of get glass, fill with ice, one squirt of vermouth, fill with gin – but that was the beginning of my Belvedere bartending career. Before long I was their go-to party bartender – I knew how Mrs. Fox took her martinis, how Aunt Dottie (Leland) Follansbee liked her bourbon, and that Mr. Gardner liked peanuts with his Coca-Cola. Laurie Alexander was my first babysitter in Charlevoix – making sure I got to and from gang, watching me during cocktail hour and often getting dinner for me.  I was a terrible kid for her, as she’ll attest, but somehow we’re friends to this day! Adele Wellford was another early babysitter, and while I think I was perhaps less of a hellion for her, I am grateful she doesn’t hold those early days against me!

Gang was something that I looked forward to every year.  Rob Kinnaird, Jamie Hales and I struck up a friendship in those early years that survives these many summers.  While time (and too much fun) has stolen some of my capacity to remember all of my old gang leaders – a few stand out.  I have an early memory of a little gang leader but can’t remember her name.  What was memorable was that she lived just on the other side of Irish marina, and little gang often went to her house if it was rainy.  What was remarkable, and what I remember to this day, is that she had a polar bear skin rug.  (I’ve no idea why I remember this detail other than that it was the mid-1970s and a bear skin rug accurately reflected the times).  There was Bob Kenny, who developed the “launcher” to chuck water balloons great distances;  Steve Reese, who perfected the art of leaving a dead fish in a garbage can and then “invited” us minions for whom good behavior was an anomaly to get a good whiff of the fish to see if it was indeed dead; Kate Tomkinson, Kathy Howes – good gang leaders both – neither of whom deserved the grief that I certainly caused them.  In those days we spent a lot of time playing capture the flag while gang leaders recovered from the night before – sometimes we’d have to go to their cottages to get them so they could “supervise” us. Oh the 80s!

The last time the entire Forker family were all together in Charlevoix was in 2002, when Betty hosted the family party to end all Forker family parties to celebrate her 90^th birthday.  Betty, my uncle Dave, my parents, my sister and I were joined by cousins from near (Sandy Orr – cottage 511) and far (San Francisco, Boston, Lexington, and Long Island) as family from all over flew in for a cocktail party at #207 and a dinner party at the Golf Club the following evening. What a weekend that was!

Margo and her husband Mike Lober married in 2007, and their boys Jacob and Nicholas have continued to enjoy the Belvedere for about two weeks every summer. 

I married Courtney in August 2008, and we spent our “honeymoon” golfing and puttering about Lake Charlevoix in my little Boston Whaler that August. In the years since, we’ve added Rory and Wynne to the Belvedere family. Rory made her first trip north at just three weeks old back in July of 2010.  Wynne’s first trip north was in June of 2013. They have both become passionate about the same things I was taught to love – fishing, tennis, golf, swimming, riding bikes, exploring the woods – and it’s been a thrill to watch.

What’s most amazing to me about the Belvedere Club is the immediate bond that people form with the Belvedere and the people there.  From the first time I brought her to stay at #207, Courtney loved the place and started making friends.  During my first political campaign in 2015, I came north after I’d won the primary election to find that Courtney had a whole posse of friends and that they were all gang kids that I’d helped give tennis lessons to long ago.  What a treat it’s been to renew these friendships as adults!

I watch our girls and as they get older the love they have for the Club and for their friends there grows exponentially. And the single most rewarding and validating feeling I get is when I watch our girls building friendships with the kids of my friends and knowing many of these friendships will be life-long relationships. 

The Belvedere Club is obviously a special place for all of us – the relationships I’ve been fortunate enough to build over the years are those that are dearest to me.  My oldest friend is Rob Kinnaird – we shared summers together as kids and have lived either under the same roof or within 500 feet of one another for the last 24 years in Ann Arbor. Rob taught me where we could steal beer during the summer and that we could sink it in the boathouses to keep it cold when we were teenagers.  He also taught me that saccharine tablets and vermouth are not things a young kid should ever have put into their soda while watching Lost In Space after coming home from gang. 

Erik Lunteigen gave me my first job, helping him at the Tennis Courts in 1983 and 1984.  I have served cocktails to three generations of Mullens and Schumachers. I’ve caught fish with two generations of Shwabs, Kinnairds, and Hales. I’ve lost tennis matches to Buntins, Millions, Wares and Bisbees (wish I could say I’d won a few of those!). I’ve canoed the Jordan with Alexanders and Leathermans, Orrs and Kennys.  And I’ve loved just about every second of all of it.  I’ve been lucky to count George Shwab, Dan Hales, and Charlie Kinnaird as mentors and friends and golf partners.   Jeffrey Buntin and Steve Reese have provided great friendship as they recruited me to serve on the Board of Trustees and then as President.

Fittingly, the most important Belvedere Lesson I ever learned was imparted by the wonderful Barbra (Babs) Shwab.  Way back in the 1970s, Aunt Babs caught me doing something so stupid that she stopped her car, grabbed my ear, pulled me into the car and took me right into the kitchen at #207 and told Betty what sort of stupid thing I was up to. The lesson being that one of your parents (or in my case, grandmother’s) friends is always watching and won’t be afraid to get you in line! 

The exercise of putting these memories to paper has been wonderful.  I’ve had the opportunity to think back over 50 years and all of the folks who have been a part of my Belvedere experience and it’s been hard work distilling it into a few pages that isn’t an interminable read for folks.  What this has left me with is indeed the notion that I have been very blessed to be a part of the Belvedere family and I am ecstatic that my family has the opportunity to continue this relationship for another generation.

Dorothy (Darcie) Mudd Witherspoon – 210 – 

At some time during the late 1980s I tried to capture my feelings about what Belvedere means to me. The sentiment still holds true for me today. I hope you enjoy it:

Here I sit on my parents’ front porch situated on Pavilion Park listening to the wind jostle the oak, beech, birch, and maple leaves. Sometimes it’s a whisper, sometimes a 30-mph roar. Back home in St. Louis, around May, when I hear that familiar sound, I know it’s time to head up to Michigan. Even when my oldest, Anna, was a little girl of six, she remarked that the wind blowing through the trees reminded her of Charlevoix. Each time I leave for my true home, I leave a part of me here, which goes dormant with the approaching cold only to be revived when I return ten months later. I’ve tried to capsulize those summer sights, sounds, smells and feeling with photographs, preserves, framed paintings and pottery mugs but they only make me hunger for a complete fulfillment of all my senses.

The smell of bacon or coffee wafting across the tennis courts in the morning; the pungent smell of the newly mowed golf greens; the strong fishy smell of fresh or smoked whitefish, salmon, or trout at John Cross; the delicate smell of rose gardens scattered on the grounds; the sickly sweet smell billowing out of Murdick’s Fudge; the mouthwatering odor of a beach cookout; even the moist smell in the air that tells me it may soon be a shopping day in Harbor Springs or Petoskey. All of these penetrate my nostrils and activate my mind whether allergies are present or not.

The sounds are endless: the rhythmic sound of tennis balls being hit back and forth across the net; a group of friends gathering by chance—a mixture of North and South, East and West crescendo-ing into laughter; the little voices of gangsters on the beach playing in the sand; the wail of the noon whistle or the alertness of the fire alarm; a game of capture the flag in full swing near the casino; the lunch time critiques and compliments at the golf course; the silence when the motor is cut while setting sail; the response of the bridge calling passersby to watch the boats pass through; the chatter of black squirrels, the call of seagulls, the peeps of the ducklings following behind their mother; a wooden door slamming behind a child late to gang; the ever so slow fading of a cigarette boat crossing Lake Charlevoix; the warning whine of the foghorn; and of course the wind.

The sights are always present: the distant flash of lightning warning one to close the car windows; the ripple of water after the fish jump; bicycles dropping out of view as they plunge down the tennis court hill; the vivid colors of spinnakers on Wednesday nights; the peach and purple afterglow of sunsets; the multitude but harmonious blend of painted cottages; the crisp blue of sky and the greenness of Lake Charlevoix; the black and white flash of an unwelcomed guest; impromptu baseball or football games in the park; the tunnels on the Jordan River marking the lunch spot; Mr. Moerland biking to club concerns. These visions I can see even with my eyes closed.

Feelings run deep intermingled with my senses of Charlevoix: the exhilaration of wind, wave, and sail joining forces; the pride when a child receives a special award; the peacefulness of an early morning walk; the closeness brought on by a warming fire on a chilly night; the pleasure of seeing once again childhood and adulthood friends; the contentment of just sitting on the front porch sensing life around me, feeling the wind. 

*             *             *             *

All my Belvedere summers I have listened to the wind from that porch.

Cottage 210 was purchased in 1949 by my parents, Dotty and Dayton H Mudd, when I was three years old. They wanted a place of their own because my mother’s family was on Mercer Boulevard in Charlevoix and my father’s family was on Walloon Lake. While we spent time in both of those places during the summers, Belvedere was our family’s summer place. And because my family moved numerous times around the Midwest while I was growing up, 210 on the Belvedere Club seemed more like home to me as it was a constant every summer of my life.  

My childhood on the Belvedere was wonderful with my sisters, my brother, and my parents. There was boating on the Xtabay, and then the Dolphin, and learning to ski at 13 behind the Great Daymon. Big family gatherings on Lake Charlevoix or Walloon Lake were usually finished off with boating at night, and dinners at Mercer concluded with being able to take a walk by ourselves but only as far as the end of the fence. Beach picnics full of cousin fun and getting to exploring the land at two-mile point were occasions not to be missed.

As kids we loved to go to the Belvedere Hotel. We could only play bingo and have dinner there if we had an adult with us, but we were allowed to take ourselves to the glass counter to buy candy and gum. Only when we were feeling bold and clever did we ever poke our heads into the Bamboo Room (the bar), or sneak into the elevators when Lulu, the elevator operator (who had amazing red hair), took her lunch break. We’d go check out the floor with the employee’s rooms. Or sometimes we would sneak onto the roof-top to take in the spectacular view of the club and the lake. I remember being upset when the hotel was torn down. It was such an elegant hotel and we felt so grown up when the hotel band would play at the Casino for Gang dances.

Gang dances were one of the only times that the boys and the girls were together because back then the Gangs were divided into Girls Gang and Boys Gang. At these Gang dances we would learn how to dance. As a younger girl we would do the bunny hop and hokey pokey. There was also the Thorn Rosa dance, but I was never lucky enough to be Thorn Rosa, I felt I wasn’t pretty enough to be picked. But I sure felt pretty when I got to dance with my dad, just the two of us. As I got older, I learned the Charleston and wore a lovely blue silk dress. Sadly, we learned I was allergic to that dress when my asthma flared up and I was crushed I couldn’t wear it again. 

I loved when I was old enough to be in the Big Girls Gang because we got to go horseback riding at Hooker’s riding stable and ring on the other side of town and have archery lessons by the back gate. There was also swimming and tennis. We would sing “waiting for the slow pokes to come” to the Little Gang from the top of the tennis court hill. Golf had yet to become part of Gang activities, so I didn’t really take to it as I did tennis. There were also overnights to Young State Park, Fisherman’s, and Whiting. We would tell ghost stories and make full fixing breakfasts in the morning. We did arts and crafts on rainy days. Sailing then was in the Rockets. The gang kids were always the “crew” with our advisors being a Gang Leader or some knowledgeable club member like the Witherspoons or the Wares. Often, after gang, my siblings and I would play ‘kick the can’ with the Wares (of 212) in the park in front of our cottages.

Teen Gang started for the first time with my age group around 1959 or 1960. The parents wanted some organized things for their “in-between” kids to do and Teen Gang was just that, and it was co-ed!  I went to Teen Gang when I returned from camp in Colorado. We went to Tahquamenon Falls for camping, went water skiing, and learned to play bridge. There was a new movie every three or four days at the Palace Theater for only 75 cents. Generally, lots of organized fun for teenagers to do. Throughout the decades Teen Gang has come and gone.

Outside of Gang we would head to Petoskey to Flora Ottomer’s for winter clothes, or Wimpy’s for the best olive and mayo hamburgers around. Or maybe go to the Pony Tail “club” that was on the way to Harbor Springs. Roy Oberson and the Beach Boys played there. Or maybe we’d even stay in Charlevoix to enjoy a Jeff or Green River soda down at Schroeder and Hovey Pharmacy. I volunteered at the Charlevoix Hospital, as did a lot of Belvedere young adults, those who were out of Gang but still spent their summers on the club.

As a late teen and early twenty-something, I started to put some of my time back into the Belvedere Club to create fun happy memories for others as I had already started collecting in my life. In 1964 Linda Sherer and I produced the Cabaret. It had a cave-man theme and was so much fun. I was a Gang Leader for two years, in 1967, and with Bethy McKay Hall in 1968 for the Intermediate Gang. It was such a fun job, with too many memories to try to recount. And it came full circle when my daughters, Anna and Clare, had the children of my gangsters under their care in the late 80s and 90s.

As my siblings and I started our own families, cottage 203 was purchased in 1974 for the overflow and the new generation of gangsters beginning to enjoy the summer fun on Lake Charlevoix. Between the three Mudd sisters we had eight kids in a 15-year span.

While my kids were growing up, my interaction on the Club adjusted again. I’ve been on the Tennis Committee several times (hiring Erik Lundteigen in 1981 is one of my proudest accomplishments for them). I was co-director of Gang in 1985 with Andy Hill Schumacher and in 1986 and 1987 with Ginger Payne. I was on the Archive Committee during the creation of the second Belvedere Club book (1990) and various other times.

My children and nieces and nephew were able to experience the boating, Bell’s Bay beach picnics, cherry picking, golfing, and all the gang activities that I so loved as a child. It was fun to watch them all playing at Games in the Park, running through the club on scavenger or treasure hunts, sailing the Hawks and hitting the tennis ball across the net to their gang friends, and hearing the cheers as my son John ran around the Charlevoix High track during the Gang Summer Olympics. They made life-long friends and grew closer as cousins. They were even gang leaders, a lifeguard, and a sailing instructor. Watching them all grow up under the same summer setting, and at the end of the season being sun kissed and dancing with my dad at Cabaret, confirmed why being on the Belvedere was so special.

When my children grew out of Gang and took on more adult roles, I also started to explore Charlevoix in a new way. I married Jim Witherspoon in 1992. Over the years we sailed around different parts of Lake Charlevoix, Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, and Lake Huron. Taking two weeks to explore our second home on the Algonquin was always a fun experience and reminded me of the cruising I did with my family on the Xtabay or Dolphin growing up. I was excited to have a doubles partner in Jim. It added a new level of enjoyment and connection for me out on the courts. As the years have continued for us, we began attending the Tuesday night Charlevoix City Band Concerts and sharing them with our grandkids, hosting the occasional progressive dinner with my sisters and their husbands, and watching Belvedere stay the same and yet grow with each generation—enjoying old traditions and creating new ones.

After both my parents passed away the two family cottages were divided between my siblings and me in 2007. Then, with each family expanding even more my sister Dail purchased 212 and we could watch our grandchildren grow and spend summers together, right next door to each other. These days we love to sit on our porches to visit while we watch all 11 Mudd great-grandchildren, some arriving from 203, play together in the park that we so loved playing in ourselves.

I am sure, whether they know it or not, they also hear that wind I love so much. The sound is overhead while they are concentrating on sidewalk chalk art, in the background while they are laughing together walking home from gang, and a part of the action while they are throwing the frisbee in the park. From time to time these great-grandchildren of Dotty and D.H. join in the quite hush of the wind as well when they sit next to me on the porch bench, swinging their little legs and enjoying the view. The peace of this place affects them as well and I suspect that, like me, whenever they are elsewhere the echo of the wind returns them here.

Cottage 211 – Kinnaird Family Christie Kinnaird –

The Kinnaird family on Belvedere actually started as the Roemler Family.  My great grandfather Charles Oscar Roemler and his wife Adelaide Goetz leased cottage 233 back in 1910 (now owned by Ruth Moore). My father Charles Roemler “Skip” Kinnaird was born in July 1932 and spent most of his summers with his grandparents.  Adelaide passed away in 1947 and Charles sold the cottage in 1949 thus beginning my father’s long stretch without the Belvedere.

Both my Father and my Mother, Susan Wiltshire Stempfel, were born in Indianapolis.  They were born 3 weeks apart in the same hospital.  My parents went to kindergarten together, then Mom and her family moved to Nashville.  Grandpa Stempfel spoke fluent German (being in the first generation born in the US).   Being in the Army and speaking German, he was the commander in charge of German prisoners during WWII.

My parents met again while attending a mutual friend’s wedding and the rest is history as they say.  They married in May 1955 and eventually Dad brought Mom to Belvedere, renting for several years before purchasing 211 in 1966.

In 1961 my brother Jim was born, followed by me in late 1963.  Then Rob (the current cottage owner) in 1969 and the twins Ed and Keith in 1971.  There are 9 grandchildren now; Jim has 2 boys and a girl, Rob has 2 girls, Ed has 2 boys and Keith has a boy and a girl.

One of the greatest things about being young at Belvedere was the freedom we had as kids.  Our parents knew we wouldn’t leave the “reservation” as my Dad calls it.  At our home in Detroit, it was “Mom, can I go to Carolyn’s house.  But on Belvedere as I was flying out the door it was “Mom, I’m going to Amy’s”

Some of my fondest memories of Belvedere are:

Every one of us kids learned to swim in Lake Charlevoix, on the kiddie side.  Yes, it used to be segregated between kids and adults. If you found a piece of glass on the beach and turned it in, you got a piece of candy
Putting pennies on the Railroad track and then trying to find them after the train went by, hoping the train would not derail as our parents warned.
The Leakas boys would take my bike after gang to ride from the Casino to the Blue Bell
My bike was named “the green machine” and lasted all through my young years but finally fell apart one year by the tennis court hill.  Unfortunately, my brother Keith was riding it at the time.
David Alexander and I would drink coke from the little coke machine they had on their back porch.

Gang: I only remember my leaders from Big Gang, Chris and Ginger Payne and Doug Kuhn (see more about this later). 
We had tennis, sailing and golf lessons. One year the lake was high, and you could go down the slide into the lake, and the sailing office was flooded. I hated golf lessons because we would hit balls from the top of a huge hill and then have to go pick them up and bring them back to the top of the hill.
I learned to ride horses at Driggits and even worked there 2 summers taking out people who wanted to go for a ride.  I even went every week after I aged out of gang.  Mr. Driggit would see me get out of the car and say, “Go get (insert horses name)”.  He would tell me to be back in an hour and I was.
Capture the flag by the Casino. One day a bunch of us were playing outside the Reese cottage and as I dove for the flag my head connected with someone’s knee (I think Leland Inghams).  I ended up with a concussion.  I still have no idea if my side won.
Petoskey Stone hunting was a favorite.  Mom and I would wander down one of the beaches: Belvedere, Lake Michigan or Belles Bay.  Mom would be in front with me trailing behind saying “you missed one, you missed one.”  Eventually she made me walk in front.  I would spend hours polishing the stones until they shone.  One day we decided to set them on the windowsill in the laundry room and spray them with shellack.  Not a great idea, as we had to pry the stones off the windowsill.  I think the shellack rings were there for about 20 years.
 
My father, George Schwab and Bob Million decided one year to buy a boat.  It was a 36-foot wooden hulled boat they named the Shkillion.  Then came the Happiness II.  On the Shkillion I would have to lay on the floor of the boat, right next to the speakers to hear my favorite 8 track from Peter, Paul and Mary.

Venetian was a special time.  We decided to take popcorn down to the boat to watch the fireworks one year.  I made batches and batches on the stove, yes with the big pan, oil and kernels, shaking back and forth.  I put the finished batch into the bag and move onto the next.  When the bag was about half full, we grabbed it to head out the door only to find the popcorn all over the kitchen floor.  Yes, in our infinite wisdom, we had used a plastic trash bag.  The following years were better.
I caught my first fish while fishing with Dad in Oyster Bay.  That was a favorite picnic spot every summer.  We could swim off the boat and while the swans were around, we would feed them bread.  The wrecks in Oyster Bay still creep me out to this day every time we go over them.

As I got older, I got interested in Family History and Genealogy.  Mom had always said we were related to the Kuhns through her side of the family.  So, Doug Kuhn, my gang leader, became Cousin Kuggie Dune.  I have no idea why, but it was cute when I was little.  Through research I can see that we must be related, we share the same family names, but I’m still searching for the “missing link”

Dad asked me to search to see if we were related to the Whitehead/Millions as he had an aunt Whitehead from the same town as the Whiteheads at Belvedere (who sold their cottage some years ago).  It turns out that yes, we are related through that Aunt.  And since Dr Whiteheads sister married Bob Million (mentioned above), we were related to Millions as well.  So, my childhood friends Diane and Lucia became distant cousins and some of my favorite non-related aunts and uncles became distantly related.

I still try to get back to Belvedere as often as possible. But it doesn’t always work out.  My job interferes with my freedom now a days.  A lot of changes have been made to the cottage by my brother Rob, all changes for the better.  I’m so glad I got to spend my childhood years on the “reservation” and wouldn’t trade them for anything.

Thoughts of Charlevoix and the Belvedere Club   –
By Jim Peters 

My first recollection is of the Belvedere Beach, when I was about five (1953).  There was a temporary waterski dock with steel uprights and white planks to walk on, at the north end of the beach.  It was closer to the Casino, and away from the normal swimming area.  While my brother, Dick, was out skiing with friends, I was left there alone, so I swam under water, under the ski dock, as I knew there were no scary fish there at the time.  I can’t imagine any adults on the beach allowing a young kid to do that by himself these days.  

Our family cottage was #212, owned by my grandfather; Robert R. Ware, Sr.  #212 was a wonderful place with its own distinct smell, which we all remember and loved.  Uncle Bob (Robert, Jr.) later put up a sign on the side porch naming it “The Ware-House” and Gram and Mom always bought fresh cut flowers in town from Mrs. Rowe, which were put in every room.  Years and years later, my youngest uncle Ralph (Mike) Ware, learned that distinct smell was caused by a plumbing leak under the cottage, which created a mold situation there.  I guess the smell is gone now.   

My brother Dick and I always got to sleep on the back porch above the garage. We each had queen size beds to sleep in.  The large porch has windows on three sides so we could listen to the leaves rustle in the trees and enjoy the fresh air breezes that were always present.  When it rained, sleeping was even better as there were endless sights, smells of fresh air and sounds of the falling rain to lull us to sleep.  Our older sister Jan, sometimes had the front room which my dad called the “Bridal Suite” as it had two twin beds.  I’m sure she enjoyed the fresh air too but she had a lot fewer windows to enjoy than we did. 

One time late one night, I was wakened by the sounds of what I thought was rain on the garage roof, only to look up and see Dick hanging out one of the porch windows throwing up on the garage roof.  He had been to Mt. McSauba “partying” with friends that night.  I’m sure (young) Bob Million was involved as those two always seemed to be together. 

I usually hung around with Chris Payne, John Fox, Richard (Dick) Mueller and Hilton Fraser as we were near in age and went to “GANG” together.  We also spent many evenings with the Mueller‘s playing board games in the Allen cottage, which backed up to the tennis courts.  (For those who don’t know GANG is like an organized kids’ daycare where we were taught by older local girls; horseback riding, canoeing, swimming, sailing, tennis and games like Capture the Flag, which I always enjoyed!  We often went on field trips to go horseback riding or canoeing down the Jordan River, but usually had morning beach activities then tennis in the afternoon, after the adults were finished playing tennis and then went on to play golf in the afternoon – they did this every day except Sunday I might add.)  Because of playing tennis on the Belvedere, I fell in love with the clay courts there and never liked playing tennis on concrete back home. 
At any rate, Dick and I remember as a young child, when Hilton was asked his name, he would stand up straight, puff out his chest and say, “My name is Hilton Brown Fraser the Third!”  Dick asked Hilton that question a lot for some reason. 

