In 2013, Bonnie Kirkland Brown Rock shared memories of childhood summers in 1950s Ephraim. Excerpts from her written recollections, as well as transcribed memories from her grandmother describing why the Kirklands came to Ephraim, follow.

How It Began: A Trip Around Lake Michigan, 1924

Bonnie’s grandmother, Anne Stevens Kirkland (1882-1969), was living in Evanston, Illinois, when she and her husband Harry decided to visit Anne’s younger brother David. He was summering in Ephraim. Anne kept a travel diary of the 1924 trip that her daughter Bonnie later discovered in a suitcase of memorabilia at the family cottage on North Shore Road. Anne titled her adventure “A Trip Around Lake Michigan.”

The Kirklands took a long, scenic route to Ephraim by driving around Lake Michigan. They hoped to arrive within a few days and then relax at the cottage owned on North Coral Hill Road by her brother, David Stevens, and sister-in-law Ruth. David was an English Professor at the University of Chicago. After WWII, he established schools in Japan for the MacArthur Foundation. Coincidentally, Ruth Davis Stevens spent several years in Japan in the early 1900s working for the Friends Girls School in Tokyo, a school started by the Women’s Foreign Missionary Association of Friends (Quakers) in 1885. This was before her marriage.

Anne and Harry made stops along the way at Traverse City and Mackinac Island in Michigan. In Canada, they enjoyed an excellent meal “at a Chinese restaurant for $2.00 a piece.” No worse for the wear, they finally arrived at the Stevens cottage only to find that no one was home.

The cottage stood on land once owned by the Amundsons, a fishing and farming family who had immigrated to Ephraim soon after the village was founded in 1853. Charlotte Amundson and her brother Anton, elderly by the time this story takes place, lived on the family homestead. The Amundsons were of modest means and so over the years sold off parcels of land, in particular the rocky land closer to the shore. It was untillable.

Anne and Harry “called on Charlotte and Anton Amundson and made a raid on Smith’s store, procuring food for breakfast.” That night,” wrote Anne, “they slept the sleep of the righteous.“

Eventually the Stevens returned and adventures ensued. One involved Anne attending a Swedish social with Ruth Stevens and Charlotte Amundson. The minister sang two Swedish songs unaccompanied which according to Anne “were anything but tuneful.”

A Cottage is Built on North Shore Road

Anne and Harry soon built their own summer cottage, constructed from two small log barns found in Ellison Bay. “In 1925,” wrote granddaughter Bonnie, “these barns were carefully disassembled and brought over on the ice to the newly purchased Kirkland land. You can still see the Roman numerals on each log as it was separated from the other logs” so that the buildings could be correctly rebuilt. For a time, the road where they lived was named Kirkland Road. Decades later, it was changed to North Shore Road.

“Home to Me”

“I first came to Ephraim when I was six months old,” wrote Bonnie. “In time, two sisters joined me, Sally and Meredith, who we called Dee [Brestin]. Little did I know that, at the age of eighty-one, this cabin would belong to me! My own children say it will NEVER leave the family. This has been home to me.

“Our cottage remained without electricity or a bathroom during some of the Fifties. We had an icebox with a big block of ice and a similar sized space for food. There were two cots in the living room, two on a screen porch, a bedroom, and the balcony. I love the memory of reading by kerosene lamps - and walking to the privy with flashlights before bed!”

Ephraimitis

“We had what I believe was a cistern, a huge metal contraption on a wooden stand. It sat in a nook in the back of our house. The rain water captured there was used for washing clothes and other tasks, but we did not drink it. My mother, Marianne Kirkland, had a washing machine which she pushed into the backyard, used its hand-run wringer, and hung the clothes to dry. Bathing and shampooing was done in the bay. I don’t know that our family dumped trash in the lake, but we do find remnants of tin cans and bottles buried about the place. I also remember there were frequent cases of Ephraimitis. This affected the digestive tract, and it may have been from swallowing lake water. That recurring problem seems to be history.”

Singing Underwater, Digging for Worms

“In the Fifties, the lake and woods were our playground. Wildflowers, trees, rocks, and the bay made up our landscape. We loved it and still do. I spent time with the children of neighbors John and Jean Reeve, and the children of Anne Stevens Hobler (Professor David Stevens’ daughter). I remember a picture of myself and Windsor Hobler McCutcheon when we were pre-teens. We were walking down North Shore Road dressed in a sophisticated manner, singing Zippety Do Dah. The two of us often tried guessing songs we sang to each other under water. I also remember digging worms in the spot where my grandmother’s little one-room log cabin was built. Windsor and I caught bass and jumbo perch with hooks and lines wound around sticks.”

