This continues a series adapted from the book, “A Port Oneida Collection,” Volume 1 of the twopart set, “Oral History, Photographs, and Maps from the Sleeping Bear Region,” produced by Tom Van Zoeren in partnership with Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear. Here we remember the Watkins Cottage next to the Manitou View Inn on the old Fred & Ellen Miller Farm just north of the Thoreson Farm on Thoreson Road.
Mary Watkins Crane remembers summers next door to the Manitou View Inn: I was two the first summer my family spent at Manitou View. The year was 1942. Terrified of polio, my parents felt the best place for their three daughters in summer was away from our suburban Chicago neighborhood. After a number of summers in rented cottages at the Congregational Assembly (a rustic resort for spiritual renewal near Crystal Lake), one day they drove north into Leelanau County, found what we still call “Michigan”, and bought it. From then on we would leave Highland Park in Red Rover, our 1941 Olds, as soon as school was out for the summer.
Driving around the lake took two days and required an overnight stop at a tourist home in St. Joseph or South Haven . . . Singing “Sioux City Sue, M-22” we began to recognize every curve and bend in the road. Excitement was high when we reached Thoreson Road. One half-mile later there it was, the arch, the fieldstone gateway to Manitou View. Once through the arch we strained to see as we drove along the two-rut road, grasshoppers hitting the windshield, until we reached the top of the hill. And finally we saw the cottage— “Michigan”!
Not surprisingly, Lake Michigan, with its spectacular sunsets and view of the Sleeping Bear Sand Dune, was the big drawing card. Once down the ninety-foot bluff and many stairs, one found the beach wide, the sand pure and white. It whistled when we shuffled through it. The beach was a treasure trove of fisherman’s buoys, floats and driftwood. The petoskeys were everywhere. A stranger on the beach was like finding someone else on a desert island. Logs that seemed to have escaped from some distant logging operation made great boats for my sisters and me. We spent hours there.
If we wanted warm water we had to heat it in the large kettle my mother kept on the kerosene stove. At our cottage, baths were in the lake. We had a bar of Ivory soap in a tin cup that we carried up and down the bluff. Daddy, who on weekends traveled between his job in the Loop and Traverse City, had the luxury of the bathroom at home during the week. Mother, my sisters and I depended on that sandy bar until Labor Day. One of the neatest things about Mrs. Miller was her grandchildren. They were my sisters’ and my playmates for June, July, and August. Hours at the beach were followed by croquet tournaments on the side lawn of the inn. We had a stack of old comic books that were read and reread. We ran through the fields, picked berries with their Aunt Leone, and played restaurant under the large beech tree in our front yard.
In July the lake was like glass, but by August it was getting rough. Nighttime temperatures began to dip. A touch of fall was in the air, and we began seeing northern lights in the night sky. The only girls in Highland Park, Illinois who were outfitted for fall at Milliken’s, our mother would drive us to Traverse City to choose from the latest fashions. Before we knew it the day came when it was time to fold the old wool blankets and put them away in the ancient trunks under the eaves in the attic. We would pack up Red Rover and head south. It was always a sad time for my sisters and me, but I suspect my mother couldn’t wait to get back to electricity, her washing machine, and the tub. As we drove out through the stone arch, and onto Thoreson Road, our focus would change. We began to think about winter friends and winter activities. Another glorious summer at Manitou View had passed.