While in GANG, we all had an afternoon brake for lunch, so we would get on ‘our’ bikes and rush back to the cottage, ‘cause if we were late, we didn’t eat.  We used the cottage bikes every year while there.  They had those big old balloon tires, which never seemed to hold air for long, so Dick was intent on keeping the tires inflated, even though we didn’t have a tire gauge.  Well, we always parked our bikes at the side porch sidewalk (in the sun), which was right at the dining room door so we would be assured to not be late.  Within about fifteen minutes of eating lunch, we heard a loud BOOM and looked up to see Dick’s bike falling down and knocking the others over.  He had over-inflated the tires and with the heat of the sun, the air expanded and a tire exploded.  Fearing heart attacks all around, Gram was not pleased with that episode. 

Speaking of heart attacks, I was about nine years old maybe when Gramp (Robert R. Ware, Sr.) had his FIRST heart attack while we were in a Belvedere Club sailboat race with Judge Allen and me.  I don’t remember him giving instructions as to how to sail back, but he was the only ‘sailor’ on board.  I do remember he was in terrible pain and he couldn’t breathe while lying down on the wooden cockpit bench.  I also remember that Judge Allen did know what was happening and tellingly tried not to worry me.  But he was not a good sailor and I was young enough that I didn’t know much about sailing either, so we were having trouble getting back.  

The club’s harbormaster somehow knew we had problems (no cell phones in those days), probably because we managed to leave the racing group, and came to us in the middle of Lake Charlevoix in the club’s aluminum outboard powerboat.  He towed us all the way back in to the club’s dock.  Someone called the hospital as soon as an emergency situation was known on shore.  I remember the harbor master and Judge Allen helped roll Gramp from the sailboat up onto the dock where he was only able to lie there on his back and try to breath through his lack of oxygen and intense pain.  An ambulance (finally) arrived and the two EMT’s had difficulty carrying Gramp, on a stretcher, all the way up those steps to the ambulance. 

A day or two later, I remember going to the hospital with Mom to visit Gramp, but I was too young and not allowed to go in, so I walked around the side of the building where I saw Gramp through the lounge picture window, standing there eating grapes.  He smiled at me and offered grapes to me, through plate-glass the window.  That’s when I knew he was OK and had his sense of humor back. 

Hilton Fraser had the first Jet Ski I ever saw.  It was narrow and you had to stand up on it to ride.  There were no seats so it was a little tricky to get on at first, but once I did, I remember I was able to jet ski across Lake Charlevoix to “Shade’s Point” and back on my first attempt.  My ‘little’ cousin, now Lt. Col. John C.H. Ware USAF retired, went next and did a great job skiing.  That was fun for all.   

I also remember sailing one time with Hilton and his first wife.  Hilton had a Sunfish then so the three of us were quite close in the cockpit, and I had a hard time keeping my ‘eyes on the wind’ as his very attractive and shapely wife was wearing just a loosely woven yellow fishnet bikini.  It’s a wonder we didn’t capsize. 

Of course when in Charlevoix, we had to go fishing.  My dad, Wallace G. Peters, was an avid fisherman and that rubbed off on Dick and me.  When dad was alive, we always had a small run-about boat we took out to fish for Yellow Perch and Smallmouth Bass.  If fishing got slow, we go for pan fish in the shallow harbor at the north end of the lake.  When we didn’t have a boat though, Dick and I would fish from the train bridge or the club’s boat docks, usually at Gramp’s boat slip where he tied up the Frolic.   
Dick and I both caught a Northern Pike right next to the Frolic one year and we decided to mount the two heads to hang on a wall in the cottage, like shark jaws.  Of course the heads had to be dried first, so we propped the mouths open and put them on the cottage roof of 212 over the front porch to ‘cure’. They kind of looked like small sharks.  However, with the resulting smell and all the flies though, that didn’t last long.  Gram was a little upset and not pleased with that episode either.  Our trophy mounts were history. 
Not to be deterred, I found a very long aluminum fishing pole down below in the Frolic.  It had a casting reel on it with that old black braded fishing line and that had a large shiny silver spoon already attached.  The rig obviously was ready to be used for trolling during a sail.  Perfect, I thought!  With that rig I could cast all the way across to the boathouses on the other side, while avoiding the snag Dick and I had become so familiar with in a particular spot close to the club’s sail boats.   
Man this is great I thought during my backswing!  Whizzzz…..boing!!  That darn shiny silver spoon made it to the top of its ark and immediately snapped back heading right for me, landing in the water at my feet off the end of the dock.  The casting reel had gotten a tangled backlash so big it filled up my hand.  Oh brother I thought.  This is going to a year to untangle!  It didn’t take a year, but it did take a very long time to straighten out and when all was cleared and I started reeling up the spent line, I had a snag.  Oh brother, what else could happen?  I thought.  But snags don’t move.  I soon realized I had a fish-on!  I knew it wasn’t a bass as it was just moving slowly with a strong steady pull, and it was big! 
Pretty soon folks started gathering, as this fish didn’t want to come up.  That aluminum pole was bent in half for a long time, which got a lot of attention.  I was starting to tire.  Eventually the fish came up close enough to the surface that we could see it and then someone yelled, “It’s a huge Northern!”  By that time, the empty boat slip next to the Frolic had folks lined up on both sides watching me try to pull the fish to shallow water where I could land it by myself.  Someone jumped in the knee-deep water at the end and offered to land ‘my fish’.  But proud as I was, I foolishly said, “No, I need to land it myself”, so I reached down to grab the leader and pull the fish up, just as it spooked and flicked its tail resulting in me grabbing the black line itself, which snapped.  Quite casually, that huge Northern turned and slowly swam toward deep water with that big silver spoon dangling from its jaw.  Then they both disappeared to the depths.   

As with life itself, all things must come to an end and our beloved cottage is no longer in the family.  We miss it and we miss all the wonderful friends we made over the years while there.  Be good, stay healthy, have fun and enjoy life while you can. 

Ware/ Alexander/ Vellano Belvedere Memories – Cottages 212, 135, 222 –

Cottage 212 was my first memory of Belvedere and Charlevoix the  Beautiful. Growing up in South Texas with brothers, Bob and Tom, and much later sister Amy we were always eager for our station wagon treks to Northern Michigan. We exclaimed over the very different flora and  fauna found there. “Michigan grass” and “a black squirrel” were commonly  shouted by us all through the years.

We looked forward to the freedom of bicycles, park play with friends, and  gang activities. In the 50’s and 60’s Gang activities were somewhat  different than today. We went horseback riding, paddled the Jordan River  in canoes, and slept under the stars on Michigan Beach near Fisherman’s  Island. My group was part of the first ever Teen Gang! There were lots of  us expertly corralled by Ann and Butch Mullen as our Gang Leaders. What  wonderful memories I have with friends from Bisbee, Bemis, Flanigan,  Kukn, Orr, McKay, Mudd, Shelton, Scherer, Leland, Hill, Leatherman,  Rutherford, Mueller, Payne, and Perkins families.

In 1960 my parents, Amy & Ralph ( Mike ) Ware, bought cottage 135 from  the Kuhn family. Baby sister Amy joined the family in 1965. Now we were  “ in the woods” and added bats, bunk beds, and an occasional badger at  the back door to our family memories. My daughters , Kim and Lettie, first  experienced Belvedere in cottage 135. They each have their own favorite  memories of scavenger hunts, overnight trips, and sailing regattas with life  long friends.

Ann and Don Kelly then became a welcome addition to the Belvedere as  they took ownership of that cottage in 1985. The Wares and Alexanders   were back in 212 then with intermittent cottage rentals for many summers  until 2010 when it was purchased by Dail Loyd.

Lettie and Mike Vellano purchased cottage 222 in 2020. It happens to sit  directly across the street from 212 which originally belonged to her great  great grandfather, Elisha C. Ware. Life on the Belvedere has come full  circle for the Ware/Alexander/ Vellano families. We couldn’t be happier!

Sudi Ware Alexander

Janet E. Peters’ childhood memories of Charlevoix,

Written September 2021, as I enjoyed remembering –

Sounds

          Acorns hitting the bedroom roof over my head; the deep horn of the freighter blowing for the bridge on its way down to Advance, clearing the channel walls by inches; the wonderful, deep “Beeee ohh” of the old foghorn; the noon whistle, calling us up from the beach for lunch; the many sounds of tennis balls being hit on the tennis courts; the clang of the metal handles hitting the May pole-like center, at Michigan beach; Bobby Schrock, Terry Shwab and other older boys playing football after dinner in Pavilion Park; Faye and Betty, high school choir members Gram had hired for the summer, singing in harmony as they cleaned up the kitchen after dinner in time for Faye to go play softball, a sport she continued to enjoy well into adulthood; waves lapping the Frolic as Gramp (Robert R. Ware [Sr], also known as Skipper) took us sailing and the sound of lines hitting the mast; the gentle sound of waves lapping the beach; Gramps’ “Hard a lee”; Gramps’ LOUD whistle; Gram’s “Now, Robin” as she gently chastised him; the loud snores coming through the transoms of every bedroom in the cottage when I awoke one night to use the bathroom and quietly laughed, wishing  I were a composer and could set those snores to music; the canon starting off the club sailboat races in afternoons; hearing Chopsticks being played ad infinitum in the Mithoefer cottage across the street

Smells       

          The unique smell of the cottage, welcoming us back; just out of the oven chocolate chip cookies awaiting us as we trooped up from the beach;

Sights

          Fresh salmon-colored gladiolas in a vase by the front door of 212, which the hummingbirds all loved; children making drip castles on the beach; sunsets at the Michigan beach, an after-dinner ritual; boys diving off the boat houses or the railroad bridge; the penny Gramp put on the railroad tracks for the train’s wheels to squash; Gramp laying out the Frolic’s sails to dry in the grass in front of the cottage; the beautiful greens and blues of the water; billowing, colorful spinnakers on sailboats racing down the lake;  the little Dockside Press along Belvedere Avenue and all the books on lake history in it; having lunch at the Parkside while enjoying the view of Round Lake from their windows; Mom and other family members on our backs on beach towels at the site of the old hotel, giggling as we watched the show of shooting stars (and making enough noise the night guard had to come over to see who and what we were up to); the regular arrival at the kitchen door of the “flower lady” with the back of her station wagon filled with arranged bouquets in water-filled coffee cans.  Gram always had fresh bouquets in the bedrooms when we arrived at the cottage; the last summer of Mom’s life, wheeling her near the apple tree by the back gate to watch the deer enjoying the fruit, then driving down to the Belvedere beach and seeing more of them – a  record of 17 deer that evening.  Mom was thrilled.

Tastes        

          Gram’s homemade strawberry or peach ice cream and the frustration of only one scoop per summer as Gram invited all those who’d helped churn the ice cream, their families, and others to enjoy that  wonderful taste. (When Mom [Evelyn Ware Peters] made it at  home, we insisted she make TWO batches, so we could enjoy it more than once.) S’Mores at the end of picnics at Fisherman’s Island State Park; Houston’s perfect popovers; my first taste of Ranch Dressing, served at cocktail parties with baby vegetables from Bluff Gardens; pies at Jesperson’s, which Sunny Hemingway had told us about when we met her one day in Petoskey, those pies a  treat which became a must each time we were shopping in Petoskey; shrimp dinners at Argonne; eating cheese crackers with peanut butter while waiting for the Ironton Ferry; Having Jeffs at the counter of the pharmacy in town; the search for Al-Meda candy each season, a candy treat Mom first remembered when “the candy lady’s son” came to the cottages to sell their products.  By the time I was hooked on it, that young boy and his wife were the owners and Uncle Jack Ware and wife Carol even found them at their Florida home during the winters.

Other adventures, treats, and traditions

          Gramp rowing me from the bayou, across the deep and scary channel, then around the old river off Chicago Club; Gramp, brother Jim, and Judge Allen having to get back to shore when Grampa had a heart attack while they were in a race of club boats.  As I remember the story, Gramp was giving them sailing instructions as they heading in; the thrill of being allowed to get into the ice or milkman’s horse drawn (don’t remember the vehicle – just the horse) and ride from our kitchen door, down the street that used to be in front of 212, until we got down the hill by the tennis courts, where we hopped off and ran back to the cottage; playing under the umbrella-shaped mulberry tree at the other end of the (later) sidewalk in front of 212; playing bingo at the old Belvedere hotel; hearing a large freighter blow for the bridge, we hopped from our beds, threw on coats over our night clothes, dashed into the car, picked up Houston as he came out of his cottage, and hurriedly drove down to the Michigan beach to watch the show as the captain maneuvered the ship between channel walls barely wide enough to let him through.  And the people watching from the channel tossing cans of beer up to the sailors on board; catching crayfish in the water behind the boat houses the years the water was high; Going on a picnic along Lake Michigan north of town instead of our usual Fisherman’s Island destination because Hilty Fraser was wearing a cast.  (Shouldn’t have bothered – he was as active as all the other kids); impromptu Fishermans’ Island State Park picnics with the Mueller/Allen tribe; though we could wear our bathing suits to the table at lunchtime, we always got dressed up for dinner; reading in the quiet corner on the north side of the porch, while still able to view the goings-on in the living room; my brothers and I heading for the Allen cottage on Belvedere Avenue on rainy days because there always were interesting games being played there; on ice cream-making day, shopping with Gram for ice from Heise’s, heavy cream from Max Bauer’s dairy, and rock salt from (?).  Other days I went with her to buy meat from “Souppy?) at the little grocery at the top of the hill on Bridge Street; white fish, beets, and beet greens on Gram’s menu the day a family was due to arrive at 212; cousin Johnny Ware (Jack’s son) stopping at the kitchen door of the bakery on the way home from a date to bring fresh donuts back to the cottage for breakfast; sitting on the side porch with Gram as we snapped the green beans for dinner; riding a bike over the Rustic Bridge – SCARY!; hearing stories of the two Belvedere cottage fires Gramp helped fight; Gram and Gramps enjoying playing bridge with the Valiers and the Caldwells

#220 Liz Teasdale –

Thirty years is a long time between books and a lot has changed at #220.  Caroline, Doug and Cindy have all gotten married and produced children so there are now eight grandchildren. Caroline and Andrew Walker’s twins are now 18 and Nate spends a good deal of his time up here on the tennis courts. Doug and Jen’s three girls, Ava, Kate and Maren are 17, 15 and 13 and have loved their weeks up here especially when they bring friends.  They not only come in the summer but have spent a lot of Labor Days and Applefest weekends here. Cindy’s three boys, Walter (age 9) and Hal and Gus (age 7) adored gang this year.

In 2007 we bought Houston Witherspoon’s cottage (#213) from Jim and enjoyed having it for the overflow until 2014 when the Reardons bought it and have done wonderful things with it.  Caroline and Andrew bought Roxanne Dieffenbach’s right next door (#222) and had a wonderful time renovating it before selling it to the Vellanos in 2020.  Now all 15 family members are going to share #220.

We are still enjoying Casino dinners, Bible study, Wednesday evening beach picnics and Thursday afternoon bridge as well as all the wonderful friends on the Belve. Because of Covid some to the cute gang’s performances were in our little park up here which was fun.  I LOVE seeing all the little kids.

I’m blown away by the wonderful changes to the resort in the past thirty years.  The Casino is spectacular after the renovations several years ago.  Each cottage looks well taken care of – people now have landscaping instead of a few stray hydrangeas out front.  We have sprinkler systems!  Cottages are selling for ten times what we bought our for – even the wrecks! Private
planes bring residents back and forth.

The town has had some ups and downs and this year with Covid it was hard to get into all our favorite restaurants:  the Argonne, Terry’s, the Weatherane.  Hopefully that will change when this pandemic is really over.   Also this summer (2021) the shops in town seem to be upgraded – we went through an ugly t- shirt shop phase awhile ago.  We enjoyed some of the wonderful fashions at the Fashion Show over the Member-Guest weekend.

We have all just loved our forty+ years on the Belvedere.

Cottage 230 – Flora Stoner from Laura Stevens and David Stoner – Back to Book 3

By Flora E. Stoner, written in 1990 but edited for this new edition by Laura Stevens and David Stoner

            In 1940, we planned to spend out vacation in Northport, Michigan, with a couple from Detroit.  The inn was a lovely place but it was dull.  The manager, realizing that we wanted a livelier vacation, suggested the Belvedere Hotel.   He even phoned and secured reservations for us.  It was a happy choice.  Harold and his friend played golf; his wife and I shopped.  The Hotel had lots of charm and the food was good.  Everyone seemed to know each other; we were definitely the “outsiders.”  One night during dinner Harold’s friend turned to him and said “These girls are pretty lucky to be able to come on a vacation with their bosses.”  After that the atmosphere was noticeably cooler. 

            In 1951, we thought of Charlevoix and found through Mr. Edwards that we could rent cottage 511, the Orr cottage.  By that time we had two children, David and Laura Jane. The cottage was just right for us.  My mother came to stay with us and brought a nursemaid for Laura Jane.  The neighbors were mostly friendly.  The Hollencamps lived nearby and the Schlemans were next door to them.  Dr. and Mrs. Freyhof lived on the other side and welcomed us warmly.  The only one who was not glad to see us was Potter Orr, who could not understand why we were in his grandmother’s cottage.       

            The following summer we were back in the Orr cottage, but to our dismay we were not permitted to rent it for the third year.  Mr. Edwards suggested No. 11, the Heaton cottage which had not been modernized at the time.  What a comedown that was.  A big old stove in the dining room heated the entire cottage.  The dining room curtains had cobwebs and there were none at all in the living room.  A new bathroom on the second floor seemed quite modern, but the medicine cabinet with lights attached had been incorrectly wired.  Every time I used it I got a mild shock.

            That summer I took Laura Jane to the beach myself.  I made many new friends and enjoyed all of them.   Harold was hard at work at home except for the occasional weekend when he would take the sleeper from Cincinnati to Petoskey where I would meet him. Over the years Harold would drive us up from Cincinnati and stay about 10 days, and then take the train back overnight to Cincinnati.  He would work for 10 days and then take the train back, stay 10 days and then drive us home.

            The following year, to make up for our unhappy time on No. 11, Mr. Edwards suggested No. 311, the Jordan cottage which had been decorated by Chris Ransom.   It was delightful.  This was the beginning of many happy summers at No. 311.  The rule of three rentals in the same place did not seem to apply.  We had great cookouts and parties in the side garden.  Laura Jane’s birthday is in August, and we always had a party for her.  One year it rained on the big day but everyone crowded inside the cottage and had a good time anyway.

            Occasionally, we spent vacations in New England, Florida, California, and Vancouver, B.C., to visit my sister, but Charlevoix always drew us back.  Finally, in 1972 after looking at a few cottages which were for sale, we asked if we could build our own.  The Trustees agreed, specifying that the cottage must blend with what was already there.  We had plans drawn which we hoped would be acceptable and would accommodate our family.  By the spring of 1973, we moved in.  The contractor was pouring the walk at the back door.  Laura Jane drew the initials of David’s children, Diane and Rob, in the wet cement.  Then she added the initials for her son Jack and being pregnant at the time, she put a question mark at the end.   That turned out to be Jeff Stevens.

            Flora died in 1993 and Harold in 1994.  The cottage was left to Laura Jane and she and her husband George and their two sons, Jack and Jeff, and have enjoyed the Belvedere in June, August, and October of each year.  David and his children, Diane and Rob, and their spouses and children have equally enjoyed time in July every year. Charlevoix is in our blood—both Stevens and Stoner—the Belvedere is a great place to be every year. 

Harold B. Stoner (1906-1994) married Flora (Flo) E. Mills (1914-1993) in 1936.

They had David M. Stoner (1939-) who was born in 1939.  He married Rosemary B.  Holtgrefe  (1941-) in 1962.  They had Diane M. Stoner (1963) and Rob Stoner (1965).  Rob and Leigh have 25 year-old twins, James and Christopher.  Diane has two children: Nickolas, 25, and Allison, 23.

Harold and Flora also had Laura Jane Stoner (1945- ) who married George E. Stevens (1936-2012) in 1969.  They had John (Jack) H. Stevens (1971- ) and Jeffrey (Jeff) G. Stevens (1973-).

#231  Cathy Howe  – Back to Book 3

For me, The Belvedere holds many of my childhood memories, has given me friends across many generations that I will hold dear until my last breath and is a place I look forward to passing on to my daughter Filley and her family.

To say The Belve means the world to me would be putting it mildly…my Grandfather David Davis Walker started coming to Charlevoix Michigan in the 1940’s

And owned #502, now known as the Crook Cottage. My mom and her sisters would share this cottage in the summers and so summer fun began…

My earliest memories of life on the Belvedere included the usual things, Gang, Dairy Queen runs, pennies on the railroad tracks, Petoskey stones, riding bikes, fudge, jumping off of the boat houses and the trestle and the “Beee Boah” sound of the 9:30 curfew siren.

In addition to the usual, we lived across the street from 201 THE Alexander’s !
This lucky piece of geography shaped my life…Tommy climbing in our windows, Bobby Rowe’s Camaro out on The Moss farm roads, Boggs donuts at midnight, Cardinal Puff with Aunt Stella, learning every cuss word I hold so dear from Uncle Bud, TTA wedgies, skipping gang, dating Chipper AND Richard, Bells Bay, Philips 2:00 wake up calls, and so much more.

After my grandfather died, the cottage was sold as I said to George and Emily Crook

Two of my “ later in life” favorites. My Mom, Carol Walker Kenny, started renting the Diefenbach cottage up on the Park…with this move came many beverages at the McKays, Phil spraining both ankles, Boz Scaggs, Chris Cross- Pousette-Dart band, Barbis itch from Bells Bay and the USS HML sailing race… Babsie’s fear of lightning, and “I think I’m gunna die” coming from the bathroom…let’s not forget Young Annie Fords “new” toothbrush.

Eventually, Mom bought #231 from Sissy(Donut) Chamberlain…with this move came Filley starting gang, Ernie Meenie Miny F——Mo, black out and water ballon fight at Crooks, “Hello DD, Hello La”, my budding bridge career, lots of scotch and Nelson deciding the Belvedere was IT over Harbor Springs, and the infamous monogrammed golf cart with moms initials…CWKMKZM…

This brings me to the most cherished memories: Filley learning to ride a bike, “ let’s play family” with Beth and Brandt, Filleys nature walks with Aunt Julie, GramB teaching Fill about flowers and mushrooms, Peggy and Tui taking Fill to DQ and Gang, BarbieC doing handstands stands and somersaults in Aunt Stella’s living room, Filley growing up with all of her cousins and friends, solidifying great friends for life then going on to be a Gang leader herself…thus bringing up the next generation and the continuation of Belvedere Family ties…and now as of April 30, 2019 another Gangster has joined the ranks, our granddaughter, Capen…

So, the beat goes on…………

It’s been a long time, but does anyone ever forget their Gang years?  I don’t think so.  Certainly not if your Gang memories dated back to the late 60’s.  There was a certain regimen to the schedule that we all knew by heart; capture the flag, tennis, swimming lessons, Jordan River trips, horseback riding at Driggett’s Farm, and sailing.  Ah yes, sailing, now there are some memories.

