Groups - Lakeside
1998 - Bertha's Last Visit to Lakeside.
1997. Left: Beulah and Bertha watching the Sunset over Lake Erie. Right at base of Perry's monument, Put-In-Bay, L to R: Jill (Mischi) Myers, Chris Myers holding Nick Myers, Meghan Myers, Bertha Myers, Beulah Purtee, Barbara (Purtee) Myers.
1997 - Total Group in front of Rental House. L to R, first row: Lauren Clark, Meghan Myers, Nancy Myers holding newborn Shayne McKeehan. Second row: Barbara Myers holding Sean McKeehan, Beulah Purtee (Barb's mother), Amy Myers, Jill Myers holding Nick Myers, Bertha Myers. Third row: Beth Lile, Chris Myers, Lindsay Clark, Philip Myers. Fourth row: Tony Myers, Larry McKeehan, Tim Lile.
Marilyn and Bertha and William. From Marilyn: As I remember I was not at Lakeside more than the one time. I was excited to be vacationing at Lakeside
as I had heard many stories about Lakeside. My brother, Harmon, was a Methodist Pastor and the
annual Pastor’s conference was held at Lakeside. Being there with the family as great fun. Hanging out
on the beach was not something I had done much. Here are three instances that have stuck in my
memory.
Becky was three and Bill was 5 ½. They were fascinated with the size of Lake Erie and attempted to fill it
with rocks. They spent a lot of time throwing rocks into the lake.
One evening the four of us Bill, Becky, David, and I were walking down to the lake singing Yellow
Submarine. As a group of young boys passed us, on their bikes, singing Yellow Submarine. This
surprised and thrilled Bill and Becky.
We had Becky sleeping in a bed that had a plastic cover. Scrap, scrap, came a noise from where she was
sleeping. I said she is a restless sleeper. All the adults said that is o.k. she will stop when she falls asleep.
Being her mother, I knew this was not likely. Everyone went to bed and after awhile several of the
adults were helping me strip the mattress of the plastic cover. All became quiet and we all had a
restful night.
This admittedly grainy, soft focus snapshot is probably the first roll of film that I ever shot with the famous pop-out bellows camera. It is my understanding that the camera originally belonged to Grandma Mathers. Please correct that if that is misinformed. This camera required you to estimate the distance from the lens to the subject to have any hope of focus, and even then, you never knew for sure till you got your prints back. Forget being able to see through-the-lens focus when you clicked the shutter.
But content trumps all imperfections. This is a fun snapshot of WD and Bertha relaxing on the beach at East Harbor. That’s John in the background working on some kind of engineering project in the nice East Harbor sand. Approximate year would be 1956 or maybe 1957.
There was an extended family trip to Lakeside in 1947, and this cottage was where at least part of the group stayed. The car has a 1947 license plate. Someone is looking down from the sleeping porch above.
MargaretI was not on this trip. At just 5 or 6 months old, she was left with Grandma Mathers. But this trip, judging by the ages of David, Philip, and John, may be the one from which we have such great historic pictures, including beach scenes from East Harbor shown above this photo and a family group picture below in front of “Lakeside III,” the passenger ferry of the ill-fated trip to one of the islands in Lake Erie. It would be great to know of more memories and stories from this trip, which may be the one that included WD’s parents, plus Edith, Ralph Byron, Rita, et al. The people in those pictures look like they were having a really great time. Today, this cottage looks like the photo below.
This is the 1947 cottage today. This cottage is at 312 Sycamore. It was built in 1882, and appears to be pretty nicely preserved in the picture Margaret found from 2020 real estate sites. If you put the address into google, you can see the whole interior of the cottage today as well as the seating area in the back yard.
Front row, left to right: John Myers, David Myers, John Myers. Back row, left to right: patriarch William John Myers, Bertha Myers,Ralph Byron Milner, Hazel Probasco, William Denver Myers, Rita Jane Probasco, Helen Milner, Edith Milner. While the youngsters stayed on land, the adults boarded for a round trip voyage that almost ended in a disaster. Lake Erie noted for high seas when wind increased, tossed the boat violently on the return trip. Most thought they were going to drown as the boat pitched and rolled almost out of control. From that experience several vowed to never board a large boat again. Postcard version of the LAKESIDE III boat is shown below.
I found the 1955 Lakeside Program below on eBay. I can’t confirm that we were there in 1955, but that page showing the events each evening for a week in late August in Hoover Auditorium sure looks familiar to me—especially that final Friday night of Barbershop Quartets. That always happened near the end of August, which is typically when we went to Lakeside—after the Clinton County Fair was over and before school began.
You can see that the admission fees were modest even for that time period. Accommodations were modest too. However Hotel Lakeside certainly seemed luxurious and unattainable back in the day.
The program itself was certainly part of our experience at Lakeside. I saved the postcards we bought, but I wish I had saved the programs from each year. This one from 1955 sure expresses the nature of the Lakeside where we spent family vacations.
When we returned to Lakeside for a few days in 2018, remarkably little had changed. Businesses have come and gone. But there is still a walk-up window where you can buy donuts. The only egregious “progress” was discontinuing the Barbershop night.
Margaret.
Bertha, Margaret, John, Aunt Marie (Eveland), and Grandma Alice (Myers). We think this photo was from a trip in 1957. We have not been able to find this specific cottage as a current address/house in Lakeside. However, in walking around Lakeside in 2018, we found a vacant lot that might be the correct location on Sycamore.