When we were in Minocqua for John's wedding, we took a side trip to visit my Grandma and Grandpa Harris' home on Bear Lake.
This house, which they built in 1978, is where I made some of my most vivid childhood memories. Every Christmas day, we would drive up to the house, and spend the week between Christmas and New Year's with them as well as my cousins, aunt and uncles. Days would be filled with snowmobiling, cross-county skiing, ice skating on the lake, and of course sledding down "scream mountain", a hill in the yard.
We would visit in the summer too, many times I would go without my parents. Summers were hot and buggy, yet I have fond memories of riding the "honda 3-wheeler" with my grandpa to go pick blueberries in the woods, swimming and boating on Bear Lake, looking for rocks for my rock collection along the 1 mile gravel road that we walked each day to the mailbox, and learning how to quilt with my grandma. I remember being lonely at night as a small child, so my grandparents would set up a cot in their room so I could sleep with them. That was great until my grandpa would wake me up with his snoring and I would in turn wake him up and ask him to "stop"! That very same room is where my grandma died of renal cell carcinoma in 1999.
I clearly remember being up one summer to celebrate my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary. I never remember seeing my grandma so happy as she was the day of the celebration. Even though I was only in high school I knew that they had something special, and I remember thinking to myself, wondering if someday I would be lucky enough to celebrate 50 years with someone.
So of course, the house is merely a house, but it was the house that my grandparents built, their retirement dream, and a truly special place to my whole family. I could go on for pages and pages with all of my memories, because there are hundreds. It was just one of those magical childhood places. I hope my own kids have a place like this that they can someday fondly remember.
Anyhow, we drove out to the home, which is 20 minutes or so off the main highway, and found a man in the driveway. With some encouragement from Jason, I got out of the car and introduced myself. He was a friend of the owner, but yes the owners were in, and so we all got out to meet them. Turns out they are a family from the Milwaukee area, a contractor and a high school teacher with 2 older kids. They plan to retire up there, and have put a tremendous amount of work into the house since they bought it in 2002. We got a full tour. May things had changed, but some were the same: the kitchen cabinets, the backsplash in the kitchen (which I remember my grandma adoring), the woodshop in the back of the garage where grandpa did his woodcarving, the gravel in the driveway. Overall, it looked amazing, and although a little bit of me was sad to see the 70s era wood paneling and bright orange and yellow carpeting had been replaced, overall I was so genuinely happy that another family cared about this home so much.
While we were there, they pulled out a small checkbook box that they had found after buying the house. It contained small collectors license plates from each state, and was dated 1953. They gave it to Ethan, saying that maybe he would like something that was his great-grandfathers, and besides, he could use them to learn his states. They said they had kept it all this time, not sure what to do with it, but now they knew. Wow, what a cool gift! We are working on framing them for his room.
I may never make it back to 11091 Church Dr., but I am glad that I got to make this visit.
Rest in peace, Grandma and Grandpa. Your house is being well taken care of, and will provide some special memories for another family. I love you!