Raft Launches Imaginations

Sometimes the children of John Stevens and Bobbie Stevens Monroe were on the scene. These playmates also had cottages built on land purchased from the Amundsons. “During the Fifties,” wrote Bonnie, “we ran up and down the cow path between the original Amundson farm and the water, often following Grandma Kirkland who was carrying goulash. Our families often shared meals [followed by a game of] charades.”

Bonnie and her friend Windsor also loved playing Canasta, a rummy card game, with their grandmothers. Bonnie noted that the grandmothers “did not play strip poker, but I did, and some of my compatriots.” Note: Lest the reader misconstrue the preceding statement, the Editor offers a gentle reminder that these events took place in Ephraim in the 1950s. For these particular children, a daring game of strip poker involved something like everyone removing both of their socks!

“We swam in the bay and had a raft with a diving board, created by my father Bob (J.R.) Brown and John Reeve. They tried various anchors but there were many times when the men arrived for the weekend and the raft was on the shore.” Bonnie’s thespian mother, a trained colortura soprano, sometimes swam out to the raft to join them, singing with gusto. It seems the children were not impressed with Mom’s arias at the time but now remember them fondly.

When the raft was afloat, it sparked unstructured imaginative play inspired by pop-culture. Disney’s Peter Pan movie came out in 1953 followed by a long run on Broadway of the Peter Pan play starring actress Mary Martin. Not surprisingly, “Neverland” was a favorite “destination” and the sly Captain Hook and mischeivious Tinker Bell favorite pretend-roles. As Bonnie said in a recent conversation, quoting her beloved husband James Martin Rock, “It’s very important to day dream.”

A Magical Play Space

The groves of cedar trees that grew on the rocky terraces between various family cottages also offered magical play space. There, Bonnie’s friend Windsor remembers playing “Indian princesses” reflecting a dramatic play theme related to Indigenous people. “Minnie and Warren Davis were friends of my grandmother Anne,” Bonnie wrote in her 2013 memories, “and we walked between our house and theirs on what we were always told was an Indian path. We built teepees in the yard. We used bark from birch trees to write on and were festooned in head dresses from Chief Oshkosh’s store in Egg Harbor.

“We drove here from West Bend and as we rolled through Egg Harbor, Fish Creek, and Ephraim we would chant ‘Egg, fish, and eat ‘em’ [imitating the name or sound of each town]. When we finally reached North Shore Road, every dog we ever had tried to jump out the car window. [As soon as the car stopped at our cottage] we kids ran to the lake … it was still there!”

Note: Adult created pop-culture influences children’s play. See “Resources” at the the end of this blog for links related to representations of Indigenous people in American pop-culture of the twentieth century.

Hollywood Comes to the Village Hall

“Sometimes we walked to see a movie at the Village Hall,” Bonnie remembered. “We sat on folding chairs. Reels were changed during intermission. I remember a film called Johnny Belinda (1948). It was very shocking and confusing, as a child was conceived out of wedlock.” [Professional film critics labeled the film controversial. Jane Wyman won a Best Actress Oscar for her performance.]

“After the movies, we went to Wilsons. I thought Orvis Wilson very handsome. We walked back to North Shore Road with flashlights, often singing loudly as we had been warned not to talk to the Spanish speaking cherry pickers, who rode in the back of trucks.

“We shopped for everything at Bundas and never went to Sturgeon Bay. Groceries were purchased at Sohns and baked goods at Brookside Tea Garden. Hilda Paschke’s brown molasses bread with raisins was a treat. We ate Sunday dinner there, and also at Langs [today’s Old Post Office restaurant].”

RESOURCES

Play described in “North Shore Road Summer Memories” took place in Ephraim of the 1950s. It reflects social norms in Door County, Wisconsin during that decade, and also mirrors national cultural trends and historical events. These same things, with complex layers added over time, influence children’s play today so that it is both similar and different when compared to the 1950s. Readers may find the links below of interest.

Nostalgic Journey: What Was Childhood Like in the 1950s 2023

Learning from Children’s Dramatic Play 2019

Probing the Paradoxes of Native Americans in Pop Culture Smithsonian Magazine, 2018

Children’s Nature: The Rise of the American Summer Camp by Leslie Paris, 2008. See II “Modernity and Tradition in Children’s Socialization.”

Wisconsin Magazine of History 106:4 “The Cherryland Problem” by Sergio González

Teaching About Native Americans in Preschool and Kindergarten 2018

When is it cultural appropriation and when is it just kids playing dress-up? - Offbeat Empire 2012