Most of these are reminiscent of when your father talks about walking to school; ten miles, each way, uphill, in the snow.  But back then sailing was different.  Most obvious was the fact that we actually sailed in and out of the channel, no tows.  Heading out was usually a breeze, no pun intended, but heading back in was often the challenge.  The old railroad trestle created natural choke points on both sides.  We learned to tack, back and forth, and some days we learned that you can tack over and over, and still not make any headway!

But what really made sailing different back in the day was the slightly more cavalier attitude of our supervision.  Lead by the stalwart gang-leading duo of Chris Payne and Bill McDonald, Boy’s Gang enjoyed high adventures out on the open seas.  While life preservers were required to be in the boat, they were generally thought of as ‘optional equipment’.  Routinely we raided other boats, boarding them and throwing their crews into the drink.  Seldom, if ever, did we return to the sailing docks with the same number of people in a boat that we had started with.  And this was not just the jousting of the gangsters themselves.  The leaders and sailing instructors, led by Mike Meyers, would join in the fun as well.  Being in on the game was all part of the fun.  Typically, a new gangster had to be indoctrinated.  They were usually asked to go up on the bow of the boat, hang on to the forestay and look for fish.  One quick tug on the tiller and invariably the newcomer was swimming with the fish!  It never got old! 

As I look back on this, I realize you could never do these things today, but that is what this book is about.  In spite of sailing adventures, catapult mishaps, overnight fire walkers, horse-biting accidents, and various other minor catastrophes, we all managed to make it through those years.  And today those memories still serve as the foundation for generational friendships. So, thank you to Chris and Ginger (what other couple needs no last name) and my fellow gangsters from that era, siblings Spencer Reese and Susie LeRoy, Chipper Alexander, Philip Chamberlain, Andy Leakas, Bobby Leathermann, Jim ‘Stretch’ Eberts, Mark Mannion, Steve and Bob Kenny, Kate Tomkinson, Anne Durell, Adele Wellford, Melissa Bozeky, Julie Mannion, Lori Autterson, Cathy Howe and all the rest who made this place so special.

As I think about these stories I am at the point where my granddaughter will be enjoying her first experience with Gang this summer.  I can only hope that she, and the rest of this generation, enjoy it as much as we did; and that somewhere down the line, they share their stories with their grandchildren, but maybe with just a few details kept in their pocket until the 4^th edition……

Submitted by Camille Breland Rome

I’m not sure where to start in reminiscing about some of the best memories of my life. I suppose a good place to start is with the anticipation I felt year round prior to making the 19-hour drive from south Mississippi up to Charlevoix. As a child, typically starting after Christmas and leading up until June, I would have dreams about the Belvedere. I dreamed I was there, with all of my friends, free and living my best life. These dreams of anticipation happened every year until they were realized upon my arrival to the much cooler weather, the smell of cedar, and sweaters in the summer.

My mother (Camille Leatherman Breland) grew up going to Charlevoix, as had my grandfather and forefathers before him. Thus, every summer — typically for the entire month of July — our family packed up our fire engine red Suburban topped with a massive luggage pod and made the 1,200-mile journey.

In those days, we rented the Forker cottage (#207), followed by the Austin cottage (#209). The memories I’ll share here are from the days when we were packed into the Forker cottage. I shared a bedroom with my cousin Vaughan (Leatherman Stewart). Vaughan is my first cousin and daughter of Leslie and Lauren Leatherman. We slept in twin beds in a wood-planked room. The walls were thin and decorated with gang awards from the Forkers’ past, and my parents would often have to come tell us to go to sleep when they could hear us still up late into the evening — enraptured with giggling fits.

I think my anticipation of these days at the Belvedere was largely due to the pure joy and freedom I experienced there. I loved Gang. Some kids may have wanted to skip Gang, but I was never one (except for sailing lessons…). I reveled in the activities, the games, the competition, the new skills.

Some of my fellow Gang members during this time were Vaughan, Katie Alexander, Lilly and Charene Connett, Jayne Herman, Drew Flanigan, Nick Fox, Shaun Lyons, John Schumacher and many more. One of the highlights of every summer were the Big Gang overnights. I remember one overnight in particular — when we were epically raided. I’m not sure if we were at Sleeping Bear dunes or another location, but I do remember we had borrowed the big red Suburban to haul kids to our overnight location. Overnights often consisted of games of Capture the Flag, making s’mores, telling ghost stories, Truth or Dare, exploring the woods around us, cooking over the fire … just being kids.

Some time late into the night, as we were tucked into our sleeping bags, I remember waking up to the sound of a “splat.” I think Mark or John Herschede may have been the first victim — an egg splat open on his sleeping bag. I heard another egg land and crumble, juices running. “We’re being raided!” someone exclaimed, and the chaos ensued.

Eggs flew in every direction, yolks bursting and running down our sweatshirts. The teens were upon us, grabbing kids and spraying shaving cream in our hair. We ran, hiding, but were unable to outmaneuver the older teens and young adults who had driven from the Belvie to raid us. It was a complete mess. Shaving cream, eggs, water balloons … no one was spared. No one was dry. There were tears. There were angry words. We had to sleep in our wet clothing, hair sticky and matted. But there were also memories. The memory that we had survived one of the greatest raids of Belvedere history. I realize raids are now a thing of the past. I’ll leave the pros and cons for others to debate, but I do now cherish the memory of both raiding others when I was older and also of being raided.

My summers in Gang at the Belvedere are some of the best memories of my life. As all of us know, the Belvedere is something very special. I am grateful to those who volunteer their time to ensure that the Belvie thrives for generations to come, and I look forward to many more years of memories from one of my happy places.

404/217
By: Varina Buntin Willse –  

The only thing that rivals a childhood summer spent in Charlevoix is an adulthood summer spent in Charlevoix. My memories from my early summers here are layered and rich. They involve pedaling off to Gang in the mornings and wrapping up in warm sweatshirts in the evenings. Trips to town for Cravings ice cream and “fancy” dinners out at The Weathervane and The Argonne. Tacking across the lake in the Summertime and tennis lessons with Erik. Peanut hunts and candle-making in Little Gang, Capture the Flag and Sardines in Big. An epic pillow fight in our front yard that had attracted just about every kid in the resort by the time it ended with a down pillow busting open and spewing feathers as far as Moreland Park.

I remember staying up late, with my head literally out the window, so that I could eavesdrop on the antics of the Alexander porch, the gravely voices of David, Chipper, and Moss engraved in my brain. I remember braving that same porch during the daylight hours to beg a piece of candy from Uncle Bud, whose voice was as gravelly as his sons and whose intimidating demeanor belied a gentle and generous soul. Other people stand out in those memories, too. Murphy Reese was nice to me when I was an awkward middle schooler in oversized t-shirts. Chip Bemis greeted all of us Big Gangsters with the warmest, most authentic smile and pushed us faster on the Merry-Go-Round than seemed humanly possible. Ever warm and friendly, Ann Denison invited me to play dress-up in the Blue Bell, which to me was a real-life palace (complete with a resident bat!). And of course my friends and fellow gangsters: Kimmy and Lettie Alexander, Lindsay Tomkinson and our cohorts Shep Hickey and Tug Orr, Hunter Campaigne, Claire Loughlin, Joanna Hill, the list keeps going.

The summer spun out across a series of beloved traditions, beginning with the 4th of July bike parade and culminating in Cabaret with Children’s Dances, Regattas and Venetians highlighting the weeks in between. Due to her finely endowed nose, my mother always won the Egg Roll at Games in the Park. She also found time to make award-winning costumes for my brothers and me for the Masquerade–New Coke vs Old Coke topping the list of particularly genius ones. During those special nights at the Casino, my father spun me around the dance floor, as did John McDougall, Rick Tomkinson, and Frank Crump. At the Belvedere, summer after summer, I experienced friendship, adventure, and comfort. I experienced what it is to be known and what it is to be loved. That is the gift of a lifetime, and to watch it happening in turn for my own children is one of my greatest joys.

If my childhood summers roughly spanned the 80s and 90s, my “grown-up” summers began around 2000. Suffice to say, the sirens and horns of the Venetian parade resonate differently when you’ve been at the GG drinking hummers and dancing until 2 in the morning. Many nights in my 20s, though, I found myself as a dinner guest at the parties of the “near-retirees” as opposed to hitting the bars in town. Because I was single and staying with my parents, their friends often included me in their gatherings. Sally and John McDougall, who have long been like second parents to me, never failed to include me in their parties, whether casual around their dining room table or fancy in their garage. Likewise, my parents, who hosted frequent dinner parties first at 404 and then at 21, always squeezed in an extra spot for me. Watching my mother prepare for parties days ahead of time–making homemade fudge pie, shucking corn for the pudding– and then pull off a dinner for 12 without ever appearing the least bit stressed taught me a great deal about grace and hospitality. On these nights, I was always the youngest person at the table, and it was always my great privilege. I found myself in the company of true gentlemen–Jack Syer, Drew Baur, Tom Morris–all of whom had a spirit of mischief and a gift for conversation. I got to visit with inquisitive and spirited women–Bickie McDonnell, Carolyn Morris, Virginia Syer with her pink lipstick, Em and Stella, Kate Tomkinson and Sudi Alexander–all of whom asked questions and told stories and laughed. The laughter was a constant. I remember one night at 404 when a bottle of red wine was spilled and the disposal failed to work, and Eddie Mannion brought in all manner of equipment to attempt to repair it, including the leaf blower. I also remember one night at 401 with Rick and Sue Myer, when we got into such a heated discussion (about what none of us can now remember) that the next day I drew up a “legal” treaty on the subject matter and left it on Rick’s porch, much to his delight. Everything in the world is to his delight, it seems, and I pretty much feel that way about all of the folks of that generation that I have been blessed to call friends. I often said to my mom and dad that their friends had way more fun than mine, and we have the pictures on the wall of the cottage to prove it! 

In those years, my mom picked up golf and so I did, too. I would drop the ball wherever Sally McDougall had hit it, and then make my way up the fairway with my 7-iron. Learning to play golf afforded me more time with my parent’s friends but ultimately more time with my parents. Dad often played two balls at once and answered multiple business calls during play, but even when seeming to be distracted, I knew he was delighted to be out there with Mom and me. Any great drive I happened to hit pleased him immensely. And he has been my putting coach for decades now, teaching me to envision the path of the ball and to follow through rather than punch at it.

These were also the years that the Buntin Cup was formed. This was an annual tennis match between my father, my brothers, and me. Frazer partnered with my dad, and Jeffrey with me, and we would sweat it out in pursuit of the silver tray bought from the Rainbow Shoppe. The winners were written on it in Sharpie. One year, Frazer and Dad appeared for the match in matching white robes. Like every cottage, 404 is home to various trophies, wine glasses, and medals from throughout the years, but the Buntin Cup tray is by far my favorite hardware.

Like most of us, I typically come to the Belvie in July and August, but the summer of 2006 I came in June. When my husband Walker proposed, much to my surprise he and my mom (or maybe more just my mom) had already chosen a date for the wedding: July 22. This fit my teaching schedule–but more importantly accommodated the wedding planner we adored–never mind that we were supposed to be in Michigan, like always! Marrying in July has meant getting to celebrate anniversaries in Northern Michigan, trying out new restaurants like Cafe Sante and The General Store or setting up romantic picnics in the cabana or on the boat. Walker and I recently celebrated 14 years by paddleboarding the Chain of Lakes and then toasting with beers at Short’s Brewery in Bellaire. Northern Michigan anniversaries are hard to beat. What it meant the summer we married, though, was a solo trip to Charlevoix, just me and my dog, Willie. It’s the only time I’ve been here alone and I have to say it was heavenly. Willie and I stayed at 404, and we enjoyed a lot of boat rides and porch time–not too different from what I enjoy with my human family, it turns out.

Walker and I started spending summers up here together the year after we married. He enjoys fishing and fun people, and so he’s perfectly happy at the Belvedere! When we were first married and still staying at 404, we had house guests, including four of my girlfriends from college and their husbands. I remember being horribly offended that one of the husbands had secured a tee time at Dunmaglas, having read that it was the best course in the area. No course anywhere beats the Belvedere so far as I’m concerned (never mind that I never actually play any other courses). A couple years later, we had our friends Land and Laura Deleot up for the 4th of July, which in itself was a godsend because that was the year we forgot the double stroller. If you have babies in Michigan, you absolutely must have a good stroller–any mom knows this. It’s your lifeline to the world. The morning after we made the 11.5-hour drive, I bolted out of bed with a vital question: Where is the Bob? The Bob is the double jogging stroller I used daily with our twin girls, Mary Varina and Pierson, who were born in December 2008. I don’t know, Walker replied. I promptly accused him of forgetting it and started dropping unladylike word-bombs. We argued; I freaked out. We then remembered that our friends were due to get on a plane to come visit us in less than two hours. We called with a serious SOS and they rushed to our house, got the stroller, made their plane, and Walker and I have never fought again. The stroller saved our marriage, mostly.

By the time the girls were born, my parents had built 217. I have never before or since heard of a piece of land going for sale on the Belvedere, and how my dad managed to snap it up is a miracle, and yet not at all surprising to me. With foresight, strategic thinking, and quiet prudence, he and my mom managed to build a beautiful, unassuming cottage near the back gate with just about no one noticing. It wasn’t there, and then it was–with its lovely antique wrought-iron front door and big back porch and fireplace. They decorated it with wooden sailboats and intriguing portraits, a fresh contrast to the photo-laden walls of 404, and then quickly breathed life into it. It occurs to me now, more than ten years later, that it was hugely generous of them to welcome infant twins into their pristine and peaceful new place, but welcome us they did.

The girls took up residence in “Baby Alley,” which was a long closet upstairs, where they could nap and be put to bed early so as not to interfere with what my dad has always called, Big Folk’s Time. From that first summer, I remember carrying them in the Baby Bjorns to the Venetian parade, letting them flop and jabber in the Pac n Plays on the porch, and crawl around on quilts in the front yard. Walker remembers setting them up for a picture on the beach and snapping one quick shot before Pierson simply toppled over backward. Pierson, at least, was fine with sand; Mary Varina wouldn’t so much as touch it. Pop Pop, as my dad is now known to us, called them Moon Babies because their eyes were so big. As the years would go by, he would dance with them on the back porch of 217 and call to them on their bikes to look both ways as they left the driveway. He was terrified and protective when little Mary Varina fell down the stairs. He was enduring when little Pierson let out incessant high-pitched squeals from her highchair. That first summer at 217, VV held one baby, I held the other. Pop Pop and Walker looked on with love and pride.

The next year, we brought a sitter with us–the inimitable Sara Hurston–who has become a lifelong friend. She and I dressed for the beach the first day and found ourselves in matching bathing suits, which was a sign we were destined to be friends but which was also very unkind for me, who had given birth to twins! That year stands out as one of the best. Sara helped with the girls, beginning with the long journey from Nashville to Charlevoix when we had to stop repeatedly to change diapers on the top of the trailer we were pulling. Having her with us gave me free time to do all the things we all love doing in Charlevoix, and then I also got to spend time with my 18-month old babies. They learned new words so fast–lake, boat–and splashed in puddles and skinned their knees and bewitched Eddie and Margie Mannion, who were our new neighbors up at 217. Liz Teasdale, along with Caroline, Doug, Cindy and their families, were also our neighbors, and it has been a joy developing those friendships over the years. There must be something in the water up there, because their household has two sets of twins, we have a set, and then it just keeps curving around the park, from the Hickey’s over to Tui’s and splitting off to the Bloom’s and on and on. Maybe it’s the water in the Belvedere in general: the more, the merrier.

We welcomed our third daughter, Campbell, in 2013 and throughout the years we have amassed a treasure trove of memories with our kids, as my parents did with us. Walker devised a game called “Crabdaddy” on the blob that involves using his legs as crab claws to take the girls down: a kid favorite. Each year, we reserve a spot at Fisherman’s Island and spend one night camping beside Lake Michigan, collecting rocks and eating smores: a family favorite. We play putt putt at Pirate’s Cove and go to town for chocolate crepes. We ride the Ferris wheel at the carnival and even won a fish there that has continued to live in a vase in our kitchen at home a full year later. We took a day trip to Mackinac, where we rode bikes around the island, with Campbell in her favorite spot on the back of our two-seater, the blue hair of her unicorn helmet flying in the wind. The year before my 40th birthday, I had the girls help me drag a rather enormous piece of driftwood up the dunes at McSauba because I wanted to use it as a centerpiece for my upcoming birthday gathering. Walker didn’t comment when I casually let him know that I wanted to take it home. On our way back to Nashville, a man at the gas station asked Walker why he had a tree on the top of his car. My wife told me to put it there, he responded simply. The guy nodded in understanding. (And the driftwood stretching the length of the long table looked fabulous, as did the placecards we made using rocks found on the beach!).

The kids have cherished the summers spent staying at 217 with their grandparents, as have Walker and I. They remember when they were little snuggling with Pop Pop in his bed and playing frisbee with VV in the yard and both grandparents reading them bedtime stories. Pierson talks about simple things, like the peaches lined up on the window sill. Mary Varina and Campbell talk about eating cherries on the back steps, spitting pits into the yard (surely when Pop Pop wasn’t looking). They all talk about Pop Pop spraying whipped cream in his mouth and eating all the Nila wafers. VV has her habits with sweets, too, like laying out all the Tom’s Mom’s cookies to pick the one that has the most chocolate in it. We love eating breakfast on the front porch with VV in her robe and sitting on the back porch with Pop Pop at day’s end to watch the golden light filter through the trees and listen to him yell at the cars to slow down. We all laugh about his endless squirrel-catching endeavors. The time together in the same house hasn’t been without its challenges–noise levels, toilet clogs, wet towels on the floor–but it has offered the priceless gift of intimacy. Suffice to say, we can all tease one another without fear of hurt feelings.

The kids have loved Gang, too, especially with Senior Pete (or “Seen”) at the helm. They have gone from being terrified of sailing to loving it and begging to capsize. They always remember to pack cleats and shin guards in anticipation of the Belvie/Townie soccer match. They love Pizza Movie Night and Council Circle. Mary Varina and Pierson have been up to Pictured Rocks for an overnight, with memories of Frank Crump throwing up in the van and swimming in Lake Superior at sunset. Campbell has picked cherries and strawberries and come home with wooden awards hanging around her neck and stains on her tennis whites. “King Gary” has greeted them with the same smile Chip Bemis greeted me, and they have made wonderful friends of their own, the children of the friends I had growing up. It’s powerfully grounding and uplifting both: the way things come full circle over and over at the Belvedere amidst a world where everything else changes so fast and so often.

Many of the memories my kids cherish feature their cousins: Gaits, Rush and Anne Barnett on the Jeffrey Buntin side, James and Neely on the Frazer Buntin side. They have had epic tubing wipeouts together and a lucrative rock painting business. They have hung out in hammocks and played Spikeball and ridden to town for Kilwins more times than any of us can count. The past two summers–2019 and 2020–the cousins have had time in 404 together. The year of COVID, all 14 of us were in the house to give my parents their own space in 217. A loaf of cinnamon bread from the Farmer’s Market lasted all of one breakfast. A box of Popsicles one day at most.

Jeffrey, Kemp, Frazer, Tiffany, Walker and I have our own memories, including when we ran aground on a late-night return trip from dinner in Boyne City. Jeffrey, Frazer and Walker have enjoyed nighttime expeditions fishing on the Jordan; Kemp, Tiffany, and I have enjoyed morning visits on the porch. Frazer and I have paddleboarded to Shade’s Point in the morning. (He made the SUP trip to Petoskey on his own. Who does that??) He and Jeffrey have played lots of tennis; Kemp and Tiff have frequented the lavender farm. But the memories that involve the full family are some of the best. One year, we hosted our own family talent show because we were going to miss the annual Gang-hosted one. We did it on the porch at 217 and the evening ended up featuring the following roster of notable acts: Pop Pop did an unexpected rendition of a wartime song with a broomstick as his microphone, the girl cousins did gymnastics, Gaits flipped water bottles, VV wiggled her ears, I read an original piece titled “Twas the Night Before Venetian,” Frazer and Tiffany did synchronous yoga dancing (lift and all), Jeffrey touched his tongue to his nose, Kemp sang the states alphabetically, and when his turn came around, Walker pulled up his shirt and stuck out his stomach as his talent. Had there been judges, they would have been speechless. I’m not sure any awards would have been given!

The favorite family memory of all time, though, has to be of mom’s 70th birthday. Those who know her know that VV has a thriving inner child. Rather than a cocktail soiree to honor her birthday, which falls on July 2, we wanted to surprise her with a party befitting not the age she is but the age she feels. So we organized a treasure hunt that took her all over the resort, from the troll bridge to the pier, in the pouring rain with her grandkids. The evening included the family kickball game, which had become a beloved tradition, with VV’s blue team 404 taking on Pop Pop’s green team 217. And it ended with the biggest surprise of all: a dunking booth, which we had done our best to keep hidden down at 404. Of course, VV got in that dunking booth and let her grandkids knock her in, much to everyone’s uproarious delight. The kids got in, along with Frazer in some giant alien head that had been procured from the carnival the year before. The night ended with certain family members doing the worm on the living room floor. How can you possibly beat a place where this kind of fun and togetherness can happen? The answer is: you can’t. You simply can’t beat the ongoing joys of the Belvedere.

My Grandmother Came with Her Grandmother  –
By Mary Carr Deane
  
My grandchildren come with me. My grandmother’s grandmother was Irene McNeil Bond. Her grand was Kate Bond Morrow and my grand was Irene Morrow Leatherman. I am Mary Leatherman Carr Deane.

My father was Richard Leatherman. My grandson Richard Brinner likes to say he has been coming to the Belvedere every year since before he was born.

Everyone knows we have lots of cousins around here. My family loves history and loves “to spin a yarn”. The porches on the resort have kept that tradition going.

At the dawn of the twentieth century there were over two thousand hotel rooms in Charlevoix. The Belvedere Hotel was where many family members stayed. My father said as a child his mother rented many Belvedere cottages before buying 519 in the early 1940’s. Many of the family were here on V.J. Day, August 14, 1945, and signed a paper with their names along with others they had gathered to celebrate the day.

My parents, Carroll and Richard Leatherman, owned two different cottages at various times. My late husband, Bo Carr, and I started renting in the late 1990’s. I married John Deane in 2019. John came to the hotel as a young child with his parents, and was at Camp Charlevoix for nearly eighteen years. He owned the former 111 (Woodbine) with his late wife Andy, now owned by cousin McNeal McDonnell. John was Belvedere president from 2009 – 2011.

In my mother’s book, Goodbye Ole Miss, she tells of her first visit to the Leatherman cottage. She and my father had a secret engagement. She says: “If all went well in the visit to the Leatherman summer home, where the whole family spent busy days and nights together, our romance would have passed the acid test and we would announce our engagement.

When I arrived in Charlevoix, I found myself in a magnificent resort town. This was Hemingway country, and I was often reminded of the Hemingway stories, particularly the Nick (Adams) stories written after World War II. There are three lakes around the resort; Round Lake, Lake Charlevoix and Lake Michigan. The Leatherman (cottage) sat on Round Lake. The Great Lakes looked awesome to an inland girl.

Each morning at the Leatherman cottage, we were allowed to sleep as long as we liked, unlike some resort cottages where breakfast is served at eight sharp. At the Leatherman’s, you could eat breakfast until noon. The maid brought up from the old plantation made a hundred biscuits every morning, and people cam in from all over the resort to the Leatherman dining room to have homemade biscuits, Michigan berry preserves, and a second cup of coffee.

