April 28, 2002
Jack Waite Memorial
When long time lake resident and former Board President, Jack Waite passed away in 1992, a tree was planted and memorial plaque installed in his memory in Myers Lake Park. We appreciate Lauri Gless bringing to the board’s attention that the plaque had suffered severe weather deterioration during the past ten years. A new bronze replacement plaque has now been purchased and will soon be installed. The location of the memorial is in the parking island close to the entrance to the park.
Jack
was born in Flint in 1918 and moved to Grand Rapids as an infant. In 1923, when he was five, his parents
purchased the lot and built their cottage at 7444 Hessler Dr. Like many other families, they lived in the
city and summers were spent on the lake.
Aftergraduating from Grand Rapids South High School, Jack attended and
received his engineering degree from GM Institute in Flint. Upon graduation, he started working for GM’s
AC Spark Plug Division in Flint. Except
for an interruption to serve in the Navy during WWII, he continued to work for
AC Spark Plug for 45 years until retiring in the early 1980’s.
During
Jack’s college years and his single years thereafter, many summer weekends were
spent at the cottage with friends. Long
time residents recall calling the Waite cottage the “hangover hangout”. He began courting Sally and she became part
of the weekend gang at the cottage.
Karen Waite shared with us 35 years of Myers
Lake Improvement Association Board records, from 1949 through the
mid-1980’s. A Myers Lake Improvement
Association Newsletter dated August 1976 invited residents to recall these
earlier years on the lake, “remember the
way things were when there was a pavilion on the lakeshore, when tent-camping
was the rage, when cottages were fewer and year-round homes on the lake a
luxury not to be dreamed of; when two-track roads muddied spoke wheels and
banjoes carried ragtime melodies over the evening waters”
.
Jack
and Sally married in 1948. Daughters
Vicky and Karen were born in 1949 and 1956 respectively. Their life settled into a family routine of
Sally spending summers at the lake with the girls while Jack came out on
weekends. Karen recalls there was no
phone, no TV and sometimes no car at the lake during the summer. They enjoyed candy and ice cream treats
purchased from the concession at the bathhouse at the park. They remember that Hessler Drive ended in a
circular turn-around and that cows came down to the lake on the south side to
drink lake water.
When
Jack retired, he and Sally moved to Myers Lake, replacing the cottage with a
permanent home. The Waite cottage that
was built in 1923 was moved to the Prawdzik property to make room for the new
home. It is the brown cottage now
relocated at 7375 Hessler Dr.
In
2001 the family sold the Waite property at 7444 Hessler Dr., ending almost 80
years of Waite family ownership. Sally
has moved into an apartment in the new home of Karen Waite and Matt Ashurst at
7502 Hessler Dr.
The
files reveal that the Myers Lake Improvement Association was chartered in 1949
“to improve and keep farmers from pumping
water from the lakes”. Jack Waite
was a leader on the Lake Association for many years. As President and Board Member he was thorough and precise and
participated in many significant projects.
An
interesting tidbit of lake history:
A recent concern around the lake has been the low water level, but in the mid 1970’s the concern was about record high lake levels and flooding. A letter from Board President, Thomas Swart dated February 27, 1976 states that “some families have already had to evacuate their home as there is water 4 to 6 inches deep in their living room. Other families have to haul water in as many wells have been contaminated. Very many families’ septic fields are completely underwater, which discharges effluent directly into the lake”. Another problem was that many trees were killed due to the high lake water. Action was taken when Judge Stuart Hoffius established a legal lake level 30 inches lower than the level recorded in the spring of 1975. As a result, the county Drain commissioner ordered the drain to be installed at the west end of the lake to permanently lower the lake level. The current water level in 2002 is now below the level of the drain, and probably close to four feet lower than the level in 1976.
We thank Karen and Sally Waite for sharing their family history on the lake.
We thank them also for preserving early records of the lake association.
If you enjoyed this brief look into the past, let us know. There are other long time lake residents who might be willing to share their history and lake memories for the benefit of us newcomers.