About this year's painting
by Laurie Lesser Hodgson
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This year's painting is a little different. Since turning 50 a couple of years ago, I've become very nostalgic about everything, including, of course, my memories of the Charlevoix Venetian Festival as a child.

I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, but my grandmother (known not only to me, but to most of her friends as Mammy) owned a house on Dixon Avenue (now the falling apart Osterberg house, but one of the oldest houses in Charlevoix) and the Lessers made a beeline to Charlevoix the minute school was out every year. I, in fact, spent every summer here since I was 2 months old.

My memories of the Venetian Festival are straight out of a Dick, Jane, Sally, Spot and Puff book. The people in my painting are clothed and coiffed like the late 1950s and early 1960s. I included Raggedy Ann, a Radio Flyer wagon, a Hammacher Schlemmer picnic basket, and 1960ish tricycle. I didn't get Fran Martin in there with her wonderful mechanized wheelchair, but she was always there!

And for those of you who are my age (or older) and were around Charlevoix in those days, you'll find Brow Marina (with Al Stein's boat, the "Able Love" inside), Bellinger's, Ward Bros. (the only one still here), Schroder & Hovey drug store (where they had "Jeff"s), William's Cigar Store (where they had "Green River" phosphates), Polly Kay, the water tower, the shuffleboard courts and old fish pond in the park, the old Chamber building that looked like a pagoda, the old-style wood boats, the U.S.C.G. cutter W404 Sundew, and the earlier version of the Emerald Isle (which looked more like the current Beaver Islander).

I'm sure some things are not very accurate and there was a lot more I would like to have worked in, but didn't have room or time. And there's no way to capture some memories of that time, like the smell of the cedar hedges all over town; the panic we felt getting out of the movie and trying to make it home before the 9:30 curfew so we wouldn't get arrested; evening boat trips to Horton Bay to eat at the Red Fox Inn; having the trains flatten our pennies on the tracks at Depot Beach; Jordan River canoe trips; following Fran Martin around in her electric chair wishing we could ride in it; sleeping on "sleeping porches" and listening to the deep, throaty sound of the old foghorn; and the thrill of being let loose in Dahlquist 5¢ & 10¢ or Murdick's Fudge or William's Cigar Store!

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Yes, my mother actually dressed me like this for the Venetian Festival party in our backyard!

More Nostalgia

Back Row L to R: Greta Weil (Chicago), Debbie Stern (Chicago), Betsy Broder? (Shaker Heights, OH)), Peggy Rader (Charlevoix), Liz Joseph (Cincinnati), Me; Front Row L to R: Wendy Saltonstall (Charlevoix), Gardie Stern (Chicago), Jill Hassenbush (St. Joseph, MI), Kathy Silberman (Chicago), Lisa Weil (Chicago).

My very best friend however, was Tricia Young (Earl Young's granddaughter). I would run straight to her house on Ainslie the minute we got into town. I remember that we had names for the huge boulders in Lake Michigan just north of the channel, but I can't remember what their names were... UGH! I also remember spending most of one summer sitting on the fire escapes of the abandoned and about-to-be-torn-down Beach Hotel (where La Croft is now), telling dirty jokes.

Also have to mention some other friends from that time... the Millers (especially Stuart), Billy & Harry Liebschutz, John Wineman, all the Loeb Farm kids, Bobby Scofield, the Rothschilds, the Novaks, and of course two of the great loves of my young life... Timmy Loeb (I think we got engaged when I was 8), and Jimmy Coleman for whom I named our Siamese cat.

Photo of me with Jill Hassenbush at the Hassenbush house, which later was Begrows, and now Voisins.