Larry Gritton

When I was growing up in the 1950s and ‘60s, my family went to my grandparents’ summer place on Browns Lake in Burlington, Wisconsin, twice a summer.  We usually shared the cottage with my cousins, the Brooks.  There was a master “suite” on the first floor and five or six bedrooms on the second floor.  We had a dock and a boat and access to the Browns Lake Resort swimming pool just down the block.  There was a nice golf course a mile away that we played when we got older.

I have vivid memories of driving up north from our home in Glencoe, a Chicago suburb, and cheering when we saw the Blatz Beer sign just over the Wisconsin border.  We’d memorized that it was 17 miles to the cottage once we turned off I-94, and when we passed the cemetery we knew we were there.

My grandparents were there for our early years, but my Grandma Rose (doesn’t everyone have a Grandma Rose!) died in 1965, and my Grandpa Julian died in 1968.  After his passing, my mom and her sisters sold the place, much to the chagrin of our generation-- especially my older brother Steve, who hosted a number of parties there before he got busted.

The photo here is of my grandparents and me (bottom row, center), Steve, sister Pam, and cousins Carol and Marty Brook.  Grandma Rose didn’t look like it, but she had spunk.  The story goes that she once hitched a ride to Chicago from the milkman when there was a birth in the family (I don’t remember whose).

Summer family vacations were always special times, and continue to this day with our annual trip to Michigan with the extended family and another extended family (40 in all). Alas, the 2020 gathering has been canceled because of COVID-19.