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The Cottage - Bethany Beach, Sawyer, Michigan (1910s?-70)
According to oral family history, Eric, Herb and Warren Christopher built a cottage in Bethany Beach, a private Swedish Baptist community, some time in the 1910s. Bethany Beach was established in 1906 and was primarily made up of summer cottages on Lake Michigan for Swedish Baptists. There was a large Tabernacle where the community residents would worship in the summer months when they came in from Chicago. Warren and Wally met at Bethany Beach in their teens. Warren was a lifeguard (see photo in slideshow) and Wally would visit her aunts who had cottages in the community.
I am not sure what happened to that original cottage, because it gets fuzzy at this point. We have a record of Herb, Anna (Marion), Grandpa Warren and Grandma Wally buying two lots on November 7, 1944, lots 195 and 196, at Bethany Beach. Herb & Warren rented out the cottage during the summer months. When Mom (Karen) and Dad (Bud) first got married in October 1954, they lived in the cottage that first winter for several months before moving into the small house on Warren's property. The Söderlings stayed in the cottage when they visited Wally from California. When Warren passed away in 1966, Herb and Marion let Wally rent the cottage for extra income to make ends meet. I have not figured out the ownership changes because there are two records that conflict about two months apart in 1970. Wally seems to have sold the cottage on March 4, 1970, according to the Register of Deeds records - click here. However, the people, Ralph and Jane Aronson, she sold it to sold it back to her on May 10, 1970 - click here. Perhaps one of the aunts and uncles knows more about this?
Occasionally, Wally would have family gatherings at the cottage, but mostly, it was a rental property. Dayle, Bernie and I remember hanging out at the cottage, but not very often. When we were kids, we would walk to Bethany Beach and swim. There was a tall hill nicknamed "Pike's Peak" that we would walk up to the stairs leading down to the actual beach. There is video of Mom and Dad on the beach and walking up the stairs (you can find the video on the Home Movies page or Siblings 1 - The Sawyer Years)
Bethany is still a private religious community today, but one can drive through the community. If you go to Bethany Beach the Cottage is just up the hill past the big park at the entrance. The address is 218 Oak Grove Ave, Sawyer, MI 49125. I have photos of the cottage from April 2024 in the slideshow below.
From the Berrien County Genealogical Society: “Bethany Beach – Named by a group of Swedish Baptists who came from Chicago, settled on the shores of Lake Michigan in the area, and named it Bethany – home of Marcy, Martha, and Lazarus and where Christ often visited and worked some of his greatest miracles.”
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