The dining room was very long with a fireplace at one end. Even though it was summer, Charlevoix could be cold and we had many fires, particularly at night. My first mistake with Mrs. Leatherman was saying I was cold one night there. For the rest of my marriage I was seated in front of the fireplace and Woodie, the houseman, was instructed to put another log on the fire because ‘Miss Sugsie is cold-natured’.

The food and company were absolutely superb, but the activities were not for the faint of heart. Arriving with a cast on my arm, I was secretly pleased, because I didn’t have to play all the sports with those excellent athletes.

First , the whole cottage played tennis in the morning. Then after lunch at the golf club and 18 holes of golf, we rushed back to the cottage, dressed for water skiing and boarded the family’s 1947 Chris Craft, “The Rebels,” exactly like the one in On Golden Pond. We would have an enormous evening meal: plank white fish with whipped potatoes, broiled tomatoes, two or three kinds of vegetables and beautiful berries and cherries in season. The only food lacking in northern Michigan was a good vine-ripe Mississippi tomato. Several times a summer Mr. Leatherman would go back home to the plantation, and when he returned, he would always bring back two or three large boxes of homegrown tomatoes.

Tomatoes hold an esteemed rank in our family to this day. Once I heard a son-in-law tell a friend, ‘I married into a most unusual family. While other people talk politics and the stock market at dinner each night we had long, graphic discussions about tomatoes.’ It became such a joke that years later when other well-groomed ladies of the resort wore heir-loom pendants and pearls, Mrs. Leatherman wore a painted wooden tomato necklace. Even the soap in the powder room was shaped like a tomato.

Occasionally we went to the movies in Charlevoix or nearby towns. Naturally there was no television in those days. Other nights, as if we hadn’t enough togetherness, we played parlor games. The Leathermans loved games. Their favorite trick was to work on a new game and perfect it, then invite some defenseless soul over to the house and beat the socks off them. Such competitiveness I had never seen. As the old comedian said, ‘ I thought about taking exercise once, but I lay down until the thought passed.’ I shared his feelings after a Leatherman day at Charlevoix.

Other nights we went out on a friend’s sailboat that also had a motor on it. I tried with the cast on my arm to ski on a surf board, and I hung on for dear life. The suction of the water pulled my bathing suit down to my waist. I didn’t care; I was just trying to stay alive.”

Some things have changed at the Belvedere, but not everything! With that spirit in mind, John and I have just bought cottage 145, built c 1900, one of many cottages using cedar stumps as the foundation. We are embarking on a restoration and aiming to save as much of the original as possible! We feel quite courageous as we are old and the cottage dear, but old!!

Needless to say, the Belvedere is “sacred ground” to us. God has blessed our families by giving us so much time here.

Cottage 404 – Varina Buntin – Back to Book3

The summers rolled by at 404 full of laughter and good times. There were tennis tournaments to be won and lost. Golf every afternoon for the men. Children’s dances where they actually learned dances, dressed up in nice clothes and were made to dance with each other. I remember Jeffrey jr. doing the Virginia reel with Anna Loughlin and we have a picture on our wall of Frank Crump and Varina fox trotting around age 12. Talent night was a big deal and parents spent hours and hours creating elaborate costumes. Our family had several highlights. The year Frazer, with the help of babysitters, appeared in Em’s leotard in which she did her daily morning Jane Fonda exercises, her pink hair curlers and Lee Press On Nails. When the  laughter died down he was given first prize. Or the year Varina and Frazer went as meticulously reproduced Coke and New Coke cans. Everyone in the club, everyone, not just parents and grandparents, attended both of the events.

Most of the husbands were still working and would fly up for a couple of weeks at a time.

That left a lot of opportunity for the women to get together for cocktails, dinners and picnics.  Tory Tower (Folliard) and Frances McDonald would often appear at the door at some point in the night and beckon us out for to gather on somebody’s porch and share stories and laughter. Frances was always ready for a Bell’s Bay picnic with the kids and be the first to jump off the dunes.

George Crook became President for a second time in 1988 and had the brilliant idea of adding a deck to the casino. Jeffrey followed him as President and then John McDougall. “Nashville Newcomer Mafia”.

Sudi Alexander and I chaired the Gang Committee for about four years. This was back before our fabulous Pete Scholten. With help from the office we had amazing gang leaders. A mix of kids from town and kids from the Belvedere… Amy Ware, Mimi Orr, Shelley Reese, Dorothy Britt, Dan and Marie Buday and Jeff Trimper. We met with them every week to plan the activities and to remind them of their huge responsibility for the safety of these precious children. Marie Buday  became our “coordinator” coming up with ideas for special activities and serving as our eyes and ears on the ground. It was a busy time for young families on the Belvedere and we had weeks of upwards of 100 gangsters. Up to this point gang had just crammed kids in cars borrowed from parents and taken them off the pick cherries, canoe the Jordan, go on overnights. The idea of seat belts and safety was just beginning to be discussed. We took our concern to Gordon Ware who was President at the time. He went to the school board and reminded them that we pay taxes and never use their schools. He then asked for and got use of a school bus during our gang season. That was an amazing coup! I think someone may have had to get a special license. Sudi? One of the boys?

Through the summers and years we had a lot of dinner parties, crowding as many as we could around our dining room table. I learned to turn the placemats long ways and bring in smaller chairs to gather more friends together. There was always laughter and often something crazy happened. One of the epic dinner parties started when Harcourt Kemp, visiting Sally and John McDougall, began to take the plates back and scrape them into the sink. Normally I don’t let guests do that but Harcourt doesn’t drink and no doubt needed a break from our craziness as we were sticking shish kebob skewers into Eddie Mannion’s hair. Unfortunately, the disposal got stuck. Sheila Tomkinson jumped in to solve the problem with a broom stick while Eddie, ever helpful, brought a leaf blower into the kitchen. I know you are now thinking we are all totally crazy but the best part is next. When we bought 404 we inherited some unusual things. In a closet over the garage there was a 1940ies style hair dryer chair. The kind with the very big metal helmet that came down over a lady’s head. While we were busy with the broom and the disposal Eddie appeared with the hair dryer. How he got it down the stairs I will never know but he proceeded to sit under it with Margie on his lap. One thing just leads to another when you are having fun.

The finale of the summer was Cabaret in August . Barbie Claggett and Ann Leakas Dennison always wrote it. Ginny Million rallied all who could sew to make the costumes. Each Cabaret was elaborate. Always with a theme that had something to do with what had happened during the summer. There were skits and songs and appearances by gang. There were bridge players spoofs and tap dancing. There were ladies dressed as flamingos and men dressed as ladies. Always, always the best was Susan Reese doing her cleaning woman impersonation. In later years Jeffrey joined Ann and Barbie and they produced “Christmas in July” and “The Ironton Fairy.” It is very sad that the schools changed their schedules to start in August and robbed us of our August season and Cabaret.

As the years rolled by our children had friends come visit and then girlfriends and boyfriends. One time when both Jeffrey and Frazer had girls visiting we planned an overnight on The Summertime to Oyster Bay with Sally and John McDougall. The young were going to sleep up top and the adults in the beds down below. All was well until it started raining. Eight of us crammed together down below in a space to sleep four. Only one of those girlfriends went on to become a wife. Another such memory involved going on Rick Tomkinson’s boat, the Dolphin, to dinner in Boyne City. The group was Rick and Sheila, Sally and John McDougall, Jeffrey and me, Jeffrey, Frazer and Varina with their current girlfriends and boyfriends. A great night was had by all with many margueritas. On our way back there was a lot of cigar smoking until somehow we managed to run aground!  We quickly came up a solution. That was for the three boys to strip to their underwear, jump in and push us off. I remember thinking “I hope they all have on underwear.”

 Now our children stay at 404 and most of my memories center around 217.  But I have to write about a memory that involved both cottages but mostly 404. It was the most just sheer fun night of my life. Literally.

It was 2013. My 70ieth birthday. Our children decided to celebrate it late when they were all in Charlevoix for Venetian. They had told me we would have our annual kick ball competition at 217 but that they would fix dinner and we would eat at 404. Unusual for Charlevoix it was an overcast, kind of drippy afternoon. They all arrived at 217…Jeffrey and Kemp, Frazer and Tiffany, Varina and Walker, Gaits, James, Rush, Mary Varina, Pierson and Anne Barnett. First they handed me a rhyming scavenger hunt. All the women and children piled in Liz Teasdale’s yellow stretch golf cart which was the newest things in golf carts and which she had so graciously told our children we could use. Off we went to collect the clues. Each grandchild got to go with me to find one clue. We went all over the Belvedere as they were hidden in such places as under the troll bridge, down at the Casino, out on the pier, by the tennis courts. Seven in all. The last mentioning swim suits and something about getting wet. I didn’t spend much time wondering about the meaning. Having found them all we tumbled back to 217 for a short kick ball game and then it was announced we were to drive, not walk, to 404. I jumped in the back of a Suburban with all the granddaughters. As we pulled up to 404 I saw a big clear plastic thing at the end of the driveway. It took me about five seconds to realize it was a dunking machine! I don’t know why but I love dunking machines! I had never been in one but always thought, and still think, they are the most fun ever. I don’t know how my children knew but I bolted out of the car in delight and changed into my bathing suit which Varina had surreptitiously brought along. (Ah, the final clue!) I had to wait my turn as our grandsons, who could hardly contain themselves in excitement, took the first dunkings. Then I got in, taunting Jeffrey to dunk me first, which he did quite quickly. Each grandchild got to dunk me. I can tell you, no matter how many times you get dunked it’s always a surprise. I remember Em’s grandchildren, Wills, David and Anna Clare, coming over wide eyed and rushing back across the street to put on their bathing suits and get in the tank. At some point Frazer appeared from the cottage in a very small wet suit and some alien head that had been won at the Venetian carnival the day before. The fun and gaiety went on through dinner and beyond. Every year since, Eric, who was across the street and witnessed it all, talks about my dunking machine birthday. Just the memory of it makes me smile and want to do it all over again!

404 is a wonderful cottage full of laughter, good times, good friends, great memories and the love of family.

David Walker Hermann 

The Hermann family began spending summers at the Belvedere Club in the late 1950s. I believe I was 3 years old when we 1st stayed at our grandfather’s (David Davis Walker III- aka D.D. Walker) Cottage – No. 502.  (Currently, the Crook cottage) My sister Lisa, brother Rusty, and later, our youngest Sister, Laura would stay there. “Granddaddy” lived across the street in Aunt La’s (Louise Olin Walker) cottage No. 404 (currently, the Buntin cottage).  Louise was Adele B. Dilschneiders’ mother, DD Walker was Adele’s, stepfather.

Belvedere was always special for us. We each participated in all Belvedere had to offer. Tennis, sailing, boating, swimming, fishing,  and of course, Gang. My Mother, Nancy Walker Hermann, along with  “Aunt”  Stella Alexander were very involved in “Cabaret” at that time, headed by George McKay.  My Dad, Russell Hermann,  and my Mom both played a good deal of tennis.  and Dad played a lot of golf. Rusty and I participated in everything Gang had to offer, at a young age. It was as you would expect, wonderful. We spent several summers at 502, where we occasionally overlapped with our cousins, the Kennys! Aunt Carol Walker Miller (my mom’s sister) Uncle Bob Kenny, Cathy Kenny (Howe), and the twins, Bobby and Steven.  My lifelong friend, Moss Alexander, lived across the street. The same proximity as in St. Louis when we lived 2 doors apart in Fair Oaks. What could be better?!!…or what could go wrong?!!      

Some of my best memories were in Belvedere “Gang”. I attended Gang with Moss Alexander, Tom Ware, Joe Morris, Glenn Mueller, Bobby Rowe, Andy Scott, Squire Connett, Mark Herschede, and for a brief time, John Quackenbush. My Gang leaders were John Thompson, Barry Stills, Lydia Scherer, and of course, Chris & Ginger Payne.  One of the most memorable events, for me, was the horseback overnights. John Thompson was one of the Gang leaders on this particular overnight. This would be my 1st horseback overnight. John Thompson was a young, hard-charging, fun-loving, Vietnam vet. We weren’t quite sure what to expect but I know we were excited. I remember waiting to get assigned to a horse. There was a “Tomboy-Cowgirl” type lady (her name escapes me, so let’s call her TCL) who owned or managed all the horses and actually accompanied us on this overnight. TCL was clearly well-heeled on horseback and she seemed to enjoy challenging John Thompson about his equestrian abilities, or lack thereof. We all mounted up and began walking a trail, inline. I was “white knuckled” just walking on this huge animal! John and TCL soon began bantering back and forth about who was the better rider.

Their challenge eventually became clear, through several minutes of verbal bravado…..who would cause the other to be thrown from their horse, first!!!  Oh great!  TCL immediately broke out of the front of the line and galloped back to where John was riding, several horses back. She leaned in on John’s horse and thrashed her whip across its rump.  John’s horse immediately reared up on its hind legs. John clung on to the reigns as the horse spun in a half circle before he finally calmed his horse down without falling off. Seconds later, John galloped past me to the front of the line, lit an M80 firecracker, and tossed it under TCL’s horse. The explosion sent TCL’s horse into a startled panic.  TCL was immediately thrown off her horse.  The deafening noise caused several other horses, carrying crying gangsters, to scatter into a nearby field.  To TCL’s credit, she was able to grab the reigns and jumped back on her horse to help round up the frightened gangsters. Once we got the horses calmed and back in line, we all smiled at what we just experienced…plenty of stories to come back with. Sadly, the Belvedere Gang no longer has overnights on horseback.  Imagine that.  

                                                                Leave of Absence

In 1967, Summer in Charlevoix came to an abrupt end. I was 12 years old. Our father, Russell Hermann, had a life-changing car accident back in St. Louis. Within days of his accident, we packed up and we all flew back to St. Louis. The seriousness of his injuries became clear. He would be hospitalized for over 1 year. Not the best of times but we were fortunate that Dad survived until the age of 73. 

I was 18 years old when I returned to Belvedere again. In the summer of 1973, Moss Alexander invited me to stay at their cottage (No. 201).  It had been 6 years since I had a summer “up there” and it was great getting back and reconnecting with so many Belve friends. Each day, Moss and I would run down to the boat house and board either the Mary Sue (beautiful 24’ Hackercraft) OR the MoRiToChaDa, (named after each of the Alexander boys, first names) an 16’ olive green fiberglass, tri-hull. We would either go to the Ski dock or (if small craft warning flags were visible)  go out on Lake Michigan to jump large waves! Several friends would gradually meet us at the Ski dock with their boats….Bobby Rowe,  Richard Alexander, Andy Scott, Joe Morris, Squire Connett, Mark Herscede, and Kate Orr, among others.

Moss and Andy were the best skiers, Kate Orr was the best female skier. Moss was so entertaining to watch perform. He loved an audience and relished an opportunity to display his skiing talents. His ski of choice was an O’Brien slalom ski. Moss never started skiing from the lake, oh no! His perfect hair came first! When it was Moss’ turn to ski, he stood on the dock with left foot in ski, ski rope coiled in one hand, and a cigarette in another hand. He yelled, “Hit it”! His expression was priceless, which seemed to say, “This is such a bore, but if I must”. The boat launched forward, ski rope rapidly uncoiling from the dock to his hand. One last drag of his cigarette as he flicked it into the air at the exact moment the rope reached its end. Moss jumped up and was catapulted off the dock with a perfect water landing.  He begins his slalom routine, making several passes with deep cuts, creating a wall of water that Moss would disappear behind.  After a few minutes, he signaled the driver to circle back to the dock and speed up. His last pass would bring him very close to the dock to cut and spray all occupants on the dock. He skied directly at the dock, let go of the rope and stopped within inches of the dock and simply sat down on edge of the dock, dry as a bone, hair perfect. Any questions?   

Later that same summer, Moss and I were at our familiar place, tied up at the ski dock. Soaking up the sun. As I sat up, I glanced around when  I noticed these two, bikini-clad blonds, walking in front of the Cabana sidewalk, towards the swimming pier. I said, “ Moss!”, who the heck are those two girls over there”?! Moss looked up and said, “Oh, those are the Bisbee twins”!  Margie and Connie Bisbee, to be exact. We waved the girls over to the ski dock. I hadn’t seen these “kids” in 6 years….I remember freckles and braces…what a difference 6 years makes. That was it for me. 

***********************************************

In the summers that followed, I began staying with Granddad and Aunt La’s cottage, 404. One year, in late June, I remember getting a phone call from “DD” asking, “When are you coming up”?!, “Margie Bisbee has been asking about you”!. I was scheduled to stay with them and secured a summer job painting DD’s boat, the Stormy Petrel II. Let’s see, I was able to stay at Belvedere for the entire summer, get paid to paint my grandfather’s boat, have free room and board, and have a beautiful girlfriend as well. As I look back, that was probably the only time in my life when I was able to stay in Charlevoix for 2+ months!! Hardly a job, it was a dream!

The Stormy Petrel II was a 1935,  48’ Consolidated cruiser, with a double planked wood hull. Her slip at that time was where the “Crooked Arrow” had been until a few years ago (George & Em Crooks’, slip) next to the “Algonquin” Jim Witherspoon’s sailboat. Margie would occasionally sunbathe on the bow of the Stormy Petrel while I stripped paint, cut out dead wood, remove trim for re-chroming, and prep for paint. I made sure the job was spread out to last all summer….as I was paid, hourly.

When I felt comfortable that the Stormy Petrel paint job was completed to my satisfaction, I went up to the cottage and asked Granddad if he wanted to see the finished product. He was dressed in his usual attire…black, baggy cuffed slacks, black tassel shoes, and an UN-tucked, loud Hawaiian shirt. He got on board and walked around the deck. Looking down each side of the boat, and finally said, “The screw-heads on the trim are not aligned in the same direction”! I didn’t see that coming!!!.. So, I grabbed a screwdriver and corrected this major error in 5 minutes!! He immediately went into the wheelhouse and started both engines. He shouted, “Help me with the lines, grab your camera, get in the white boat (his tri-hull runabout where the “Emily” is housed now) and follow me to Lake Charlevoix and take some pictures”! He had all the flags raised on his bow mast. We were underway to an overcast day on Lake Charlevoix. I took several photos as he piloted his freshly painted boat. Everything looked great

That evening, after dinner (and a couple of Christian Bros. Brandys) DD looked at me and said, “You did a better job on my boat than my guys ever did at Walkers’ Marina or Bellingers’!” Compliments didn’t come often from him, but I was very proud that he was pleased.

A few days later, I said my goodbyes to DD and Louise and made the long drive back to school in Arizona. A few months later, I received word that DD was not doing well and had been hospitalized. His Cancer diagnosis was too advanced and we lost him a few months later. The time that I spent with him was very special, indeed. 

*******************************************************

                                                                Bat Man

Prior to the reconstruction project on Breezy Point (517), in 2019

We had been plagued with a bat problem in our garage. Anyone that walked in there at night to collect firewood, would be met by dozens of “dive bombing” bats. The girls in the family basically refused to go there at night.

 One night, as we were about to walk to the GG for dinner, I had the brilliant idea to quell this bat problem once and for all. As the group waited in front of the cottage, I walked into the garage, closed the garage doors, I started the Buick station wagon parked inside, and quickly walked with our group to the GG. We had a lovely meal and walked back to the cottage about 2-3 hours later.  As I walked into the kitchen area, I could smell a slight odor of exhaust fumes. I went into the mud room, ran water over a towel, placed the towel over my mouth and nose, and ran into the garage. Opened the car doors, turned off the motor, and opened the garage doors, and ran out. The next morning, we went into the garage and the eradication was clear. Dead bats are everywhere. Later that night I asked, “Margie, could you bring in a handful of firewood from the garage, please?”    

                                                                       Bright Lights

One summer, Brad Schade was hawking some after-market, extremely powerful, auto headlights. I believe they were 1 million candle power! He had been hounding me all summer to buy a pair of them and that he would personally install them in my MG. After several enticing price drops, I relented and gave Brad my car to perform the installation.

Later that afternoon, as I arrived back at DD and La’s cottage, DD asked, “Where is your car”? I explained the purchase I made to Brad and he rolled his eyes. “You’re letting Brad work on your car”?  I didn’t comment and walked upstairs. When I came back downstairs, DD and La had gone to a dinner party. A few minutes later, Brad came driving into the drive with the new headlights installed. I looked at the new headlights but it was still too light outside to truly see the difference. I paid Brad and said I’d let him know how I liked them tomorrow.

I drove the car later that night and I was astonished at how the new lights lit up the road…they were amazing.

The next day, Brad saw my Grandfather having lunch at the Golf club.

Brad hadn’t seen me since he delivered my car, the day before.

Brad asked, “Hi, Mr. Walker, How does your grandson, David, like his new headlights”?  DD looked up at Brad with a stern expression and said, “I would wait until he calms down for a few days”, you see, his dashboard caught fire after he turned on your new headlights!” Brad’s eyes enlarged and his face turned white as he quickly exited the dining area.

To Brad’s credit, he went looking for me and when he found me on the tennis courts, he began to frantically apologize and ramble on about how he would fix everything, etc.  I was initially very confused until Brad explained what my Grandfather had told him. I hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time. DD had “punked” Brad Schade!

********************************************************

                                                                Walker’s Marina  

DD Walker purchased a marina, on 313 Belvedere Ave., from Bob Schleman in September 1963. It was renamed, Walker Marine Agency. A few days after the business transaction was finalized, my grandfather noticed lights coming from the marina, late one night.

DD got into his golf cart to investigate. As DD approached the main building, he saw a man, on a very tall ladder, removing light bulbs from the ceiling of the main building. DD called out, “What are you doing up there!”. A sheepish Bob Schleman, said, “Oh, Hi DD, I was just exchanging the expensive light bulbs I had bought, prior to selling, and replacing them with the old ones”.  DD exchanged a few remarks and escorted Mr. Schleman off his property.

I remember the marina had a glassed-in showroom building on Belvedere Avenue. This is where various models of new boats were on display. (Today, there is a brown, one-story cottage that Bob Scherrer built when he purchased the marina as his summer home.)  Granddad purchased the marina as somewhat of a hobby business. This would allow him to have his boats maintained, stored, fueled, and give him something to do. There was a beautiful yellow and black, fiberglass hydrofoil, 2 seats, with a 35 HP Mercury outboard motor that was one of the boats displayed there.

The boat (I believe it was called an Invader), couldn’t have weighed more than 1000lbs… so the 35 HP Mercury Outboard motor would have more than enough power. I spent many hours gawking at this boat through the glass window. DD must have noticed my enthusiasm and said to me one night, “perhaps we could put that boat in the water for you this summer and we won’t have to continue to clean the glass where you were drooling !”. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.

The next morning, his guys brought the boat down the steep driveway to the water’s edge, where it was lowered into the lake. I jumped down onto the boat and sat in the driver’s seat. I was, literally, sitting on the surface of the water due to its low profile. I looked up at DD and asked, “Aren’t you going with me”?!  he said, “Oh, heck no, I wouldn’t fit and would probably flip it over.”!

Margie and I were married in Charlevoix, in July 1982. Believe it or not, our wedding was the 1st wedding I had ever attended!!

The wedding was videotaped for us so that we could share the event with my Dad in St. Louis, who could not travel due to his health. Margie’s Grandmother, Irene Bisbee Collins, watched the recorded video on the VCR through her television. Not understanding the concept of VCRs, Gramma Collins exclaimed “Your wedding was on national, TV”!!! 

After the wedding reception party, Margie and I departed to Harbor Springs on Gele B VII with Bill Bergmann at the helm. Margie’s nieces painted a “Just Married” sign that they hung from the stern. It was quite a sight. Several Belvedere well-wishers followed us out of Round Lake in their boats, to Lake Michigan. The Alexanders and other friends commissioned artist, Jane Payne to paint a watercolor from a photo of our departure to Harbor Springs. It is one of our prized processions and it has been displayed in every home we’ve ever had.

