A Wedding Paradise

How would you like to plan your wedding or a family member’s wedding at this locale?  It is part of the complex known as “The Field of Flowers Farm” in Lake Leelanau, Michigan.  It is operated by one of the Benish ladies of Manistee, Michigan, Christy Benish. 

If you want to know more about weddings or floral arrangements, or just plan a vacation touring the grounds, please check out our Blogroll, which has the website of “The Field of Flowers Farm”. 

It is really something to see and experience for yourself.  Just imagine a wedding ceremony overlooking Lake Michigan.  What a setting to begin life anew! 

The Benish Ladies- Julie, Chrissy, and Becky

This is a picture of Julie and her mother. More on her mother in a moment. The Benish girls from Manistee, Michigan, were Julie, Christy, and Becky. I knew Julie when I was a young boy and she came over to our farm and wanted to explore our caretaker’s cottage which was behind our two-bedroom gray cottage. Julie and her parents also had the four Norris children over to their Sauble Lake summer cottage for a swim. In the 1980’s I offered to take Julie’s son on a hike down the Bloody Antler Trail and then on a tour of Big Bass Lake with our motorboat.

I met Christy once with Becky at Helen Herrmann’s trailer next to the Benish farm. We talked almost to midnight on just about everything. I recall Christy telling me that she wanted one day to become a model. Now she operates a wedding farm north of Manistee. I will be doing a report on that later this month.

The last I heard, Becky Benish was still living in Manistee. All three Benish girls were flawless beauties and that was no surprise to me since their mother was once Miss. Michigan. I also heard that, for a time, Julie and her husband became missionaries.

All three Benish girls enjoyed visiting Frank and Agnes Benish’s farm which was located right across the road from my grandparent’s property on Big Bass Lake.

The Loon Lake Dancing Pavillion

Otto Bartlett, the owner of the Big Bass Lake Store, also owned the Loon Lake Roller Rink which was about a half-mile south of the store.  But before it was a roller rink, it was a dance hall.  And every Saturday and Sunday night there was dancing galore on the same floor that roller skaters would in the future call home, 

Here’s the teaser for this post.  Do any of our readers know who The Lucky Stars were?  They were the musicians who provided live music for the Pavillion in those days.  Were they a local group?  Does anyone know the names of those in the group? 

Even better, are there any that read our website that danced at the Pavillion in those days?  I have a hunch that Dixie Bartlett was somewhere in the mix at that location.  These questions are liable to take you way back and test your memory.  The dance floor is open for comments on this subject.  How about taking a whirl at them? 

What Has Singer Ted Nugent Got To Do With Big Bass Lake?

At one time, this shoreline of Big Bass Lake was owned by the Professional Singer Ted Nugent. He reportedly purchased it from the Hyde Park YMCA when they put Camp Martin Johnson up for sale after closing the camp in te late 1970′s. It was said that Nugent then redeveloped the land for its next usage that being the Heritage Bay Development.  And that company has since constructed many large homes where Camp Martin Johnson once stood.

Regrettably, the founder of that camp, Martin Johnson, sold his beloved property to the Hyde Park YMCA to be used perpetually as a place where children could enjoy.  The Hyde Park YMCA broke that sacred trust when they sold the land to Nugent.  Yet he himself, having suffered a troubled youth, could have made it into another summer camp.  He opted not to go that way.

I have said before that there are any numbers of Michigan Boys Clubs of America that would have loved to be able to own Camp Martin Johnson.  Were they ever contacted by the Hyde Park YMCA much less any other youth service group?  Did Nugent try that or even consider supporting a summer camp for  kids himself?  Natalie Cole and Bryant Gumbel once attended CMJ in their youth.  Perhaps former campers could have purchased the camp much like the Green Bay Packers are owned by the general public. 

Any thoughts on this issue?  There is sure not much information about what Nugent did with the land once he purchased it.  Leave us  comment about what you might know about all this.

I Guess Farmer’s DON’T Rise So Early Anymore?

One lazy summer morning, Keith Bishop and I, who had camped on our beachfront property the night before, rose at a time we thought was quite prudent to go visiting. We rowed over to the Benish’s dock and proceeded to approach the Benish farmhouse when a dog started barking. Appearing at his cottage door, an outraged Frank Benish shouted, “What are you two nuts doing up at this hour of the day?” Moments later we found out that the hour of the day at hand was 6 am.

Yes, the sun DOES rise early in the eastern time zone State of Michigan. Yet I thought farmers rose earlier than even sunrise?! We had come to see Mr Benish’s grand daughter Julie who we had taken for a lake tour the day before on Big Bass Lake. Needless to say, we didn’t see Julie until much later that afternoon and she came over to my grandmother’s house as neither Keith nor I were all that eager to see Mr. Benish again.

I suppose Mr Frank Benish was the type of farmer that slept in since at the time he had an iinactive farm. A lesson well learned that day.

The Dinty Moore Resort

I often wondered where Santa Claus spent his off-season and now I know where.  At Big Bass Lake, of course!  Actually this is Kent Carson and he has been following our website for some time now and has informed us that he is going to be living on Big Bass Lake hopefully by the end of October.  Add to that, he is a relative of Dinty Moore.  No, not the stew guy but the one that once had a resort on the lake by the same name.

