A chapter from “An Artist’s Story,” the life story Lee wrote in his eighties. In his words, as he wrote them.

There was a man by the name of Mart Honeywell and he was the chief of police at the Buick Motor Div. for many years.

This man Mr. Honeywell had a brother who lived and worked in Unionville, Michigan in the Thumb. Somewhere along in time these two brothers were able to purchase a piece of property consisting of 35 acres on Saginaw Bay just one mile south of Bay Park. It consisted mostly of low- lying sand dunes with a dense growth of red oak trees that were nearly 100 years old. These old Oak Trees were well known in those days because it was a favorite place to have Sunday picnics and it was used quite often by the two or three churches that were close by for their Sunday picnics.

These big oak trees thrived in these low sand dunes. The moist soil for their shallow roots seemed to do them well.

Mr. Honeywell and his brother called the place ” Oakhurst ” but it may have been named this many years before he came along.

Bay Park which was one mile north had been an old resort area in the early 1850’s with many large old summer homes that were mostly closed up in the winter months. I remember that many of them had not been used for years and they were antique cottages without any life in them.

It had a small commercial fishing enterprise for some years. This was an excellent perch fishing grounds in the late 1800’s. However the water in the bay was known for it’s high and low fluctuations and Bay Park never seemed to grow beyond a certain point. But there was a small store and Icehouse that catered to the local cottage owners. The store was a long narrow room that went along side of the big old house. It had a long counter with everything stored on shelves. The ice cream was kept in an old freezer at one end of the counter. When you went in through the front screen door someone would always show up from the house and make change from a wooden drawer under the counter.

Mr. Honeywell and a few of his Buick friends were duck hunters and they felt this would make a great place for this sport. The property was subdivided into many small lots and offered to some people who worked at GM only.

An outdoor picnic at our old cottage on Saginaw Bay. Girls on one side and boys on the other. I don’t know where I was when this picture was taken. These were all kids that lived around us in Flint. The girl on the right was Frances Wolf who was born deaf. She got real excited when she first heard sounds using my Dad’s short wave radio head phones. Dad bought two lots and he and my Grandpa Johnson built two cottages one was a 24x30 the other about 16x16. They were just a plain building without electricity or any plumbing, nothing was finished on the inside and most of the windows were just screened openings with big wooden shutters that raised on the inside of the house and they were held in the open position by a wire hook from the ceiling rafters. Across the front of the cottage was a screened in room for sleeping cots and a wooden porch swing.

We had a regular old out house with a chemical tank that required cleaning every year or two.

The well was made of 3-foot crocks that were lowered as the well was dug. In the bottom of the well was placed about 16 inches of charcoal covered with a layer of stone. When the water cleared up it turned out to be excellent drinking water. The water was pumped to the surface with a red pitcher pump that always needed priming because the leather valve would dry up unless it was used constantly.

For many years there were just a hand full of other people who bought lots in Oakhurst Park. When our cottage went up the water was at an all time high. Then the lake began to drop and as it did the rushes and cattails took control of the shoreline and it was sometime hard to see the water.

One year when the water was very low Mr. Honeywell constructed a long dock that went out to the water. He only had enough money to build this dock to where the water was about a foot deep. It was made up of sections that were made of salvaged running boards from Buick. This dock was a great drawing card and we used it all through one summer. Then winter came and the water became higher and the Bay froze over. When the ice broke up in the spring so did the dock. It was wiped out clean by the first spring storms. We kids had a great time all summer long pushing these section of dock like rafts around using long poles.

Just in front of our cottage stood a large oak tree with good climbing limbs and I nailed a small platform as high as I could and with my binoculars I could see the dark part of the ship from this projected height. Standing on the ground I could only see the black coal smoke from these ships drifting along the horizon but I could imagine what they looked like from my perch high in the tree. I have been a part of the Great Lakes all of my life and they are Great lakes.

When I was ten or twelve and spending these wonderful summers with my mother at the cottage we kids would get bored with not much to do so someone would suggest that we hike to Bay Park and get an ice cream. So off we would go to see who could keep up a head start. It didn’t take long for us to realize that it was a long mile through the oak woods that grew along the sand ridge to our happy destination. We all gave a sigh of relief to see the first sign of a house at Bay Park.

After a cold Ice cream cone (that was somehow too small) and maybe a pop or candy bar we would look for a ride home to no avail.

There wasn’t any traffic on those dusty farm roads and we knew the shade was better walking in the woods. By the time we all reached our homes we knew it was time for a quick dip in the bay and then supper.

A marshmallow roast was the order for the eve and by 9:30 we were ready for bed.

It was very quiet during the nights unless there was a storm coming our way across the bay from Essexville. Mother would then close all the shutters against the wind and storm and we slept like “bugs-in-a-rug“.

When the summer began to draw to a close and it was time to made plans for shutting up the cottage there was always that bit of excitement of returning home.

The trip home started with the two- mile drive south down the dredge cut road. This cut was a deep ditch dug to drain the fields for many miles.

The gray clay was piled along the cut and leveled off to form a road. When it was wet after a hard rain the road was lined with the tracks of cars and farm equipment and they were often deep ruts that our old model T would slip and slide in but no matter how hard my Dad would try to pull out of these ruts the old car would just stay put in these tracks.

My mother would cry the whole two miles both coming and going. It was always a great relief to her when we would reach the Bay City road. She quickly recovered from her fright as soon as we left the slippery dredge cut road. Her worry then became the speedometer. She never let my Dad go over 35 in our Model T.

When we arrived at the little town of Tuscola we know we were halfway home and it wouldn’t be long and we would drive down our drive way and be home.

Everything felt strange for a while. We had been gone for most of the summer. My bed felt good and it was strange to have warm running water and a flush toilet and get a drink of water form the tap in the sink. There is nothing like Home Sweet Home.

After things were put away it didn’t take long and we were back into our old way of life and the thoughts of summer cottage living were gone for another year. The next thing was —SCHOOL- Wow! Where did the summer go?

I remember when we had electricity wired into our cottage. This modern convenience ended part of the wondrous world that I would never experience again.

The light from a flashlight or from our kerosene lantern was a big part of the wonder of our vacation nights. My mother and I would read late into the night from the waving light of a big kerosene lamp suspended over our dinning room table. This table was covered with an oil cloth and the small bugs caught in the flames would drop down on top of the table. As we continued our reading mother would pull the lamp down a little closer so we could see. Soon we became so sleepy that we just turned down the wick and the lamp would go out and the darkness would return. I cherished those times and Lois and I would repeat them in later years with our children at the cottage in Oakhurst.