In 1986, Jayne Irene Hermann was born and in 1988, David “Walker” Hermann, Jr. was born, completing our family.

30 years later, Jayne Irene was married to James Grubb of Houston, in Charlevoix.. much the same venue as we did…the wedding was held at the same Methodist church, the reception party at the Casino, and her wedding party departed on Gele B VIII from the church for a short cruise back to Breezy Point, 517. We now have 3 grandchildren, Elizabeth “Ellie” Irene (8), Katherine Kennedy (5), and James Walker Grubb. (4 mos.). Both girls are already hooked on Belvedere… James experienced his first summer at Belvedere, in the summer of 2022. Margie and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary this same summer. Many milestones to savor and the tradition continues for generations to come.

I am truly blessed to have very special inlaws, all of the Bisbees.

Leland, Jr and Margaret C. Bisbee were as good as they get, just wonderful people and they raised a wonderful family. My brothers and Sisters-in law, Patty, Biz, Clark, and Connie, are so special and a joy to be with! All of my nieces and nephews added to the fun in a crowded cottage. So thankful I have been able to share our lives together, for so many years. Sadly, we lost Patty on April 13th, 2022, and Clark, less than a year later, on March 27th, 2023. RIP.

****************************************************

Some of my Belvedere Take Aways:

You’ll never get away with anything, on the Belvedere!

If a Members’ spouse doesn’t have his/her enthusiasm for the Belvedere, that marriage could be a challenge  

The warm feeling you get when you play on the same fairways, tennis courts, beaches, docks, boats, and waterways, as your parents and grandparents, once did. 

Belvedere has many interesting people that you may not know, make an effort to know them better, and you won’t be disappointed.   

The Belvedere will never become more affordable. Study hard, and make smart life choices, and it’ll be worth every penny.

Glenn S. Allen Jr. born 8 Jan 1914 Kalamazoo MI. stayed with parents at #504;  1965 bought a cottage on Mackinac Island, bought a school house on Susan Lake
Died 6 Nov. 2001 DeWitt, Clinton, MI. Buried in Protesrant Cemetery Mackinac Island
1.      Married 1 May 1944 Virginia Lee Verdier dau. Of Leonard D. Verdier and Anna Carpenter Verdier. She was born in 1917 and died in 1974. Buried on Mackinac Island
Children: Holly Mull;  Susan Hinman; both inherited the Mackinac cottage
2.      Married in 1979 Marion D. Turner Smith. She was born in 1921 and died in 1983. Buried in Evergreen Cemetery, Lansing
3.      Married Marjorie Cole Tracy in 1985. She died in 2000. Buried on Mackinac Island.

Jollie News Allen born 9 July 1916 Kalamazoo, MI  inherited #504 Belvedere, transferred to daughter Lori Wiseman
Died 11 January 2015 age 98 (the record!) Kalamazoo, MI
1.      Married Carol Walker 1946
Children: Barbara 1947; Jolliw W. (Jay) 1949; Glenn Scott 1954; Melinda  (Lindy) 1952
2.      Married Susan Hicks 1959
Step daughter: Lori Hicks Bills Wiseman 1953    #504 transferred from father, don’t know what year; sold in 2016;  bought #39 2016
Daughter Stephanie Bills 1970
Married Ken Wisemamn 1987
Children: John 1989; Katherine 1992

506 – Ann Denison           

Fifty years – where did they go? Fifty years at the Blue Bell. Oh what fun times we’ve had. If these walls could talk, the tales they’d tell. Mostly laughter and a few tears. My kids loved it the second they got here!

Off and running to meet new friends, who are still friends today. I made new friends too and we are like sisters – so close – so many memories…George McKay got Barbie C and me to help write the Cabaret.
I think we wrote 20 or more, mostly on the Blue Bell porch where we laughed ourselves sick because Barbie thought she was so clever and so funny. Speaking of the Blue Bell porch – Barbie and I played backgammon  and one time when I ran out of dollar bills (yes, we gambled) I bet her the Blue Bell and I lost. She still believes she owns this cottage.

All of us also played backgammon and rummy cube on the beach, (too windy for bridge) almost every afternoon. Now we are older we’ve moved to the Casino. So much fun to come back every year and know I’ll be with all my lady friends for whatever the occasion.

Let’s talk about the GG. After the beach and feeding the kids – off we’d go to Grey Gables to sing with Breezie and Tink until the wee small hours then run to Boggs Bakery for hot out of the grease donuts… We acted like kids ourselves. Birthday parties aren’t only for children…Often we gathered at the Blue Bell to celebrate someone’s birthday and have a few drinks and have a nice dinner and a large sheet cake with many candles. Any sheet cake leftover showed up at the Parkside restaurant for breakfast the next morning, when we would all gather to celebrate the next birthday, only to find last nights’ recipients name crossed off, and the new birthday persons’ name there. More laughs!

Hat parties at the Blue Bell was another favorite. Everyone would come to dinner and had to go into the hat room / bar and chose a hat to wear to dinner. When all were seated I would tap my glass with my spoon, then all the hats go one person to the left, which means all the men were wearing women’s hats. Very funny! …. The group loved it! We even did this at Arrgonee Restaurant and I drew a bunch of people who wanted to join the hat club, including the staff… who wore bread basket on their head with live flowers for hats.

So many memories. As the years pass all the grand kids arrived one by one and are carrying on all the traditions of the Blue Bell including adding names to the doors and windows of the birch room. Now the grandkids are getting married and the years roll on. Life has been very special because Charlevoix and the grand old lady The Blue Bell.

It all started with a ROCK FIGHT in 1968!     

By Chip Leakas, #506 Belvedere

The Leakas’ kids first summer at the Belvedere – forged friendships lasting over 50 years. On our very first full day on the resort, my brothers and I set out to walk down Belvedere Ave from the cottage to the beach. Without warning, we suddenly found ourselves in a ROCK FIGHT as we walked along the train tracks leading to the swing bridge over the channel. We darted in and out of the 15-foot-high hedges bordering the tracks seeking cover from our attackers – this was not the warm welcome I had anticipated!

Rock fights – by and large – are not meant to hurt or injure anyone. They are really just used to mark your territory – and scare the opposing forces.  As “the new kids”, we found ourselves under siege – being pelted with small rocks that made up the roadbed of the train tracks that passed through the Belvedere Club.  Why were we under attack and what imaginary territorial boundaries had we mistakenly crossed?

Unsure of the opposition, we engaged them in a return barrage of small stones – hoping to send a message that the new kids would not be scared away easily. A few harmless volleys had been exchanged as we were taking cover in the tall hedges along the tracks – when we heard a cry of pain! I can’t remember exactly which warring soldier was injured, but blood had been drawn – creating the cease fire and imminent evacuation of the injured party.

I think it was only a superficial head wound – but it needed immediate medical attention. I remember that sincere apologies were expressed, but of greater concern was that we stop the bleeding. I remember thinking this was not a great start as prospective new members at The Belvedere Club, and that we would have some explaining to do with the parents. This included the real prospects of the potential loss of our freedom to roam the new club grounds with some ensuing form of corporal punishment for our reckless behavior.

It seems we went to the Alexander household first– The Leakas boys and the Alexander boys all together now – with a primary concern of getting band aids, and soap and water to clean the wound and stop the bleeding.

We tried in vain to explain the circumstances, that no one was supposed to be harmed, that we were in a make-believe territorial battle. We swore that we would not throw rocks anymore, and that we understood rock fighting was extremely dangerous as a result of the sustained injuries during our mock battle.

Our parents (Ann and Bill Leakas) were called to an impromptu meeting with the Alexander boy’s parents (Bud and Stella) to account for our behaviors. It’s always difficult to PROVE who started a ROCK FIGHT. But now – with wounds repaired – we all made apologies and shook hands agreeing to be friendly and nice towards one another from this point going forward or risk further punishment. It was a teaching moment – an exercise in parenting, patience, respect, and learning important lessons about how to treat other people, and how we wanted to be treated (The Golden Rule).

We had demonstrated empathy and concern towards our former adversaries – which were now our new friends, so we were spared punishment at this time. Our rivals had become our first new friends in the course of an afternoon! Generally speaking – I don’t advocate for rock fights as a way to make new friends – but in this case it worked out.

Two families with 9 boys between them of similar ages only a few doors apart – would find many other opportunities to play together in competitive ways generally not ending in bloodshed! We had begun a friendly rivalry lasting over 5 decades and created new friends as the result of this rock fight.

What really became apparent to me in this whole new world of northern Michigan was that we had our new “summer friends” who were very different from our “school friends” at home in Ohio. Most of our neighborhood friends and school friends from home we had known from a very early age. We played on our bikes and hiked the streams near our home after school. We played sports like baseball, basketball, football, and soccer with these winter and school friends.

But our “summer friends” were different! They spoke and acted differently, dressed differently, had different traditions, and came from different backgrounds. This really opened our eyes up to the world. We would brag about our summer friends to our school and neighborhood friends at home…tell them the wild stories and about the great adventures we had with our summer friends.

We had all kinds of competitions with our summer friends that forged great friendships and alliances through these shared experiences. To establish a pecking order within the pack of teenage boys…EVERYTHING we did was either “a competition, a race or a dare”!

There were of course organized competitions in golf, tennis, sailing and other club sanctioned events that we all participated in thru GANG. Our parents loved GANG in that it gave them regularly scheduled time for their adult competitions (away from the kids) …where we were supervised. But it was the unsupervised time after gang where we had the most fun. “Race you down to the beach” on foot or on bikes. Last one in the water is a “rotten egg” was a refrain I recall.  Bike races were common, and most bike races were short duration sprints. Who could “pop a wheelie” and hold it the longest (off the ground, balancing on one wheel)?  Or, who could leave the longest “skid mark” slamming on the brakes on the pavement after a short sprint – shortening the life of most bike tires! At the beach, we had swimming races of all kinds. A long duration endurance swim was “around the buoys”.  Or, who could swim the fastest from the end of swimming pier into the beach? This swimming race had a unique start featuring a simultaneous dive from the high and low diving boards! Other swimming challenges included who could swim across the channel to Pine Island? Or who would swim out to Fisherman’s Island?

I really enjoyed the high dive and diving boards at the Belvedere swimming pier – as we had many challenges and judges concerned with the best method and best execution of “The cannonball” – the “The Jackknife” and the “one and ½ somersault” (flip) dives! We all experimented with multiple contortions to see if we had invented any new splash dives! Of course, some of the best splash dive disasters we made up while experimenting AND yielded the best (worst) results – which were impossible to repeat – and caused great LAUGHTER and soreness the next day! Our family had a trampoline at home in Ohio – which is great training for diving – and we became proficient in many diving flips and twists with variations and combinations of all types. It’s difficult to measure the height of the splash dive from the water, but that didn’t stop us from trying as we waited our turn on the diving boards on the pier! Surely the girls in the boats going past and we were also hoping the girls on the beach could see what a great show we were putting on for them!

In our quest for greater diving heights, as young, crazy, competitive daredevil boys – we of course sought out new diving venues. And, when you add a small element of risk (something forbidden or discouraged) of course that raised the challenge and quest to complete a dive or jump based on a dare!

That’s how “diving or jumping” from the boat house roofs began. It was after climbing and jumping from the pilings at the sailing docks in the yacht basin and the ones near the boat houses, that we naturally began seeking a greater elevation for our dives. The trick was finding a way to climb on to the boat house roofs, scaling the pilings was one method that worked. And of course, throwing a “cannonball dive” with our jump from the boathouse roof – for maximum splash effect – was sure to draw high praise and accolades for our frowned upon risky daredevil activity!

I’m not really sure who came up with the challenge – but before they tore down the old train trestle – we realized that the trestle had a considerably higher elevation and an element of risk to dive or jump from the very end of the train trestle near the channel – as this was a discouraged activity. We had to walk all the way out to the end of the trestle from the shore neat the Casino and there was no way to hide! Also, there was a small chance a train might come down the tracks, but we thought we knew the train schedule so felt we were safe. We did manage to do it a few times, but with the boat traffic, water depth and strong water currents – abandoned this challenge after it had been done.

Then, someone came up with the ultimate dare and challenge, a jump from the highest levels of the railroad “swing bridge”!  Only problem was, it was on the other side of the channel – a relatively short swim across the main channel, but a very LONG bike ride if we had to go thru town. And there was of course the Coast Guard station which also housed the Sheriffs rescue boat.  But there it was – the ultimate fixed diving platform “base jump” with the maximum height we could find! The 75 to 100-year-old swing bridge was designed with a ladder on one side to service the lights atop the swing bridge. If the train trestle was 20 feet above the water, then the swing bridge and ladder added another 20-30 feet to the top of the mechanism – for a total of 50 or more feet directly above the deepest part of the channel. No one in their right mind would risk the challenge of the jump alone at almost 50 feet – let alone having the coast guard or the train swing bridge operator catch you in the act. You were not allowed to go out onto the swing bridge – only the bridge operator was allowed out there!

When you add all these elements together – then of course the “dare” and “reward of recognition” of becoming the “super alpha male” to any in our pack of teenage boys willing to attempt this risky display of fearless teenage masculine bravado! We had seen the cliff divers in Acapulco on ABC’s Wide World of Sports – and this was our Acapulco! Names will remain unnamed (actually, I can’t recall who did it first, and more than one person did the jump!)  We didn’t get caught, we did have numerous witnesses and best part of all, no one got hurt! And after that summer – we never attempted it again! I am proud to say that my nephews carry on the grand tradition of boat house roof jumping to this day and make it a regular part of the summer challenges!

On a much calmer surface (clay) – we regularly competed in tennis! We were so fortunate to have the tennis courts behind the Blue Bell cottage. My dad was an avid and highly competitive tennis player. We admired his athletic talents and aspired to play as well as he did. Dad was always eager to give us tennis lessons, and we could get lessons from the tennis pro to further hone our skills. And of course, with GANG, we had the opportunity to play tennis several times a week and entered tournaments at the Belvedere Club when they came up.  With either my dad or 3 brothers – it was easy to get a single or doubles match just about any time of the day!  And sometimes we played 2 or 3 times in one day – 6 or 7 sets or more – whenever someone wanted to go “hit tennis balls” we were ready in a minute’s notice!

But tennis was just the first and most obvious and available form of formal and structured organized competition living in the Blue Bell Cottage and at the Belvedere! What my parents loved, was the wide variety of outdoor sports and endless outdoor activities that the Belvedere Club and Gang offered, especially to a family with 5 kids, all close in age.  And they loved having all the other young families and kids around for us to play with. This was truly a midwestern summer paradise!

We got all kinds of lessons and engaged in many activities – testing our newfound skills with our friends and family members. Sailing lessons, golf lessons, tennis, archery – even canoe lessons! And we had this large group of kids and families close to our ages, all with different interest and backgrounds we could play with during the long summer daylight hours!  Can you believe it doesn’t get dark until almost 10pm in the summers in Northern Michigan?  Even with curfew at 9:30 we still managed to linger outdoors long into the evening near our cottages.

There were certain “tribes” we had discovered at the Belvedere which were based on where you were from and if you had a certain lineage and parentage! We had the Ohio clans, the St. Louis Clans, the Southern Clans and a few more clans.  Large multi-generational families with rich traditions and strong family values made up the core of our friends.  The parents and kids all seemed to get along well and enjoyed BOTH competitions and cocktails together at the many parties and get togethers during the summer seasons.

Our nextdoor neighbor, Steve Schleman worked for my dad as a stockbroker in Dayton, Ohio. Steve invited my family over to watch the Venetian Boat Parade one summer (1967?). We had been renting a cottage on Hoffman Point at Walloon Lake. My dad, an avid tennis player – also played tennis that day of the first visit – and I think instantly fell in love with The Belvedere Club.  I am pretty sure that it was on this same initial visit to the Belvedere – my parents ALSO inquired about the possibility of renting a cottage here. They loved the idea that there were SO MANY ACTIVITIES for a young family and the town was within walking distance. We learned of the process to be “approved to rent” – and fortunately were able to rent the Blue Bell Cottage the following year.

We instantly fell in love with “lake life” and the abundant activities we could experience for the first time as kids. There was small mouth bass fishing with Brad Schade on a nearby pond – or fishing for giant lake trout with Sammy Sherer and Tommy Alexander out on Lake Michigan. Our family did not have a boat, but our new friends’ families did! So, we were always angling for a boat ride out on the lakes!

Boat rides in fiberglass ski boats were fun – as the boats were light and could go very fast.  But a few people had these old mahogany “hot rods” that sounded and looked amazing! Classic designs, long and sleek – made of polished mahogany – gliding smoothly at slow speed in the “no wake zone” of the channel and Round Lake has inspired my lifelong romance with these classic watercrafts.  With names like Hacker Craft, Gar Wood, Century and Chris Craft to name a few!

On each boat ride – we all would SCREAM “PUNCH IT” as we reached the end of the “no wake zone” and entered the larger bodies of water. To hear those engines purr in the fiberglass boats did not compare to the ROAR of the exhaust in the old wooden hot rods!  We knew very well that it wasn’t safe to “floor it” in a car – as it would spin the tires, burning the rubber and making horrible noises – frightening women, children and dogs nearby. But, a boat – well that’s different! You could absolutely push the throttle to the maximum (floor it) – and this was essential in the case of water skiing! Those huge 6- and 8-cylinder engines would really make an unforgettable sound as they left the calm waters of the harbor and caused many a head to turn to see who or what boat was heading out on the lake!

Did I mention we had about a dozen or more (maybe 2 dozen during the peak summer weeks) of adolescent teenage boys – who are the worst possible incarnation of dare devils? We were all striving for attention and of course highly competitive – up for any challenge and test of our skills and our newly developed athletic abilities. What better way to “show off” than behind a ski boat performing slalom cuts on the glassy surface calm of the early morning or late afternoon lake?  Who could make the biggest spray or deepest cut without catching a shoulder and going for tumble? Who could go the fastest on one ski (according to the boat speedometer) without wiping out? If we could do a “double slalom (2 skiers pulled behind one boat) – could we pull 3 slalom skiers behind one boat? Ski backwards? Could we use the spray of our slalom ski to knock another skier off his (her?) skis? Could anyone do a flip on skis as we had seen on TV at Cyprus Gardens? Barefoot water ski? A standing “dock start”? Was anyone crazy enough to jump out of a ski boat going 15 knots? 25 knots? Or faster? (Answer; yes, of course! But after the high-speed boat jumping record holder took a pretty bad spill, we decided this competition could result in more serious injuries so wisely we ended the competition!)

Of course, with teen age boys, we were always clamoring for attention and willing to bend or break a few rules – it’s how we test the elders and make the perilous transition into manhood. Writ large – we had many rules at the Belvedere Club – we were made aware of them, and were reminded of them often by parents, siblings, friends and neighbors. 

One of the best-known local rules of course is the “no wake zone” of the channels, Round Lake, and the harbor. These rules were there for the safety of ALL BOATERS! Signs were everywhere and the rule was enforced by both the local sheriff and the coast guard if they were out on patrols! Occasionally, we would see tourists not familiar with the area and not really understanding this local rule. We would see these new people going a bit TOO FAST, putting out an unnecessarily large wake and causing the boats to rock back and forth on the docks which could potentially cause damage or swamp a canoe or small sailboat. So, naturally, we would stand on the shore OR if we were out in our boats shout at them “SLOW DOWN!” – you are going TOO FAST! And of course, we would get nasty looks back from the inexperienced new first-time tourist arrivals who were taking their family out sightseeing in the ski boat they had just rented for the family at WARDS BOAT RENTALS in town.

The NO WAKE rule – it was one of those rules just asking to be BROKEN! It was a dare as plain as day! Who would do it? I won’t say who – but after a late afternoon spin around the lake in a ski boat- out to Oyster Bay -then Ironton and Shades Point and back – we were headed back into the channel and into a private boat house in the Belvedere Club. I think it had started to rain, and we were unprepared for the deluge! Not wanting to get totally soaked and with only 2 of us in the boat, and being mid-week – not much boat traffic out on the lake or in the channel that we could see on our return back to town…the boat driver (unnamed can you guess who?) kept the boat at HIGH SPEED thru the channel entrance toward Round Lake. We were throwing out a HUGE wake as we rapidly slowed at the last minute and ducked into a boat house at the Belvedere Yacht basin and PULLED the door shut shutting off the engine immediately! Doing everything possible to contain our roars of laughter and squeals of delight at what we had just done – hoping the sheriff OR coast guard had not dispatched chase boats with armed militia to apprehend the NO WAKE ZONE excessive speed violation scofflaws!

We told a few others in our clique of our “now wake zone law breaking spree” (no boats were harmed in this escapade that I know of) which inspired additional adolescent “no wake zone” violations escapades to TOP ours! I think the same summer – another of our group said he could go “all the way through round lake and the channel” at high speed and not get caught! Of course, a dare is a dare…and later that summer (again, the law breaker will go un-named) started his record breaking attempt out in Lake Michigan – at a time when we knew the boat traffic, danger and risk of damage or harm would be low. The challenger made the high speed run all the way through Round Lake and the channel past the coast guard station (did I mention that sometimes the sheriff’s boat was kept here) and into the safety of the main body of water on Lake Charlevoix. Again, many witnesses – as he told us he was going to do it.  There was one additional element (that my memory on this escapade is not so clear on) perhaps on another attempt – was that the “high speed run” through Round Lake and the Channel involved pulling a slalom skier! (Seems like the kind of “one-upmanship” we would do for bragging rights but can’t swear to this part of the effort!)

Nothing can beat a “sunset cruise” out to Lake Michigan on a warm summer evening. This was almost a nightly tradition (weather permitting).  One or more boats would gather a group of friends and head out from the Belvedere boat houses and slips through Round Lake and past the tourists sipping cocktails sitting on the porches of the Weathervane Hotel. We had our music on, a cool beverage in hand and the maximum number of people the boat was permitted to have as we glided past the lighthouse at the channel entrance out into Lake Michigan. The sunset cruise fun increased if we could get 2-3 or even 4 boats to “raft up” and watch the sunset together. Bobby Rowe had a fast ski boat. The Alexanders and Bisbee’s had ski boats too! Could we get Mark Herschede or Joe Morris or Bobby Leatherman to join us in their boats to watch the sunset and join the raft? The trick when we were all tied together was to keep the boats pointing in the optimal direction to view the sunset (or so we thought!)  We would idle the boat motors and occasionally engage the propellers to give the raft of boats a slight directional spin.  And many times, on a warm summers evening, we would linger well past the sunset with the music playing and the gentle rocking of the waves as the stars came out.  As darkness fell, we would break up the raft and head back into the harbor.  Sometimes a speedboat race would spontaneously erupt as we had been sitting motionless for a while – knowing the cool evening air at maximum speed was sure to liven things up!  

In our teens and twenties – we would do a little “bar hopping” in town after the sunset cruises trying to find a pub with live music.  If it was still warm out that night – not wanting the evening to end – after the bars had closed…on more than a few occasions, we would go back to the boat houses and head out on the lake at midnight or even later! I cannot describe the feeling of heading out on the lake at night under a FULL MOON and stars. With no wind on the lake – we were effortlessly carving a deep calligraphic groove into the glassy gelatin smoothness of lake. We would agree to meet up again in the middle of Lake Charlevoix and tie the boats together into a raft so we could just drift and listen to our music rocked by the gentle waves on a calm evening.  Seals and Crofts lyrics “…Summer breeze, makes me feel fine, blowing through the jasmine in my mind…”  We listened to the music of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and other acoustic musicians such as Cat Stevens, the Eagles, Grateful Dead, Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, Poco, Traffic, Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Loggins & Messina, America, and Dan Fogelberg and many more. We never wanted summer to end and never wanted to go home!

