52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Week 18 “Road Trip”

Every year our family took a road trip. Every year to the same place. Every year to “Aunt Kathy’s Cottage”. It was such a special place that it was always capitalized when we spoke of it.

Our time was always the last two weeks of August. In a time before time-shares, we had a specific slot of time to use “Aunt Kathy’s Cottage”.

Lady Jane cottage owned by Aunt Kathy

First a little background about “Aunt Kathy’s Cottage”. At some time during the 1930’s my Uncle Jack purchased a small cottage on the Indiana shore of Lake Michigan. It was in a little community where the houses lining the beach road were known by name rather than street numbers. Names like “White Waves” and “Swiss Chalet” or family names since the houses stayed in the same family for generations. Uncle Jack named his cottage after his wife Jane, calling it the “Lazy Jane”. Aunt Jane was not amused! The cottage was quickly renamed the “Lady Jane” and soon Uncle Jack sold it to his sister Kathleen.

Kathleen never married but she kept the cottage for the use of other family members. Each of her siblings and their families had their assigned time slot and the cottage was rented out for the month of July in order to cover the taxes and other maintenance costs.

Ready to leave for Long Beach

So each summer about the fifteenth of August, mom would begin packing for the annual road trip to Long Beach, Indiana. In the late 1940s and early 1950s the trip from Elmhurst, Illinois to Long Beach, Indiana tool about four hours. It was a time before expressways and toll roads. Dad would load the white canvas laundry bags that held our clothes. Sometimes there were three of the huge white bags to stuff in the trunk, it depended on how many of us there were at the time. In the beginning three or four children, later all nine children would pile into the pale-yellow station wagon. Provided there were no flat tires, traffic jams, or weather delays, we would arrive at the cottage about four hours later, hot and thirsty. As soon as we were released from the car, off would come shoes and socks and down the steps we would race onto the sand and then to the cool lake waters.

The next two weeks would be spent barefoot and on the beach! The routine was breakfast, beach, lunch, rest time from 1 to 3 (to keep us out of the hot sun and it was also a time when polio was a major concern), back to the beach, dinner, beach till dusk and then read, board games or card playing until bedtime, There was no television or telephone at the cottage. It was an idyllic time. Because we went at the same time every year and there were other families that did the same, we had friendships to renew.

At Long Beach circa 1957

Mom and dad didn’t get a vacation though! Barefeet and beachtime meant there was always sandy floors to be swept even though we rinsed our feet at the back door. The kitchen stove was a gas stove that required that each burner be lit with a match each time it was used. The toaster was one that toasted 2 slices but only one side at a time, so you needed to manually turn the pieces before they burned. There was no washing machine or dryer so when it was time to do laundry, mom would pack up the laundry bags and dad would drive her into Michigan City to the laundro-mat. While mom did the laundry, we would go to the local dairy for a milkshake. Dad always worked on repairs and maintenance such as painting or replacing the outside stairway or re-carpeting the inside stairs. They truly sacrificed to provide us with summers to remember!

Labor Day weekend we would pack the car back up and do a final sweep out of the cottage before the long ride home. The day after Labor Day, we would go back to school, thus ending another summer adventure.