Kent will be sharing some history of the area once he is moved in and in early November, I thought I might send him an invitation to join us here at BBL and Beyond as a regular contributor.  That will also come his way in early November.

As for his companion in the boat with him, could that be one of Kent’s elves? 

A Yellow Plane in a Black and White World

This photograph interests me because while the plane and its reflection in the waters of Big Bass Lake are yellow, all else is in black and white.  The owner and pilot of this plane is Dan Carlson and he parks it on the north side of Big Bass Lake.  Next to his cottage, and on the water near his property, are wind socks to that he can tell which way the wind is blowing for take-off’s and landings.

I once thought Dan’s plane was merely a prop in the Big Bass Lake Fourth of July Parade but was later shocked when someone wrote in saying that was a real plane and not a pontoon boat, or other creative process, made up to look like a plane.  I do wonder how much space it takes both to land that plane and to take off?  Also when does Dan bring this plane in to the lake each year and when does he take it out?

Big Bass Lake residents should be most proud of having their own landing strip as part of the recreational activities on Big Bass Lake!

Meeting Sonny and Mildred

On one of our summers at Big Bass Lake, I met Sonny and Mildred.  Sonny was right out of the mold of Huck Finn.  I don’t ever think I saw him with a pair of shoes on his feet as he was always barefoot.  He even held a piece of straw between his teeth.  Mildred was also barefoot all the time.  The three of us went swimming at our beach often.

Sonny and Mildred lived just east of the Benish farm down a dirt road that made our long driveway appear as nothing.  They lived in a well worn house with their mother.  I never saw his father.  I sometimes think they were tenets of the Benish’s.  When I went back to Michigan the following summer, Sonny and Mildred were no longer living at that old house and no one seemed to know what happened to them. 

I had  good time with Sonny even though his sister always happened to come along as they seemed inseparable.  That was a good summer and I’ve often wondered what became of Sonny?  I can’t remember their last name.  This was back in the early 1960′s.

The Frank Benish Pier

Before there was a public landing site at Big Bass Lake, the land belonged to Frank Benish who was our neighbor to the south,  He would often take the Norris kids for rides in his speed boat and especially to the north side of the lake which was a long haul by rowboat.  To get to his boat, there was a rather long walk on wooden planks through a marsh enroute to his pier. 

The pier itself was nothing fancy but enough to get the job done either for fishing off of it or boating.  It was not especially good for swimming as often his granddaughters used our wooded beach for swimming when they chose to swim.  Frank loved his boat and largely used it to get to fishing locations around the lake.  Yet on the day he took us for a ride, he reved up the boat to its full speed and off we went.  It was fun buzzing around the various islands around the lake and he informed us that there was a pattern he had to obey in that regard.  Failure to do so would result in a great many boating accidents.

His boat was rather fast for boats in that day.  Today he would probably get lost in the wakes of the majority of speedboats on that lake.  But in the 1950′s it was great fun on his speedboat as he showed up his lake.

The First Lady of Big Bass Lake- Ann Louise Chase

Many people may not realize this but Big Bass Lake does have a celebrity author living on its shores and quite close to the channel between Big and Little Bass Lakes. Her name is Ann Louise Chase and she is composed several books about the greater Big Bass Lake area and its rich history. Tiny’s Bait Shop is said to have her works for sale.

Her published material includes Elk Township: A Picture History: Stories, Maps, and Pictures from the Early Nineteen Hundreds and Women on the Edge of Change: An Oral History: Women of the Early Nineteen Hundreds Tell Their Stories. Ann Louise Chase is still active and is a founding member of the Elk Township Historical Society. Within the pages of her works include a picture of my grandfather, Joseph Noreika.

For those who desire to learn more of the history of this area, you can also find her works at the Lake County Public Library in Baldwin, Michigan.  I understand that each page will hold your attention and they are books that you just can’t put down.

Our Benish Neighbors

My grandmother’s best friends around Big Bass Lake was probably Frank and Agnes Benish who lived nearly right across the road from our farm and slightly toward the Public Landing which, by the way, was not there at that time. Instead, that area was Frank Benish’s pier which was a long one as it was constructed through a marsh.

Agnes died not that long ago and was a fair cook as I recall. I used to visit her grand daughter Julie when she visited there from Manistee. Once, as I recall, when good friend Keith Bishop and I were up one morning we walked over to the Benish farm and the sun was already pretty high in the sky. The Benish dog began barking and Frank appeared on the porch shouting that it was six oclock in the morning. Keith glanced at me and I said, “I thought farmers were always up before six”.

Agnes and my grandmother went to church together a lot. And Frank often cut our field with his tractor. He had a kind of workshop set up in his barn which he spent a large majority of his time in.

In the 1980′s I visited with Benish’s other grand daughters those being Chrissy and Rebecca Benish, Julie’s sisters, for a good evening of fun and laughter. The girls mother was once Miss Michigan and both Julie and Chrissy were raving beauties.