Told by Karolyn Young. Written by Jodi Marneris September 2019
The Early Days
It was the late 1940s when Karolyn Young’s parents started spending summers on Barron Lake renting a cottage on Breezy Beach. “There were four cottages,” Young said. “The owners lived in the Shady Nook. We stayed in the “This’ll Do” cottage. There also was the Bob-O-Link and the Mini-Haha. We loved it,” she said.
Her family, originally from Chicago’s Hegewisch neighborhood, would spend three weeks in August every year on the lake. “It was during polio season and my parents wanted us out of the Chicago area.” Young’s parents actually met at a summer picnic over at Bonner’s Woods on the northwest side of the lake. They married and lived in the Chicago area but always came back to the lake for summer fun. “They were coming out here for about 13 or 14 years and then bought a house on Shady Shores,” Young said. “I just went from one end of the lake to the other.”
Young reminisced about her time on Barron Lake saying her family’s activities centered around the lake. “We’d go shopping on rainy days but most of the time we were on the water,” she said. “As a small child, we’d walk over to Reid’s Resort and get ice cream.” She also talked about her oldest brother dancing and dining with his girlfriend at the Avalon on Lake Shore Drive and about the roller rink that used to be at the water’s edge. “My brother, Jim, used to go roller skating but my parents decided I was too little,” she said with a smile, describing the rink as an open-air rink with dark green shutters. “There were no windows or screens. Just shutters. And, you could hear the music all around the lake,” she said.
A Second—and Third—Generation on the Lake
Young raised her family on the lake, too. She was a teacher in the Roseland area of Chicago and had her summers off so she brought her children to stay for several months. She recalled having an opportunity to go back to visit the cottage where she spent so much of her youth. “My brother was visiting and we went to see the cottage. They were doing a lot of work on it and the people were very kind to let us go in and look around,” she said. “Oh what memories it brought back. We had an ice box in there. Literally a box and they would fill it with ice. And, we had a well pump to get our water.”
Just as her parents met on the lake, so did her son and daughter-in-law. She said one day her son and other friends and family members were out on the water in front of their house when a young lady dropped her skis right there. “Tony swam out there to go get her,” Young said, noting that the young lady, Jennifer, was visiting her grandmother’s home across the lake. “When they got engaged, Tony took her out on a jet ski and knocked it over so they both were in the water. Then he proposed.”
Young’s family continues the tradition of enjoying the sun, sand and water. “We had huge family gatherings on the lake and we still do. My oldest brother lives in St. Louis and my other brother lives in Milwaukee. When they come for a few weeks we have a huge party over a long weekend. It’s wonderful and everyone loves it, especially my grandchildren who don’t always get to spend a lot of time on the water,” she said.
The Loch Ness Monster?
In front of Young’s home on Shady Shores something was starting to protrude from the water as the levels dropped because of El Nino in the 1990s. “The water level dropped tremendously,” she said. “All of a sudden it looked like the Loch Ness Monster came up. It was a wooden pipe. The pipes were used to feed water to the city of Niles and most of them were gone. But not this one,” she said.
The Bar on Lake Shore Drive
She also recalled that the Lakeside Inn—which was known for many years as The Hide-A-Way, was originally called Hass’s. “It wasn’t a restaurant—it was just a bar. They had an air hockey table and a jukebox. A lot of locals went there,” Young said.
A Lake Lifer
Karolyn has enjoyed the lake life so much that when she retired from her teaching job in the Chicago area, she moved to her home on Barron Lake permanently.
Karolyn Young enjoys some fun in the lake with (from left) brother Bob Young, Paul Gaines, cousin Rob Peterson, brother Jim Young, friend Tom Murphy, and an unidentified friend.
