Cottage #105 – Quin and Martha Claire Breland

As part of the Leatherman clan, my family history at the Belvedere Club extends back generations to my great-great grandfather, R.G. Morrow, who first visited the Club in the late 1800’s.  However, I first started coming up to the Club in summer 1988 as a seven-year old as my immediate family had taken a brief hiatus from Charlevoix trips when I was a small child.  My grandparents, R.M. and Camille Leatherman, rented what are now the McClelland (#119) and Flanigan (#109) cottages those first few summers before moving on to what are now the Smith (#207), Austin (#209), and Kuhn (#131) cottages.  I was fortunate being the oldest grandchild and usually got my own room.  After many failed attempts at buying a cottage, my grandparents acquired Cottage #115 and we finally had a place to spend the summer.

Overnights were always the highlight of gang, especially overnights Sleeping Bear Dunes (Collis Parrish can attest).  There was nothing quite like being free to explore the dunes, camp out, and of course set booby traps for the “raiders”.  The raiders were the other gang leaders who would attack our campsite with shaving cream and water balloons.  Luckily, we had a secret weapon – William Fox.  William brought a special set of skills to the Gang overnights similar to the Green Berets fortifying an army base.  The perimeter defense started with Coke cans tied to fishing line to alert us to any intruders.  Tree limbs were tied to trip wires, and small trenches were dug to provide additional cover.  An ice chest full of water balloons often gave us more ammunition than the raiders themselves.  Any raiding party attacking our fortified position instantly regretted it.

Bonfires at Belvedere Beach were the highlight of my late teens and early twenties.  Several nights per week, a group of us would head down to the beach for guitar playing, storytelling, joke playing and imbibing.  Looking back, it was pretty much the equivalent of what was happening on the adults’ porches.  A word of warning to future generations who may enjoy a beach bonfire from time to time – your voices carry!  There was nothing more embarrassing than having my grandmother tell me that she heard my voice float up to her lake-facing bedroom from the beach late at night!

We purchased Cottage #105 from the Schwab family in 2019.  I write this note in 2020, a year in which the Coronavirus pandemic caused turmoil across the globe.  Amidst all the instability in the world, the Belvedere Club gave my family a much-needed sense of place, purpose, and tradition.  Our children (McCadden, Margie, and Millie) love everything about the Belvedere Club and I cannot wait to watch them grow up and carry on these wonderful traditions.