What really captured my interest when we first came to the Belvedere was when our next-door neighbor Steve Schleman asked me (at age 11) if I was interested in sailing in a weekly regatta. He asked me to crew for him in the Belvedere Club sailboats – the Pearson Hawks.  The Belvedere Club had about 8 or 9 identical sailboats on the docks directly in front of the Blue Bell cottage which we could see from the front porches. My dad had an interest in sailing also…and we had tried to learn more about sailing at Walloon Lake.  But, with the availability of the club sailboats, the GANG sailing lessons, and the club Sunfish at the beach – this was a whole new world of nautical adventures.

I am so GRATEFUL for the availability of all these sailboats at the Belvedere Club at “no expense” as we only had to reserve them or sign up to use them. And with patient instructors – I had found a new passion! Once I had demonstrated my newfound skill as being a quick learner, I was granted permission to take the Belvedere Club Sunfish sailboat out alone.  Of course, it’s possible to sail a Sunfish sailboat with two people, but for me it meant unlimited lake exploration as a solo sailor – as long as I stayed within sight of the Belvedere Beach and kept my life jacket on.  And there were Hobie Cats too! These were much more suited to a 2-man crew and were exceptionally fast in the right conditions. Heaven forbid you capsize a Hobie Cat as they were much more difficult to right than a Sunfish.  We spent hours seeing how fast and how far we could go, what were the limits of “too fast, and too far”.  Sailing too fast and losing control meant that a capsize was eminent. We were rewarded for these sailing mishaps with the occasional plunge headfirst into the refreshingly cool lake water – and generally lots of laughs too!

The bi-weekly Pearson Hawks sailboat races were well attended and now offered a new element of competition with our cross-channel competitors – The Chicago Club. They had the same boats as we did – but not as large a fleet or as active a group of sailing enthusiasts.  It was the lessons and skills I learned here that led to my being chosen as the Chicago Club sailing instructor when I was 17 years old. This was a high accomplishment at an early age – and a also meant a paying staff position and required more time in Northern Michigan for summer season.

Through my new summer friends at The Chicago Club – I met another family in town from Birmingham Michigan who had a daughter our age – Hannah Mathews. Hannah’s dad, Bud Matthews owned a 36’ Chris Craft Sloop which was kept on the docks in front of his condo in town near the municipal docks on Round Lake.  Hannah invited me to go sailing with her dad, Bud Matthews, out on Lake Michigan one Saturday early in the summer. I told her dad Bud about my new position as sailing instructor at The Chicago Club. Bud was impressed with my knowledge and skill handling his boat as a crew member – and he put me on the helm for an hour or so and let me take several tacks – as well as bring the boat into the dock and tie her up. At the end of day, he offered me an official job as regular crew of his boat “Amanda”. My new job would be taking his boat out whenever his guests and or family friends were in town – but ONLY as long as it did not interfere with my primary responsibilities at The Chicago Club and the sailing programs and lessons there.   Bud was in town most weekends and over several weeks in June had me out as crew and in full command of “The Amanda” his 36’ sailboat – and ultimately as captain!

I was amazed when Bud told me that I could take the boat out – with his family, guests or crew – and that he did not need to be there for me to take the boat out. He had full trust in my abilities as a skipper and sailor at age 17! I asked if I could take my family out one evening for a sunset sail on the Amanda – and he said “OK”! My parents and siblings were quite impressed that a 17-year-old kid could handle the responsibilities of a 36’ sailboat and give instructions to our willing and eager family crew.

It was these early experiences as a sailor in Charlevoix that demonstrated to my dad that I would also make a competent and able crew on other sailing adventures he was planning. I was not as good at tennis as he and my brothers were – but my brothers had nowhere near my skills as a sailor. My dad had a real passion for sailing. Ultimately, for several decades, he would charter 30’ to 45’ sailboats all over the world to explore different regions – usually 1 or 2 weeks at a time – with business clients or for family vacations. I became one of his “go to crew” for navigation and boat handling. We had the amazing experiences and adventures of sailing together on most of the Great Lakes, southern California, The Caribbean, the coasts of Florida and New England including New York to Nantucket and the coast of Maine.  I also participated in one Chicago to Mackinac race in 1990 – a distance of 666 miles – where, on the return trip – brought the 45’ race boat into Charlevoix and put the crew up at the Blue Bell Cottage for a very memorable evening! All of this as a result of my acquiring the sailing skills at an early age at the Belvedere Club!

These are just some of my early memories of the Belvedere Club. In over 50+ years now, the annual tradition of spending the summer in Northern Michigan is one that I hold dear. I cherish these early memories with so many wonderful friends and families that I can instantly reconnect with them each summer when we all get together – like one big happy, crazy family! I can only hope that some of these great memories, stories and traditions will continue for generations to come!

William W. “Chip” Leakas  #506 Belvedere Club

Memories of Potter Orr – June 2017

My great-grandparents Mr. and Mrs. Frank H Simpson first came to Charlevoix in the early 1900s. While I do not know exactly what year they started coming, but the Belvedere Hotel register from the summer of 1913 survives and I found their names on the page for August 13. As was customary in those days everyone who was staying in the room was listed on the register. That included both my great-grandparents and their four daughters, one of whom was Eleanor Simpson, later Eleanor Orr.

I’m sure they left Cincinnati to avoid its lovely summer weather in those days before air conditioning existed. The Belvedere hotel had been designed specifically to entice visitors to Charlevoix in the hopes that they would buy cottages on the resort. It worked. In 1920 the Simpsons bought cottage 511.

I’ve not been able to trace the exact construction date of 511 but a hand-painted postcard from 1906 shows it in the stucco and beam configuration that I have known all my life. There are, however, pictures of the cottage from an earlier time when the outside was plain wooden siding painted a lovely olive drab color. When we made changes to the cottage in 2002 and had to remove part of the stucco, those olive color boards were found underneath.  In 1920 the cottage had three family bedrooms, two servants rooms and one more small bedroom. In addition, it had one bathroom upstairs at the end of the hall and a half bathroom on the semi-enclosed back porch.

The Simpsons (my great-grandparents ) had one son, Harold, in addition to the four sisters. Although he was not with the family in the hotel in 1913, he must of been a regular visitor at 511. The story goes that the owner of the cottage next-door, number 509, was an avid fisherman. As such, he liked to rise early in the morning for the prime early fishing. One day he came over to 511 and asked if anyone there would like to buy his cottage. He said that the Simpson clan was so loud and partied so late that he could not get to sleep early enough for his planned hour of awakening. He asked the Simpsons first about buying the cottage since he could not imagine that anyone else would be interested. Harold must have decided that he was either not going to inherit the cottage or did not want to wait that long so he bought 509. His grandchildren, the Bemises  and Parrishes own that cottage today.

 I don’t know exactly how it came about but my grandmother Eleanor Simpson Orr inherited 511 from her mother the first thing she did was tackle the bathroom situation. One small bedroom at the head of the stairs was split into two full bathrooms (showers only) which doubled the plumbing in the house.

This change did reduce the cottage to two bedrooms for the family since in common with many of her generation, she would never have considered going to Charlevoix without Emma, Catherine and Lafayette, the maid, cook and butler/chauffeur respectively.

In addition to brother Harold in the cottage next-door, one of my grandmothers sisters, Fran Simpson Cartwright, owned cottage 515. This was a typical old frame cottage on the site now occupied by the more modern Trulaske (formerly Connett) cottage. Her husband Bill Cartwright love to sit in his rocking chair on the porch looking across the mouth of the channel directly at what is now the Coast Guard station. He also considered it his mission in life to control speeding in the channel. He was possessed of a wonderful bellowing voice and when he thought someone was going too fast in the channel he would yell for them to slow down. If they failed to comply, he kept a small brass carbide cannon next to his chair and he would pull the lanyard. This cannon fired blanks but was incredibly loud and the sound echoed very nicely back and forth across the channel. It was astonishing how quickly the boats would slow down in response to this treatment.

My Orr grandparents in 511, of course, spent their summers on the Belvedere even during prohibition. The proximity of Charlevoix to Canada (who had nothing to do with the prohibition silliness) was an additional incentive. There were a number of bootleggers who would take off in fast speed boat from Charlevoix and make a run to Canada. Full to the brim with Canadian liquor they would make the nighttime run back to Charlevoix. My grandmother Orr was a very good customer of one of the local bootleggers and was often regaled with his tales of avoiding the Feds. One night on his return he pulled into a Belvedere boathouse only to find a federal revenue agent waiting for him. Seeming to have no choice, even before tying up he invited the agent aboard. As the Revenuer stepped from the dock to the boat, the boat was slammed into reverse and the engine gunned. This left a very wet federal agent floating in the boathouse and provided time to dock elsewhere and unload all the evidence.

Libby and Wally Rowe from Cincinnati were very good friends of the Orrs in 511. One summer during prohibition they were invited to visit. At the time there was actually air service between Cincinnati and Charlevoix using the venerable DC-3 planes. The only problem with this was the weather between Cincinnati and Charlevoix. Not being able to fly above most weather as jets are these days, the DC-3s had to pick their way between thunderstorms that like to inhabit the Ohio Indiana border. Since it was prohibition the Rowes were bringing a particularly fine bottle of scotch as a house present. Their plane was severely bounced for most of the flight and they needed something to calm them. By the time the plane touched down in Charlevoix, the house present had been completely drained. They had a nice visit Charlevoix anyway little suspecting that their granddaughter, Sandy, would marry into this very cottage 30 or so years later.

In the early 1940s Irene and Dick Leatherman from Robinsonville Mississippi bought cottage 519 which was just across the small driveway circle from 511. They were almost exactly the same age as the Orrs and shared the same interests – golfing and partying. Irene Leatherman had a first cousin named Irene Bond whose parents died when she was a teenager. She went to live with her aunt and uncle and first cousin Irene Morrow (Leatherman). That meant that there were two girls only a year apart both with the first name of Irene living in the same house. It made for great confusion but also for these two cousins feeling like sisters. Irene Bond later married Walter McDonnell and at about the same time that Irene Leatherman and bought a cottage in Belvedere, Irene McDonell did as well. The McDonnell-Hill part of the family has also become a large presence on the resort.

My father, Jim Orr, spent many of his early summers at 511 and was often thrown together with Kate Leatherman since their respective parents were such good friends. Kate was four years younger than Jim and treated by him with the usual disdain of somebody that much younger.

 After a few years of staying home to work in the summers, Jim came back Charlevoix at age 20 and was greatly surprised to see what had become of the little girl from next-door. Kate was now 16. They were married three years later.  This Belvedere marriage, or merger, while not unique, was one of the larger ones for Belvedere. My family on both sides had a lot of members of the club.

 My birthday is in October and I always add an extra year to the amount of time I have spent in Charlevoix since I know for sure that I was there in utero during the summer of 1947. I’ve had the wonderful good fortune to have been in Charlevoix at least a portion of every summer since then.

 My childhood summer routine was fairly simple. I would come to Charlevoix around July 1 and spend the month of July with one grandmother. At the end of the month I would pack my worldly belongings and trudge across the back circle to spend August with the other grandmother. Even as a child I recognized that this was a pretty sweet deal. What did not dawn on me until I had children of my own was that this left my parents childless all summer.

When I was young the trip from Cincinnati to Charlevoix was always a trial. Going north in the early 1950s made for a very long day as no interstate highways had yet been built. In addition to driving my parents crazy with the typical childhood question of “are we there yet”, the hilly two lane roads provoked multiple bouts of car sickness.

 There was an alternative that I got to use a couple of times, an overnight train from Cincinnati to Petoskey. The best of those rides was the summer when I was eight years old. Mother drove my brother Ted and I to Union terminal just outside downtown Cincinnati. We waited on the platform as the overnight train from Memphis pulled in. Mother got on the train only long enough to deliver us to one of grandmother Leatherman’s child handlers. She was already ensconced in a large bedroom on the train with three of my Leatherman first cousins – Dick, Mary and Irene. Adding my brother and I meant the poor nurse had to cope with five children ranging in age from 4 to 8 during that overnight train ride. Our nurse did have one advantage not available today. Proverbs 13:24 “Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them”. Every nurse I can remember as a child was a staunch believer in that passage. Although I cannot remember ever being spanked by either of my parents, they did hire professionals to do it for them. Being the oldest I’m sure that I got more than my fair share of the spankings but I loved all my nurses just the same. Only once did I get what I believe was an unjustified spanking.

 My grandmother Leatherman had the same theory about servants in Michigan as my grandmother Orr. She actually would have four in residence most of the summer. In addition to a cook, a maid and a chauffeur, she would bring a nurse to take charge of all the grandchildren. Cottage 519 had two bedrooms and a bathroom added onto the back of the first floor of the cottage to house grandchildren and their nurse. The only downside of this arrangement was that these rooms were reached by a door at the end of the dining room. Family alone would fill at least half fill the dining room every evening and many nights friends or other relatives filled the table completely.

 Dinner was usually served late and the well lubricated group did not exactly whisper at the table. This would often wake me up and I naturally wanted to join the fun. Since the door to the dining room was right next to the door to my room I soon learned to operate the doorknob and became a problem. Not long after a latch was installed in that door about 5 feet up and ended my adventuring.

Following southern tradition, children at the Leatherman cottage ate their meals in the kitchen and of course much earlier than the adults. We learned early that if we planned to enjoy the wonderful southern biscuits produced for almost every meal we had to guard them carefully. Many adult relatives, especially Bobby Morrow, would come through the kitchen while we were eating dinner and biscuits of the unwary have a habit of disappearing.

 By the time I was aware of appliances, it was 1952 and like most houses at that time both our house in Cincinnati and 519 had an electric refrigerator. The back porch at 519, however, was absolute magic to young child. In addition to the electric refrigerator there was a genuine icebox. It had no plug but two or three times a week the ice truck would pull up the back door and a man would come in with a particularly evil set of looking set of metal tongs carrying a cube of ice about a foot square to the icebox. Soft drinks and beer were kept in the icebox and every evening at cocktail hour the ice bucket was filled by using an ice pick to chip off of those blocks. We would beg for chips of that ice to suck. I always thought that ice tasted special but at the time I had no idea why. Later I found out that the blocks that came to our house had started life as huge blocks sawn from the frozen lake Charlevoix each winter. Since it came out of the lake frozen and remained that way until consumed there was no filtering or purification involved. I’m sure that in wintertime the lake water was pretty pure but it may also have served to bolster our young immune systems.

Up until 1960 when it was torn down, the Belvedere Hotel was an ongoing attraction for children living on the resort. The counter in the lobby of the hotel stocked a huge selection of candy. In those days the proverbial “two nickels to rub together” was a fortune that merited a trip across Belvedere Avenue to buy candy. Loose change left on countertops made its way to the hotel. In addition, a couple times a week a huge bingo game was held in the main part of the hotel. On some occasions we would be allowed to attend the bingo game in hopes of winning a fortune to spend the candy counter. These were the good old days and no child was allowed in the hotel parlor in the evening for bingo unless they were dressed in their Sunday finest. It is now an awful lot of years later, but I swear I never one a bingo game in my entire young life.

 All through the 1950s and 60s (and perhaps a little later) many of the residents of Belvedere brought household servants with them to Charlevoix. The tradition of the time was that servants had Thursday and Sunday off. In addition, at least half of the cottages with servants would contribute the loan of a car for the days off. While I never got to hear all of the details I often wondered who had the most interesting social lives during the summer the resort members or their help. Caravans from the Belvedere saw all of the sites of northern Michigan on those Thursdays and Sundays. Parties on Sunday nights resulted in many bleary eyes on Monday mornings.

One of the cardinal sins for any Belvedere member was “poaching” the servant of another member. For many years my grandfather Dick Leatherman brought his chauffeur/butler and right hand man, Woody B, to Charlevoix. Over the course of several summers Woody developed a romantic interest in the young lady who worked for Dick Moss. Either as a result of that interest or an offer from Dick Moss (I still have no desire to take sides), Woody B moved to St. Louis and went to work for Mr. Moss. Prior to this incident Dick Moss and Dick Leatherman had been best friends but afterwards they were estranged for several years.

The merchants of Charleroi all figured out in short order how the system worked for most Belvedere residents. The Neff Brothers grocery store had it down to a science. They established a charge account for any Belvedere cottage owner who wished to have one. They would take orders by phone from each cottage’s cook and would then deliver the groceries. While we never knew for sure, it seemed clear that this was a profitable enough business in the summer months to carry the store on your round. This was confirmed for me one year when my mother and father came back from a skiing trip in Vail Colorado and told me that in the chairlift line they had run into Mr. Neff from Charlevoix.

Perhaps one of the biggest changes I’ve seen in the resort during my lifetime is the almost total disappearance of live-in help. As mentioned above, when I was a child there was a huge population of help on the resort and there almost none left. It is by and large representative of the change in lifestyle over the years that has left most cottage owners with a number of very small bedrooms. For most of us this is not a problem, we just stick small children in the in those rooms.

 I need to do some research to find out exactly when gang was started. It seems odd to me that I don’t know the answer to that question but certainly he was going strong by 1952. No adult in any part of my family would countenance the concept of a gang age child not going to gang, but I couldn’t wait to leave the house in the morning. Friends that you see for only a portion of the year and that under the best conditions imaginable for children are the best and most long-lasting of friends. A couple of years ago playing golf on the Belvedere I looked around at the foursome and realized that I had been playing games with the same guys for over 60 years.

 Gang activities have changed over the years. When I was a gangster, in addition to tennis, golf and swimming, someone thought sailing was very important. The club’s fleet of sailboats at the time were called Rockets and they were all wooden boats of about 15 feet. We had sailing lessons at least two half-days each week and two full-scale sailboat races each week in addition. The lessons included classroom time learning to tie a variety of sailing knots and learning the precise name of each component of the boat and each part of the sail. In the races each boat was skippered by a gangster with an adult advisor on board. Careful tally was kept during the summer of the number of victories for each skipper and a trophy was awarded at Cabaret at the end of the year.

 During the 50’s and 60’s the resort was able to attract college graduate students as gang leaders. Bobby Schrock was a gang leader of mine he was in medical school. One year big gang leader was a gentleman named Dave Sime. During that summer he did an awful lot of running, some of it wearing small belts of lead weights around his ankles. One day he challenged me to a race along the flat stretch of Ferry Avenue from the casino down towards the sidewalk to the beach. He would run and I got to ride my bicycle. I lost, badly. Not long after that I found out why. Dave was training for the Olympics and he would very shortly become the co-holder of the world’s record for the 100 yard dash –  9.3 seconds.  This also gave him the title of “World’s fastest man”.

 Another big change in gang has been overnights. The 1950s and 60s were both a safer time and far less litigious. Our gang overnights were always well away from the resort, sometimes a long way away and at least once a year while I was in big gang we did two night overnights.  The 2 nighter I remember best was in the campground at Waugoshance Point State Park.  This point juts far west into Lake Michigan to form the southwest edge of the straits of Mackinack.  The big Mac bridge is visible from almost everywhere in the park.

 I believe in gang is the most important facet of life on the Belvedere. Each succeeding generation of children are taught the important skills required for enjoying the northern Michigan summer. But there to even more important factors. First, the friendships developed among gang members last a lifetime. Knowing that returning to Belvedere will give you an opportunity to again see lifetime friends is a real incentive to come north of the summer. Second, gang allows young parents to actually have a vacation. Many newly married young adults would often like to go somewhere for vacation other than where their parents have always taken them, but they realize that if they go back to Belvedere the kids can go to gang. Finally, Belvedere is one of the few places left in the world where relatively young children can be allowed to go free range. Almost as soon as they are old enough to know how to swim, kids can be safely set free within the confines of the resort. We really are a family in the sense that almost all adults would happily discipline someone else’s children if they thought they needed.

 1960 at Belvedere was shaping up to be a very perilous year resort. Gang up until then had ended for children once they passed age 12. That year there were nearly 20 of us baby boomers would turn 13. The powers that be were justifiably frightened of that many children that age running unsupervised on the resort. The answer was simple, teenage gang. Butch Mullen had just been married and was in graduate school. He and his wife Ann were quite happy to have the job as team gang leaders for the summer. There was some initial reluctance among the kids but all the parents were able to maintain a united front and we went off to teen gang. Truth be told, it was an awful lot of fun. Butch had been a gangster himself and he knew the drill.  Teen gang was an extension of the activities we all enjoyed all our lives with some slightly more adult activities thrown in. I remember a group of us complaining bitterly that we did not want to have bridge lessons as that was an activity for old people. Butch’s reply was very straightforward:  “As an activity with your friends necking won’t last but bridge will”.

 As our group reached 16 and mostly had summer jobs, teen gang faded away. It has been revived from time to time whenever a dangerously large number of 13-year-olds might be coming to Belvedere.

 Even when we were 16 and 17 there would often be a lot of us on the resort at the same time during the summer and while we couldn’t quite be corralled for teen gang, perhaps we should have been. I’m sure that for the entire history of the resort 16 and 17-year-olds have done plenty of stupid things and we were no exception.

 One year the Retherfords bought a new Century speedboat mostly for the use of daughters Lee and Lynn. The water skiers among us were awed by the amazing power of this new boat and decided that it could probably pull a lot of water skiers at once. After scavenging equipment from practically every boathouse and an hour or so of logistics we found that it was possible to arrange 10 skiers behind a single boat. It turns out that there really isn’t room for 10 skiers behind a single boat but only two of them fell off and for about a half a mile we actually had eight people pulled out of the water skiing behind a single boat with no drowning.

 In response to someone’s dare a group of us decided that we could swim from Two Mile point back to the Belvedere Beach. Those not directly involved in this insanity did at least come up with two or three boats to motor slowly alongside the swimmers to make sure we didn’t lose anybody. This would actually have worked out quite well except that this was during the period when the lakes were infested with lamprey eels. Now lampreys actually have no interest in warm-blooded creatures however they don’t know we are warm-blooded until after the attempt to attach themselves. Being attacked in mid-lake is not conducive to successful swimming so it was good that we had the safety boats alongside.

 Another day while swimming from  anchored boats in Loeb’s Cove, we noticed that on the bottom just at the edge of the drop off were hundreds of clams. This was in the days before the zebra mussels and these were big clams typically 3 to 4 inch long shells. They certainly looked like they ought to be edible so we spent a good part of an afternoon harvesting about four dozen of them. Chipper Ransom’s family had a cottage outside Belvedere on a hilltop just off the Boyne City Road. This was a favorite party spot since no one could see or hear us and we adjourned there with our clams. Over the next several hours we established to everyone’s satisfaction that while these clams were fortunately not poisonous, they were in no way edible. We boiled, we steamed and we fried. None of it helped.

 We were very close knit group and almost never would we embark on an adventure if everyone in the group couldn’t come along. Sudi Ware (Alexander) had a little better sense than most of us and on several occasions she was able to sidetrack a particularly stupid venture. She was from San Antonio and her mother always brought a nice lady along from Texas to supervise the children – still including Sudi.  When she thought we were really going off the rails, Sudi would announce that she needed to call home and check for permission. Asking for permission always took place in Spanish which none of the rest of us could understand. After a prolonged conversation Sudi would turn to us and say with a terribly disappointed look on her face that she wasn’t allowed to go. We didn’t want to leave her behind so we would abandon the project. I found out much later that in most cases that Spanish conversation consisted of Sudi saying “these guys want to do something really dumb, would you please be so good as to forbid me?”

When I was 16 I managed to arrange for my girlfriend to come and visit me in Charlevoix. Sandy Rowe came and stayed in 511 subject to the fairly lax chaperonage of my grandmother Orr. Being an athlete and adventurer Sandy fit quite nicely into my group of friends on the resort. As of this writing she has been coming to the Belvedere for 54 years. By the standards of my most diehard friends, this still qualifies as a “short timer” but I never mention that to her.. She did tell me later that after spending time in Charlevoix she decided that she really ought to try and hang on to me so that she could return. In addition to my huge crowd of relatives on the resort, it turned out that Sandy had a relative there as well. Betty Forker was Sandy’s father’s first cousin.

 At age 16 I was clearly not thinking long term but Sandy’s visit may well have amounted to the well-known resort institution called the “Belvedere test”. Over the years I have seen many long-term denizens of the resort in their early 20s bring a serious significant other for a visit. I’m sure that almost none of the guests realized that they were being tested but not fitting in on the resort is often a disqualification for further consideration as a mate.  The test can be a major challenge as breaking in to a group that has known each other their entire lives if not easy.

 In the 1960s most people stayed in Charlevoix until Labor Day and at the end of the season when all tournaments have been concluded, the resort staged a huge party at the casino- Cabaret.  This was a homegrown musical show in the platform for the distribution of innumerable trophies. Cabaret in the summer of 1964 was a musical about the upcoming presidential election. Two different groups of cavemen were lobbying for either Goldrock or Johnstone.  My first and only musical adventure was in this cabaret. Everyone who heard me agreed that singing out loud in public was something I should avoid the rest of my life. We did have a great time with the cabaret including building a 16 foot long dinosaur of papier-mâché made from newspapers over chicken wire over a wooden frame. Just because we thought it would be fun (albeit not realistic) we decided that this needed to be a fire breathing dinosaur. A plumber’s propane torch in the dinosaurs mouth seemed like a really good idea until the dinosaur caught fire.

 I count myself very lucky that even after my teenage years were over I still have the opportunity to come to Charleroi every summer. As soon as my children were old enough they went off to gain every single day. Daughter Mimi spent a couple of summers as a gang leader and son Jimmy was a teen gang leader for two summers. Now I’m able to send my grandchildren off to gang. They are the six generation of the family to stay in 511 and they have the rare privilege of getting to play with some of their fourth cousins.

 With these young ones in gang I spent a little more time at the Belvedere Beach that I have for quite a few years.  I have noticed that much of the equipment in use today for the gang at the beach is exactly the same as what I used in gang. I remember as a very young gangster taking trips in the Grumman aluminum canoes. 60 years later they look none the worse for wear. As I’ve recently been going through old photographs in an effort to organize and conserve, I found a picture of myself on the beach merry-go-round when I was two years old. The big slide on the beach has been there just as long. Each of the resort spared no expense in both the very best or more likely manufacturing standards for practically everything were just a bit higher 65 years ago.

 Like most native Belvederians I have very different standards as to what constitutes swimmable water than most of the world. Anything at 65° or higher seems just fine to me. I count is lost in the day that I’m unable to spend time either in or on one of the lakes. I’ve been paying careful attention to the lakes long enough to have seen their natural cycles and a lot of changes-both good and bad.

 The Great Lakes as a whole a remarkable for the volume of water that they hold practically since their drainage basin is relatively small. The cottage at 519 had a wonderful card table the top of which was a map of the Great Lakes. A thin dotted line surrounding the entire system showed the limits of the drainage basin, the area whose rainfall drains into the Great Lakes. That line extends only about a third of the way down the state of Ohio, anything soft about line ending up in the Ohio River. In Illinois, the line is also surprisingly close to Lake Michigan with any water falling in the Western portion of the state draining to the Mississippi River instead. One of the attractions Charlevoix in the summer is both the cool weather and the lack of extended periods of rain that might spoil our outdoor activities. To keep up the lake levels, we depend on winter storms which we fortunately do not have to personally endure. Even so, the level of the Great Lakes (and Lake Charlevoix which is attached) vary wildly.

 There is a rough 20 year cycle between the highest and lowest water levels but that cycle is so long that many forget. I remember prognostications of doom in the middle 1960s when the lake was at historic lows. In those years if you walked to the end of the waterskiing dock placed south of the Belvedere Beach and jumped into the water you would find it only 6 inches deep. Dredging was required in all of the boathouses to make them usable and it was a very long step down into every boat. Many people assured me that the days the Great Lakes were over and they were on the path to dry up completely.  Fast forward about 20 years to 1985 and we find Lake Charlevoix within an inch or two of covering the road behind the casino that leads to the beach. Now we were building add-ons to sit on top of the existing docks in each boathouse because the normal ones were underwater and building sandbag barriers behind the Casino. More tales of gloom and doom were bandied about some people were certain that within another two years we would have no beach left at all. Since then the lake levels have wandered up and down within the boundaries of normal. A couple of years ago we were very low when the Detroit River was dredged increasing the outflow into Lake Erie at the same time the Chicago River was reversed to provide extra water to support barge traffic on the Mississippi. This double whammy took our lakes way down but now they have recovered to the point where we needed to dump additional rock along the shoreline between the casino and the channel. I expect further changes.

It is been interesting over the years to observe not just the level of water in the lakes but also the content. As the St. Lawrence River in the lower Great Lakes have been opened to oceangoing ships, a variety of unwelcome visitors joined us. Sometime about the middle 1960s a creature called the lamprey eel found its way into the Great Lakes. The lamprey is a very primitive parasitic fish, although it is technically not considered a fish since it has a cartilage cord instead of an actual backbone. The eel feeds by attaching itself using a suction cup type of mouth to the side of a regular fish. Once attached it slowly sucks all of the blood out of the fish killing it. Once the host is gone, the eel looks for another one. These eels have no natural enemies in the Great Lakes and they nearly drove our largest fish, Lake Trout and lake whitefish to extinction. When those populations were nearly gone, the eels moved on to smallmouth Bass and even lake perch. Having caused the problem in the first place human beings have tried to fix it. Eels like many other creatures surviving in the lakes and oceans prefer to spawn in smaller streams. The first approach was to install electric fences across the mouths of the primary breeding streams and rivers. These fences always had an opening at one end and most fish were able to sense the electric current and find the opening. The lampreys with their very primitive nervous systems were unable to detect the electrical field before swimming in it and being killed. While the system was a help it was too expensive to put on every little stream. Fortunately someone was able to develop a powdered poison to be dropped into smaller streams that would suffocate eel larvae in the streambed without adversely affecting other fish.

Once the population was reduced to a manageable level it was time to attempt to rebuild the population of Lake trout and whitefish. Unfortunately about that time the next unwelcome visitor arrived – the alewife. This is a nasty little 5 inch long fish from the ocean who seems quite able to live in freshwater. By all accounts they are nearly worthless. Not only are they considered inedible by people but they don’t even make satisfactory cat food. They arrived at a time when the only fish large enough to be predators, the lake trout, were almost gone. Alewives multiplied beyond reason and were very hard on a number of other native species, like perch, because they ate the same food. Many of you will remember summers when the population of alewives had outgrown the food supply and they died by the billions only to wash up on our beaches and rot and stink. Luckily for all of us the Michigan state department of fisheries was able to pull a rabbit out of the hat. Turns out that in the ocean the major predators of alewives are salmon. Salmon are all born and then spawn in freshwater but spend the rest of their lives in saltwater. After years of effort three species of salmon –  Coho, King and Chinook were adapted to spend their entire lives in freshwater. These fish were aggressively stocked in the Great Lakes and soon brought the population of alewives down to a very manageable level. This was a double win for the state of Michigan since people anxious to catch salmon contribute millions of dollars to the state economy every year.

 Just when it looked like the Great Lakes were back in balance zebra mussels arrived. These fingernail-sized shellfish arrived in ballast water of oceangoing ships and went crazy in our lakes. They spawn like crazy and attach themselves in clusters to anything in the lake that is not moving. Like all shellfish the feed by straining microscopic food from the water. They been very damaging to the native population of shellfish because they steal all the food. They have another effect that has been the good news/bad news result for the lakes. There so many of them that their feeding has made the water of the lakes noticeably clearer than it has been in a long time. In Lake Michigan Lake Charlevoix boy this is generally a good thing. In the smaller inland lakes this extra clarity of water is been a real problem. Since these lakes are much shallower the clarity of the water now allows weeds to grow up from the bottom of the lake. This clogs the lake and boat propellers during the growing months then creates an even worse problem in the winter. When it gets cold all of these plants die and then sink to the bottom of the lake where they rot. The rotting process uses up much of the dissolved oxygen in the water and many of the fish in the small lakes then suffocate. No miracle cures yet been found zebra mussels.

The year I was born my grandfather Leatherman, his brother-in-law and a cousin decided that the family needed a boat. They bought a 1948 22 foot Chris-Craft mahogany speedboat and named it “Rebels”. The boat was shared among three or four related families. This made for a hard life for Rebels. Everybody who reached teenage years wanted to drive the boat and it had to suffer through the learning curve for every one of them. Despite being a bit underpowered it would pull water skiers. It can hold about a dozen people in a pinch and was perfect for general sightseeing and beachside picnics. The fact that it still in one piece is testimony to its durability. Before the bottom of the boat was replaced about 10 years ago it sank several times tied to the docks in the boathouse and it was subject to one rather spectacular sinking in Lake Michigan off of North point. A relative of mine, who shall remain nameless, was out touring in one of the years with relatively low lake levels. He was not aware that shallow water extends way out from the points in Lake Michigan.  Around North Point just underwater are boulders about the size of a cottage. He hit one of those at cruising speed sending the propeller and the rudder up through the bottom of the boat. Despite being made of wood, the steel block of the six-cylinder engine was enough weight to send the boat straight to the bottom. Luckily the bottom there was only about 20 feet and the folks from Bellinger Marine pulled it up, towed it in and put it back together.

Eventually Dick Leatherman and the original owners got tired of paying the bills and passed ownership of the boat down to the next generation including my father Jim Orr, my uncle Richard Leatherman and at least one of the relative. Finally over a number of years the other owners got tired of paying and my father ended up with the whole boat. His third wife was not a fan of Belvedere and he came to me one day and asked if my siblings and I would like to buy the cottage since he was planning on selling it. I exercised admirable restraint and didn’t tell him that I was planning on inheriting the cottage the way he did. We negotiated a reasonable deal for the cottage. When I thought everything was settled my father said to me “Oh by the way, if you want to buy the cottage you have to take the boat too”. He didn’t ask for any extra money for the boat, but just wanted out from underneath the bills.

Belvedere Club memories: Kate Orr Tomkinson –

An earliest memory is a story from my dad when he was little.  My grandparents in 511 were having a cocktail party in I am guessing the early 1930’s.  It was a rainy night and my grandparents had sent a boat to Canada to get the liquor for the party. 

Slightly before the party was to start there was a loud knock at the door of 511.  My grandfather looked out and saw a person outside that closely resembled said an agent of Volstead Act, aka prohibition.  Ganny and Pop Orr immediately dispatched my dad (Jimmy Orr) to take the case of liquor and throw it into the channel.  The 8 year old was quick to react and with diligence heaved it out into the channel.  To my grandparents dismay, the caller/knocker was an invited guest who threw off his hat and said “surprise” but didn’t know then he had just ruined the party.  My grandparents did not hesitate to plead with my father to dive for the booze.  Needless to say it is still at the bottom of the channel!!


As kids growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, a favorite pastime was:
1.       Placing pennies on the track for the train to flatten
2.       Playing kick the can at the beach till the curfew rang, with a favorite hiding place being on the roof of the kiddie koop.
3.       Waterskiing from the ski dock just past the pier
4.       Hating sailing but going anyway and having a huge storm turn over our boat and being rescued by the Coast Guard – then still hating sailing.
5.       Having Ginger and Chris Payne hang bad gangsters from their belt from a tree next to 511
6.       Janet Kuhn and Sunny Ware lose gangsters to kidnappers from the Belvedere
            (Jim McDonald and ?? accomplice) so fun for the gangsters!!
7.  Watching the Alexander boys get their mouths washed out with soap for cussing on a daily                             basis.

Special memories for me were listening to Uncle Bud Alexander yell “boom boom” after every Venetian firework.

Driving my Grandmother’s 1948 Oldsmobile to the grocery store where the current Goodwill store is on the north side of town.  As the bell begun to ring for the bridge going up I decided I could easily make it.  Well I did but not without the bar landing on the top of the car and getting air with a car that should NOT BE GETTING AIR as the bridge separates!

Probably not politically correct to remember but making sure Nat’s car was washed for his Thursday’s and Sunday’s off.


Mary Morris Larimer #513 – Back to Book 3

My Grandfather, Dr William L Freyhof, was a cardiologist from Cincinnati, Ohio. He was asked by Logan Thomson (previous owner of the Herschede cottage) to consider coming to Northern Michigan during the summer. Mr Thomson, concerned about possible heart issues, wanted his personal doctor near by. My Grandfather agreed & immediately fell in love with the area. He purchased #513 in 1939.

My Grandparents, mom & her sister, Betty, and our family spent many happy years here. My father’s father ( Joseph G Morris) owned #201 ( now Stella Alexander’s cottage) for a few years. My parents met each other one summer when Mom’s parents were renting the Tate’s cottage ( now Acker)

Tragically my grandparents were killed in an automobile accident in the Fall of 1963 driving home to Cincinnati. Insert picture#1

My mother inherited the cottage & we continued to summer here. In the mid 70’s, my father sold his business in Cincinnati and my parents moved full time to Charlevoix. My Dad became a realtor, ran for & won a seat on City council. During the next 10 years my parents were involved with the Episcopalian church, bridge tournaments ( that benefited Charlevoix Hospital) & met many wonderful friends in the community. Jim & I were married here in 1975, had the rehearsal dinner at the Golf club, service at the Episcopalian church & reception at the casino. I was a junior at Denison when I met Jim in Granville, Ohio. He asked what I did in the summer. I said I go to Charlevoix , Michigan, a small town you probably have never heard about. He replied, I know it well as I was a camp counselor at Camp Charlevoix in 1969. Always a small world !

In 1982 my dad suffered a stroke in March. Our daughter was born on May 3 rd ( my grandfather’s birthday !) and sadly Dad died later that September.
Our children,Mary & William enjoyed many happy summers with Mom, attending gang, later working as gang leaders and making many friends. Insert picture # 2 & 3& 4

My mother spent the next 20 years here at the cottage. At one point there were 4 widows living full time in Belvedere, Mom, Mrs Schlemann, Peggy Disbro, & Rosemary Mueller. In the winter, rotating cottages, they would gather to have their nightly cocktail, cheese & crackers & lively intelligent conversations regarding current events. Tom Conlan, the warden at the time, probably had his hands full !
A generation later, I find we have continued this tradition. On our circle around 5 pm we often wander over to either the Parrish/Bemis, Orr or Bisbee cottage to enjoy a drink. Discussions revolve around our golf game that day, a hot Belvedere topic or world event and always full of laughter !

My mother died in 2003. Cleaning out a closet I came upon a map case. I started to pitch the entire thing but out of curiosity opened it. Insert picture # 5
I can only imagine the cocktail party the group had that evening !

The summer I came up after my mother died, I remember that Chris Jones greeted me with a warm smile & hug & said welcome home !
Tears came to my eyes as I realized that Charlevoix was really now my home.

“ You can take the girl out of Northern Michigan, but you can’t take Northern Michigan out of the girl”

Submitted by Camille Leatherman Breland      Back to Book 3

I started going to Charlevoix in the early 1960s.  What a time to be a child!  Your parents went to the Belvedere to have a vacation themselves.  You went to gang and didn’t come home until curfew.

Gang ran from 10-12 and 2-5 on weekdays and a picnic day on Saturdays.  I was able to stay with Grandmother Leatherman for the whole summer when I was eight years old.  As my cousins grew, they joined me in a whole summer of fun.  On the sun porch of 519, we played gook, spit, slap jack, Monopoly, Life and any popular game of the day.  We read Archie comic books, which we could buy with our 50 cent weekly allowance.  (As long as we never left our shoes on the sun porch!)  Grandmother did not allow TV watching (although a clear memory is watching the moon landing on a small grainy black and white TV).

We were looked after by Frankie, our nurse, and Davey, our cook.  Sunday mornings always meant homemade pecan rolls.  Saturday lunches were packed with homemade brownies, making all the other gangsters jealous!

After dinners, all the kids would meet up at the beach where we’d play Red light, Green light; Mother May I?; Simon Says, and our favorite, Kick the Can.  We’d all stay at the beach until the 9:30 curfew rang, and then it was home to bed.

Capture the Flag was the favorite game of Gang.  And the nighttime version, Commandos.

Thursday evenings and Sundays were the days off for our caretakers.  That meant we could walk to King’s Burgers to get our dinner.  We’d also all walk to the movies.  We’d have Jefs at the drugstore soda fountain, loved Mr. Misty’s and Dilly Bars at the DQ, and of course ate lots of Murdick’s fudge.

Gang was divided into Little Gang, Intermediate, Girl’s Gang and Boy’s Gang.  Lydia and Myron Sherer, Janet Kuhn and Darcy Mudd, Chris and Ginger Payne (yes they were gang leaders together) were my Girl’s Gang Leaders.  Ann Flanigan, Sara Meyers, Connie and Margie Bisbee, Lucy McDonald, Sally Schade and Jayney Ware were my contemporaries.  Cousins Adele and Irene Orgill, Kate Orr, and my brothers Bobby and Leslie were my crew.

This is the beauty of the Belvedere.  My children were lucky enough to grow up experiencing my summers, and now my grandchildren are continuing the tradition, with so many of my friends’ grandchildren.  Life goes on,  but the Belvedere is our constant.

Leslie F. Leatherman

Reflections, summer, 2020

10% 

            The summer of 2020 was like no other, not only on The Belvedere, but worldwide as well.  Here in Charlevoix, many of us were in our own cocoons, all by choice, just social distancing and spending time with family, much more than previous years of the cocktail party scene.  I am proud of our Belvedere family working together for the common good of all, and perhaps future summers will  be dialed back; however 2021 may shape up to be a real bell ringer.  Who knows?

            The 10% refers to me, and probably lots of us.  10% is pretty much the amount of my life spent here at the club and in northern Michigan.  My parents started bringing me in the mid 1960’s when I was old enough to attend “Baby Gang.”  We stayed with “Grandmother” in cottage 519, now Aunt Irene’s.  Grandmother would have all her grandchildren of gang age under one roof where board and card games were taught, enjoyed and fought over.  We roamed the resort with our lifelong friends who are all ten percenters and we still roam 50 plus years later.  Grandmother did require us to have dinner with her almost every night unless she was going out.  The table was set, and Nat would announce:  “Dinner is served,” to all of us on the porch talking with Grandmother and Granddaddy and in the sun parlor playing games.

            Nat was my grandparent’s beloved butler, bartender, chauffeur, handyman, confidant and my best friend.  He would drive their car up from Mississippi each summer and take care of everything around the house.  Grandmother also had a cook, Davey, from Cincinnati, who made the best brownies and cinnamon rolls, and Frankie, a housekeeper. Many families brought help up during those times. Thursday’s and Sunday’s were the help’s off days, and we would eat lunch and dinner at the Casino, with all our friends. 

            Each evening the kids of all ages would usually be at the beach playing “Capture the Flag” or “Kick the Can.” As you grew older, climbing on the roof of the Kiddy Koop and Cabanas was the fun, waiting for the night watchman, Cecil, to make his rounds as we tried to hide from him, not realizing he just chose what to see and not to see.  As teenagers, the lifelong friendships gave way to porch hopping—which grownups would be out latest—or trips to Bells Bay, Mt. McSauba, or the old drive in.

Gang in those days was much the same activity wise but we were granted longer leashes.  Soap eating was the mandatory punishment for cursing, regardless of age.  Overnights always consisted of raids.  Jordan River trips entrusted big gang kids with their own canoes, which resulted in a mad race to set up the proper ambush point to tip the canoes of the little ones.  We also went horseback riding once a week and I am glad the Mueller’s are restoring the stables.  As I look at the tennis and golf tournaments, it is easy to see how the twice a week lessons paid off as gangsters become adults and enroll their kids in Gang.  I was quite fortunate to have had Ginger and Chris Payne as gang leaders, as well as Sarah Meyer and Doug Kuhn.  They let us have great fun but did keep us in line.

Teenage years turned to college, work and family, and time became limited up north, but as my children became gang age, the cycle renewed and is still going strong.  For the last 20 years I have spent as much time as I can in the winter in northern Michigan.  It is beautiful and the skiing is great for middle aged.  I am looking forward to being able to get on the seasoned citizens cycle—arrive by Memorial Day and stay through Apple Fest, with some winter trips thrown in.

The greatest pleasure and treasure of The Belvedere is the endearing friendships of a lifetime, and watching the cycle continue through the generations.  So much has changed in this world, but our little special place has done a magnificent job for a child born in 2005 to walk the same paths as a child born in 1925.

lfl

Cottage 519, 115 – Bobby Leatherman  –

            As the summer heat began to sweep the Mississippi Delta, it was time for our crew to make the journey north from Robinsonville, MS to Charlevoix, MI. I remember even as young as three or four years old excitedly boarding the train and making the long trek up to the Belvedere. Our journey started in Memphis where we would board the train later in the evening, have dinner on the train, and wake up in Chicago, where we would spend the day in the city. In Chicago, we would stop at Marshall Field’s to get new summer clothing. While I didn’t care so much for the shopping, I loved riding the escalators up and down, as I had never seen or been on an escalator before this. It’s funny what memories you hold on to from your childhood, but I do have a distinct memory of that. We would then board the train again that evening and finally wake up in Charlevoix. We would spend the summers of my early years at the Belvedere hotel, until my parents bought #519 in 1944.

             As a young boy, I loved doing all of the Belvedere activities, which included going to gang, swimming in the lake, playing tennis, going sailing, and water skiing, just to name a few. I always enjoyed going to gang. I have a fond memory of Charlie Kinnard and I enjoying riding a Shetland Pony, that the resort brought in for the gangsters. I learned to swim at an early age as well, probably around four or five years old. One time we were out with the Orr’s on their boat aptly named the “Orrkid”. We had beached the boat at Oyster bay, and all of the kids were jumping out of the back of the boat to swim. Wanting to fit in, I too jumped off and began swimming but hadn’t quite yet figured out how to raise my head to take in air. When my dad noticed I may need some help, he quickly jumped in the water, fully dressed in his white linen suit, straw hat, and lit cigarette to boot. Once I had safely been brought back on board, I asked “daddy, why’d you jump in with all your clothes”. To say the least, he was not amused with my question!  

             My perfect Charlevoix day consisted of playing tennis in the morning, having lunch with the whole family at the cottage, golfing in the afternoon, and water skiing at night. Lucky for me, this was my typical daily routine during the summers. My mother, Irene, established an unwritten rule that the whole family would have lunch together daily. This included my mother and father, brother, Richard, sisters Kate and Irene, cousin, Bobby Morrow, and uncles, RG and Louis Morrow, as well as whoever was staying with us that week. To say the least our Neffo’s bill, the local grocery, was quite high, which would always shock my mother! Our cottage really was a revolving door, and we would welcome family and friends. One of my favorite stories involves my uncle Louis staying with us. He pulled up to the cottage in a yellow taxi cab and said “sister, pay for my cab”. Unbeknownst to my mother, Louis had taken the cab from Chicago, and my mother was stuck paying the then exorbitant fee of $500! One of the most important days I remember at the cottage was the celebration of VJ Day. Tommy Upson, Minor Morrow, and I were coming back to the cottage, and the adults were celebrating the big day in the most Belvedere way, with a cocktail party on our porch. By the end of the party, everyone who attended had signed a big piece of grocery paper to commemorate the day. We currently have that piece of paper framed and hanging in our cottage 115.

             As I continued to come back year after year, not much changed on the good ‘ole Belvedere. I remember one day as a teenager Tommy Upson, Minor Morrow, and I went out sailing; however, we forgot to put a pin in the rudder that would hold it to the boat. The rudder ended up getting dislodged and Tommy jumped in to get it, but he wasn’t able to grab onto the boat mid jump. He was stuck in the lake as we drifted off with the wind. He ended up shedding everything but his boxers to stay afloat better. Thankfully, the coast guard came to the rescue and used a pulley system to pull Tommy out of the water. Minor and I got quite a laugh as we saw our friend being lifted out of the water with only boxers on. What could have been a disastrous event turned into a humorous day!

             I played tennis often and improved my game. We would play tennis tournaments with the Chicago Club and would maintain a good rivalry, though we were typically the winners! As a young man, I got together a great game of Commando at Mount McSauba. We bought the whole town out of flash lights, and we all had a really fun time. A young Mike McDonald even caught a couple canoodling while we were playing the game!

             I was fortunate enough to share the Belvedere with my wife and kids. My wife fell in love with the easy living that the Belvedere provided. My kids all experienced the perfect Charlevoix day and learned how to play tennis and golf like I did. While we missed a few years in the ‘80s, I began renting cottages in the early ‘90s for my growing family and eventually was able to buy 115 in 2004. The Belvedere has provided a place to watch my kids and their kids grow up together and become closer as a family. As I reflect on the importance this place has been in my life, I have begun to realize why my mother kept a full cottage and gathered us daily for family lunches. As time went on and her kids and family began migrating from the Delta, she knew that the Belvedere would be a meeting place for her family to come together every summer and grow closer. From this, my mother built a legacy where we continue to gather as a family to this day. This is why I love the Belvedere and hope that this tradition will continue for years to come.

-Bobby Leatherman

(Lovingly written by his granddaughter, Eliza Leatherman)

Family Cottages at The Belvedere Club
By Linda Mueller 2020

       Oscar Allen, my husband’s great grandfather, was one of the early members of the Charlevoix Summer Resort, now known as The Belvedere Club.  Summer Resorts of the Mackinaw Regionand Adjacent Localities was published in 1882 by J.A. Van Fleet.  In the Charlevoix section, the Charlevoix Summer Resort grounds and buildings are described along with a list of  Board and Committee Members, By Laws and the high moral character of the members. Oscar Allen was listed on three committees: Sanitary Precaution, Finance and Lots, and Grounds and Buildings.

# 506 Belvedere “The Blue Bell”   built before 1892
       Within the first few years of the founding of the Charlevoix Summer Home Association, Oscar M. Allen built The Blue Bell, #506. Oscar was a member of the Masons. The Blue Bell floor plan is based on an octagon which has symbolic meaning to Masonic Lodge Members. According to Rosemary Mueller, the house had a bell. Whether or not it was blue, she didn’t recall. The house itself was painted blue and it has remained blue to this day. Oscar apparently also built  #51 about the same time, probably with the intention of selling it to another member.  His wife Hannah is listed as the owner of #51 until 1892 when it was transferred to Sarah P. Tyler.  Members could only own one house even then.
       Oscar and Hannah Allen had eight children, seven surviving to adulthood:
Lila B. was born in 1854, Oscar Monroe Jr. was born in 1856. The next baby, named Belva Dear Allen, was born in 1858, died in 1859 age 6 months, and is buried in the Allen section of the Mountain Home Cemetery in Kalamazoo, MI. Richard’s brother, Glenn wonders if the name change to Belvedere Club had anything to do with baby Belva Dear. News Allen was born in 1860, Fannie was born in 1863, Jollie was born in 1864, another son, Dee was born in 1865, and Glenn Seven, because he was the seventh child, was born in 1868.
       Fannie, who married Emmet Hollingsworth, seems to have been the first owner of  #204. Possibly Fannie and Emmet had it built for their family, or to sell to another member of the club. Fannie transferred #204 to Reba W. Caruthers in 1902. In 1905 Oscar transferred  #506 to Fannie.
      Fannie and Emmet had four children:  
Cecelia, was born in 1888, Dorothy, was born in 1892, Gerald, was born in 1895, and Emmet Jr.  was born in 1897.  Fannie Hollingsworth owned  #506 from 1905 to 1928.  Rosemary Mueller remembered Aunt Fannie lived next door when Rosemary was young and staying at #504.  According to the family, Fannie used to bring a full size harp to Charlevoix.  In 1928 she transferred  #506  to her son Gerald Hollingsworth before she died in 1932.
       In 1922 Gerald Hollingsworth married Charlotte Durst. Gerald was the owner of  #506 from 1928 until 1942 when it transferred to his wife, Charlotte.  I am not sure why.  Charlotte died in 1973 and Gerald died the next year in 1974.  
       Gerald and Charlotte Hollingsworth had two children:
Helen, daughter from his first marriage, was born in 1917.  Shirley was born in 1924.  Shirley Hollingsworth married Frank H. Simpson in 1942. Shirley and Frank probably met at the Belvedere Club. Frank’s mother, Marita Gale Simpson bought neighboring cottage #509 in 1941.  Cottage #509 was passed down through the Simpson, Bemis, and Parish lines.   
       A family legend told by Jollie Allen and separately by a Hollingsworth descendant, involved a skeleton that hung in a closet at The Blue Bell. The story went that a friend of Charlotte Hollingsworth donated her body to the University of Michigan. The skeleton was later returned  and it ended up in the possession of Charlotte Hollingsworth. Wired together, the skeleton was hung in the Blue Bell for a number of years until it was properly buried.  Jollie and his wife, Sue made and decorated a large doll house with bedrooms devoted to each of the Allen siblings. A miniature skeleton was hung in one of the closets. The doll house is currently at #129, complete with skeleton.
       Shirley and Frank Simpson had four children:
Harold T., Michael, Aaron and daughter Hollingsworth Simpson.  In 1966 cottage #506, was transferred from Charlotte  Hollingsworth to Frank and Shirley Simpson. They owned it until 1971 when The Blue Bell, #506, was sold out of the family to William and Ann Leakas, now Ann and Don Denison.

#504 Belvedere “The Merrill”  built before 1892 
       In 1905 when Oscar Allen gave The Blue Bell to his daughter Fannie, he acquired #504 next door to the Blue Bell from the Merrill family. The next owner of #504 was Oscar’s youngest son, Glenn Seven. Oscar died in 1910. Hannah died in 1920. For some unknown reason the formal transfer of  #504 to Glenn S. Allen Sr. didn’t happen until 1957. I guess they just didn’t bother with the paperwork until Glenn Sr. was age 90 and the records needed to be tidied up while he was alive.
       In 1912 Glenn Allen Sr. married Annette Brenner and they lived in Kalamazoo in the 32 room mansion built by Oscar Allen.  They spent summers at #504 with their four children:
Glenn Seven Jr. was born in 1914, Barbara was born in 1915, Jollie News (named for two uncles) was born in 1916 and  Rosemary was born in 1922.      
       In 1944 Glenn Allen Jr. married Virginia Verdier, daughter of Leonard and Ann Carpenter Verdier, who also had ties with the Belvedere Club.
       Judge Glenn Allen bought a cottage on Mackinac Island while working with Governor Romney who lived in the Governor’s mansion on Mackinac in the summer.  Later Glenn purchased a converted schoolhouse on Susan Lake in Charlevoix. After Virginia’s death Glenn Jr. married two more times,  Marion Smith in 1979 and Marjorie Tracy in 1985.  All three wives died of cancer. Glenn Allen Jr. died in 2001. Virginia and Marjorie are buried in the Protestant Cemetery on Mackinac Island with him. There is a large stone on the family plot with the name “Allen” that can be seen from the carriage tour when it turns on the road by the cemetery.
       Glenn and Virginia had two daughters:
Holly and Susan. Holly Mull and Susan Hinman inherited the Mackinac cottage. Holly died a few years after her father. She is also buried in the Allen plot on Mackinac Island.
        In 1945 Rosemary married Dr. Richard Mueller Sr. in Kalamazoo. Dr. Mueller and Rosemary had six children:
Carol Ann, Shirley Annette, Richard Palmer Mueller Jr., Phyllis Louise, Glenn Allen Mueller, named for his grandfather and uncle, and Rudolph James “Rudy”. 
       All the children had fond memories of staying with Grandma and Grandpa Allen at #504 and the Belvedere Club.  Richard Jr. remembers Grandpa would pay a dime to him to walk to the Belvedere Hotel to buy him a paper. Grandpa only paid after the paper was brought back. Then Richard Jr. could run back to the hotel to buy candy. Playing Cribbage was also a favorite activity with Grandpa Allen.  Glenn Sr. died in 1962 age 93. In 1963 the cottage was transferred to his wife, Annette Allen who spent her summers in Charlevoix until about age 90. In the 1970’s Richard Jr’s children often visited Great Grandma Allen at #504.  Always polite, Annette was getting forgetful and would keep asking “Who are you, my dear, and how long are you staying?” Annette died in 1985 age 95.
      Cottage #504 transferred to her son Jollie in 1986.  Jollie married Carol Walker in 1946 and had four children:
Barbara, Jollie W. known as Jay, Glenn Scott and Malinda. He adopted Lori, the daughter of his second wife, Sue Hicks. Lori has one daughter, Stephanie Bills, with her first husband. She married Ken Wiseman in 1987 and they have two children: John and Catherine.
       In 1995  #504 was transferred to daughter Lori Wiseman.  Lori owned #504 until 2016 when she sold it and bought #39 from the Ransom family. Cottage #39 began undergoing extensive updating and remodeling in 2019.

# 129 Browning   built before 1892
       Rosemary’s family stayed at #504 in the summer until 1959 when she bought #129 from the Douglas family. She had a choice between the Earl Young house on Lake Michigan next to the hospital, or the Belvedere cottage. Both were selling for about $14,000. Of course, she chose the Belvedere Club. Later, Rosemary laughed “the Earl Young house is probably worth twice what  #129 is now.”  Rosemary, her children and often friends of the children, filled up the five bedroom cottage for a month or more each summer.  Shirley and Carol were gang leaders when they became teenagers. In 1994 Rosemary winterized the cottage and added a laundry room, a garage, and an office downstairs. Above those rooms she added a new master suite, a new bunk bed room and a furnace room. She lived at #129 year-round for a number of years. Three of her friends also stayed year-round until their passing. When Rosemary turned 80 she decided to move off the Belvedere Club. Her friends were no longer there, and she wanted to be able to keep her dog, Casey, with her during the summer. Dogs were not allowed from Memorial Day to Labor Day and she didn’t want to send him to a kennel or a dog sitter. With eyesight failing, steps had become a problem and the new house on Maple Way was all on one floor.    
        In 1969 Richard Jr. married Linda Holliday. After a week long trip through Canada, they honeymooned at #129. Over the years they stayed a week or two with Grandma Rosemary Mueller at # 129 with their growing family. Richard and Linda Mueller have four children: Richard Mueller III, Kathleen, Christopher, and Michael Mueller.
      Carol has three children with her husband, Les Whitworth, now deceased: Kim, Adam and Joni. She has four grandchildren: Oakley and Portia Binford children of Kim and her first husband, and Caliope and London Whitworth, children of Adam and Alyssa Whitworth.
       Shirley has three children with her husband Walter Baas, who died in 1998: David, who died the year before in 1997, Aaron, and Laura. Shirley has six grandchildren: Jocelyn, Ryan, Jason, Benjamin, and Jesse, children of Aaron and Jessica  Baas, and Paxton Otto, son of Laura and Tyler Otto.
       Phyllis married Glenn Warren and they have three golden retrievers: Mayor Max, the official Mayor of Idyllwild, CA, Deputy Mayor Mitzie and Deputy Mayor Mikey.
       Glenn Married Valerie Galloway. Glenn’s family owns #508.
       Rudy and his wife, Diane Mueller have five children: Daniel, Nicholas, Theodore, Peter, and Heidi. They have one granddaughter, Emersyn, daughter of Ted and Meredith Mueller.
Heidi is unmarried and planning on attending medical school.      
       Rosemary owned #129 from 1959 to 2003 when she sold the cottage to her son, Richard Mueller Jr.

#215 Dana   built before 1892
       Rosemary’s cottage could become crowded when her children came to visit with spouses and then grandchildren. Having another family cottage around the corner would be very handy. In 1991 Richard Jr. bought #215 from the McKay family.  He added a laundry room, a master suite, and two upstairs bathrooms a few years later.  Over the years the Mueller children married and started families of their own. In 2001 Richard transferred #215 to his wife, Linda Mueller. Still only one cottage per member. Then he was free to purchase another cottage, first #508 for a short time, and then #129. Richard and Linda have seven grandchildren:
Richard III and Stephenie Mueller have two children: Alex and Emma Mueller.
Kathleen and Thom Barclay have two children: Marc and Chris Barclay.
Chris and Karrie Mueller have three children: Lilly, Luke and Alice Mueller.
Mike is unmarried and usually comes with a friend, John Palumbo.

#508 Belvedere “Recreation”  built before 1892
       In 2001  #508 came up for sale from the Schleman family.  Richard Mueller Jr. purchased it initially, but soon transferred ownership to his brother Glenn’s family.  Cottage  #508  had  the kitchen, electrical, plumbing, and heating systems totally updated   At the same time it was extensively remodeled to recapture the charm of earlier cottage design. It also had additional space added to make room for the growing Mueller family of children, spouses and grandchildren
       Glenn married Valerie Galloway. Glenn and Val have five children:
Stephanie, Glenn Jr. Alison, Merrin, and Rogers, and three grandsons: Jared Alexander, son of Stephanie, and Rogers and Reynolds Mueller, sons of Rogers and Bryn Mueller.
       In 2019  #508 was transferred to Val Mueller.

Payne Family Belvedere Ancestry (#25, #31, #45, #135)
Bold denotes Member of the Belvedere Club
1.A. Benjamin Leonard D’Ooge (#25 1885)
1.A. Spouse – Electa Jane Pease D’Ooge (Jennie) – Sister – 1.A. Ida Joanna Pease (#31 1894)
2.A. Ida Joanna Pease D’Ooge
2.B. Leonard D’Ooge
2.C. Stanton D’Ooge
2.D. Helen D’Ooge
2.A. Ida Joanna Pease D’Ooge Boucher (Moved from #25 to #135 in 1929, then #45 in 1952)
2.A. Spouse – Chauncey Samuel Boucher
3.A. Elizabeth Jane Boucher
3.A. Elizabeth Jane Boucher Payne (Moved from #25 to #135 in 1929, then #45 in 1952)
3.A. Spouse – Kenyon Thomas Payne
4.A. Martha Joanna Payne
4.B. William Samuel Payne
4.C. Christopher Thomas Payne
4.C. Christopher Thomas Payne (#45)
4.C. Spouse – Virginia Ruth Williams Payne
5.A. Kathryn Ruth Payne (Oltmans)
5.A. Spouse – James Robert Oltmans
6.A. Jamison Daniel Oltmans
6.B. Sean Payne Oltmans
6.C. Isabella Faith Oltmans
5.B. Kristen Elizabeth Payne (Matteson)
5.B. Spouse – Ronald Edward Matteson
6.A. Connor Joseph Matteson

Forker/Smith Family Tree – #207

1. David M. Forker Sr. and Anne McClure Forker – purchased #207 circa 1907
   a. Augusta Forker Reid
   b. Mary Forker Goodall
   c. David M. Forker Jr
2. David M Forker Jr and Elizabeth “Betty” Nichols Forker
   a. Margaret Forker Smith – “Peggy”
   b. David M. Forker III
3. Peggy Forker Smith and Charles F. Smith III
   a. Charles F Smith Jr. – Chip
   b. Margaret Smith Lober – Margo
   i. Spouse: Michael Lober
   ii. Children: Jacob Lober, Nicholas Lober
4. Chip Smith and Courtney Piotrowski
   a. Rory Elizabeth Smith
   b. Wynne Margaret Smith

Cottage 511 -> member James Orr
Born Oct 1947
Mimi Manzler
Born Jun 1967
James Orr
Born Aug 1975
Sanderson Orr
Kate Orr James* Orr
Born Apr 1924
Edward Orr
Anne Simpson Frank* Simpson Born Aug 1867
Eleanor* Orr
Born 1902

Current JPO – Potter Orr SRO – Sandy Orr Kate Leatherman Orr combined Orr/Leatherman
KLOMT – Kate Tomkinson JRT – Rick Tomkinson Irene Leatherman & Irene McDonnell 1st cousins
First Family Frank & Ann Simpson purchased in 1920
Cottage Current Member Related to Connection
509 Marita Bemis Parrish JPO/KLOMT 2nd cousin thru great grandfather Frank Simpson
208 Laura Bemis Kilgore JPO/KLOMT 2nd cousin once removed thru Frank Simpson
519 Irene Leatherman Orgill JPO/KLOMT Aunt; daughter of Irene Leatherman
115 Bobby Leatherman JPO/KLOMT Uncle: son of Irene Leatherman
407 Adele Orgill Welford JPO/KLOMT 1st cousin: granddaughter of Irene Leatherman
403 Kate Orgill Buttarazzi JPO/KLOMT 1st cousin: granddaughter of Irene Leatherman
402 Mary Leatherman Carr JPO/KLOMT 1st cousin: granddaughter of Irene Leatherman
105 Quin Breland JPO/KLOMT 1st cousin 1 remove; Grgrandson Irene Leatherman
11 Jim McDonnell JPO/KLOMT 2nd Cousin 1 remove; Leatherman/McDonnell
29 Mike McDonnell JPO/KLOMT 2nd Cousin 1 remove; Leatherman/McDonnell
21 Irene McDonnell Ayotte JPO/KLOMT 3rd cousin; Leatherman McDonnell
41 John Schumacher JPO/KLOMT 3rd cousin 1 remove; Leatherman/McDonnell/Hill
207 Chip Smith SRO 2nd cousin 1 remove; Betty Forker cousin SRO father
25 Will Bloom JRT Lindsey Tomkinson Bloom daughter of JRT
Cottage 511

Cabaret by Ann Denison

I was sitting on the porch of The Bluebell one sunny afternoon when a man came up and 
introduced himself as George McKay. A very happy fellow, he asked if I’d be interested in 
helping him with Cabaret. He went on to explain what it was and it sounded like fun and a 
chance to meet people here, as we were new renters on the club.

I watched my first Cabaret in 1968 and was forever hooked. So much fun – so funny – a chance 
to get the old imagination moving.  Barbie Claggett and I had become friends and I admit that 
we both found each other hysterically funny, so when we had the chance to work together on a 
Cabaret we knew we could have a blast poking fun at all the members. I don’t know how many 
summer nights we sat on my porch, drinks in hand, laughing ourselves silly.

It turned out Cabaret was fun but a lot of hard work. But in true Belvedere fashion everyone 
chipped in and helped us. Barbie was a Broadway baby so we’d choose a musical and steal 
the plot and songs and rework everything to fit The Belvedere. How we persuaded the ladies of 
the Belvedere to perform as flamingoes I still don’t know. “The Committee” included Barbara 
Larimore, Sheila Tomkinson, Ann Kelley, Sissy Chamberlain, Stella Alexander, Ginny Million
and more, designed pink tulle feathered costumes with yellow rubber kitchen gloves on their feet.
They were gorgeous!!

I loved writing lyrics, as did Don Kelley, Margie McKinney, Sheila, etc. And while our singing 
wasn’t any good, the acting was fabulous.  No one will ever forget Sheila as Princess Diana 
standing on two large buckets so she’d be taller or her rendition of CRAZY as she fell off the 
top of the piano.  Remember Rocky Rider dressed as a Nanny pushing a pram across the 
stage. How about Sissy playing Barbara Bush better than Barbara played herself. And Susan 
Reese, she was absolutely the best . Dan Hales was always up for a dancing role with the 
lovely Susan (aka Carol Burnett) or Em Crook as every beautiful charming TV or movie star. 
Chris and Ginger performed annually and always brought down the house. After all, they could 
sing.

George Crook, Bill Claggett, Rick Tomkinson, Frank Crump, Joe Larimore et all were easily 
persuaded to dress up as ladies of the Belvedere or as ballerinas . Such good sports, and I’ll 
never forget Teddy Orr teaching the other guys how to tie the pink ribbons up and around their 
lower legs. Bill Claggett found true stardom as The Ironton Ferry. Don Kelley was downright 
sexy in Adele Dilslchneider’s gorgeous beaded dress (also worn by Sheila and Barbie but he 
was the prettiest).

There are way too many great memories. It was always crazy fun. And if Bud Alexander didn’t 
laugh, you knew your skit was lousy, but happily he always laughed, particularly at one of his 
kids playing him dressed in a blue bathroom.

I am proudest of the many songs we wrote that half the resort still remember. C-H-A-R-L-E-V-
O-I-X is still a hit!  As are“ Take me out to the G.G”.,“Over There” , “GANG Belvedere”,
and my favorite “Relationships”.  We really did spend weeks writing and practicing and decorating,
but times have changed .  But oh how we laughed!! 


Lyrics from Cabaret

Relationships- sung to the tune of “These are a few of my favorite things”
 
Hickeys and Sheltons, Chamberlains, McKays,
Engelsmanns and Schumachers, are related in some way.

I don’t believe it! Can this be true?
Tell me again who is related to who.

McDonnell, McCallum, Leatherman and Hill,
Orr and O’Brien, and don’t forget Orgill.
Another family for which we all care
Is Ware and Ware and Ware and Ware.

Some are born here, some just met here.
But you can’t deny, that like little rabbits
With such naughty habits, each one simply multiplied.

All the Connetts, all the Mosses,
And the Heitners and Mudds,
The Millions and Whiteheads,
The Lelands and Gardners,
These are related too.
So watch what you say to who.

Thank heaven for little girls sung by Ginger and Chris Payne
Dance by the Parasol Chorus


Cocktail Gang sung to the tune of “Over There”

Now don’t get excited, you’ll be invited.
But where’s the party?
Over there.

See the group, on the stoop.
What a sight, every night, getting looped.
Oh, the booze is flowing, the group is glowing.
I really wish I was there.

It’s not fair, I’m not there,
And I doubt if they even care.
I just can’t stand it, we demand it.
Now where’s the party?
Over, over there.

G.G. Gang – sung to the tune of “Take me out to the ballpark”

Take me out to the GG.
Take me out for a drink.
Buy me a stinger or daiquiri.
I don’t care just as long as it’s free.
Now it’s June, July and then August.
So just remember, my dear,
Drink, dance, be happy tonight.
On the Belvedere.

Finale-sung to the tune of “Cabaret” (everyone join the cast and singing)

What good is summer without a big show.
To hear the music play.
Life is a Cabaret, old chum.
We love the Cabaret.

Forget your troubles and never feel low.
Laugh about yesterday.
Life is a Cabaret, old chum.
We love our Cabaret.

We bring you cheer.
We bring you song.
The Belvedere is celebrating.
Every year our cast is waiting.

Never a summer without a big end.
Two we see your smile again.
Life is a Cabaret, old chum.
We love our Cabaret.