Throwing The Party Of The Summer
By Emily Manthei
Lacy cottage tendrils. A kaleidoscope of green. Ice cream cones and raspberry picking on grandma’s farm… These are the memories of summer in Northern Michigan that bring back my own childhood and recall all the generations of my family - since 1902 - that have spent summers here. That’s why we’ve always gathered for family reunions in the walk-out basements and lakefront patios of aunts and uncles to tell family lore, exchange updates, sing hymns to the sounds of an accordion (or guitar), and enjoy exactly the reasons we hold family so dear.
Although many families are like mine, and have more than a century’s history in the area, you don’t need 100+ years to invent your own “Backyard Nostalgia” party. Here are some ideas, in the extravagant style of Jay Gatsby, to help you throw a perfect “Up North Nostalgia” backyard party.
Eat the Fruits of the Summer.
My grandfather, Ernie, and his brother, Ted, started their careers as farmers. Although they later moved to veneer and logging, Ted never lost his love for the garden and he and his wife, Mary, continued to grow seasonal vegetables, inviting all of our families to visit the berry patch in the summer. Strawberries (the brothers’ first cash crop) gave way to my favorite berry of the year, raspberries. Dropping them in the collection pail faster than I could eat them was always a challenge.
However, there isn’t a fruit as beloved in our region as the cherry, if Traverse City’s National Cherry Festival has anything to say about it. And putting cherries in everything has always been a local pastime: cherry pie, cherry jam, cherry smoothies, cherry bread. My grandmother, Cora, made a cold Michigan cherry soup on the hottest summer days, containing a mixture of pitted cherries and lumpy little “dumplings” - one of the most memorable and unique traditional foods of her German-American heritage.
Family and friends can bring dishes designed for your favorite fruity theme, turning the season’s freshest produce into the headliner of the party. In addition to the fruits themselves, ask your guests for a seed, pit, branch, or stump to give you the raw material for growing your own offshoot of the beloved fruit next summer.
Celebrate Heroes of History.
Whether or not they’re all true, everybody in Northern Michigan has a “personal” story about Ernest Hemingway. One of the most beloved literary figures in American fiction, Hemingway spent childhood summers on Lake Charlevoix, and you would be hard-pressed to find a bar stool he didn’t sit on or a bench upon which he didn’t pontificate. (Just ask around Horton Bay and Walloon Lake.)
Throw a Hemingway-themed summer party complete with character costumes from his most famous works, rum-based cocktails named for the many, many, many bars he was known to frequent, and a fish-catching competition off the dock.
Need to catch up on your Hemingway trivia? Check out the short stories of Men Without Women, many of which have Northern Michigan links, or his thematically closer-to-home classic, The Old Man and the Sea, about one man’s quest to catch a giant marlin. One of Hemingway’s first short stories, “Up in Michigan,” takes place in Horton Bay, where his family spent their summers.
Of course, Hemingway isn’t the only celebrity with a history Up North. You can also theme your party around a more recent icon, folksy singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens, whose roots are in Alanson and Harbor Springs. Earl Young, the Mancelona-born architectural designer known for Charlevoix’s stone-faced “mush - room homes” is another local hero – and his designs could be inspirational for Hobbit-themed cakes, as well as patio designs.
Tell Tales of a Haunting at Sea.
The tale of the Edmund Fitzgerald, the epic 1975 ship - wreck which has loomed large over the Great Lakes ever since, is a story everyone knows. The freighter was en route from Wisconsin to Detroit when it was caught in a storm on Lake Superior along with one other ship. Hurricane-force winds crashed the ship near Sault Ste. Marie, killing all 29 sailors.
But in my family, this story is not as famous as the sinking of the White Swan, a freighter ship bought by my grandpa and his brother to use as a logging boat in the 1950s. My grandpa thought he could easily pilot the boat, but ran it aground on Beaver Island during its maiden voyage. The boat survived the accident though, and went on under the supervision of a “real captain,” who soon thereafter ran the ship aground on a reef near Cross Village, where it was stuck until winter winds broke the boat apart a few weeks later. The varied ill-fated voyages of the White Swan, as well as the heroic tales of its successor, the Mackinac Islander, have loomed large in our family lore ever since.
The best place, of course, to tell stories of horrible ship - wrecks, epic dives to buried wreckage, and the ghostly sailors that might haunt the lighthouses on shore, is around a fire pit, prepared with plenty of marshmallows. Get ready with s’mores and your stories for a night-time party you won’t soon forget.
Make it the Old-Fashioned Way.
What’s your favorite local summer treat? The famous fudge? Hand-scooped ice cream? Country maple syrup? Or maybe it’s a delicious strawberry rhubarb pie (my mom makes the best!) or your aunt’s outdoor-wood-fired-oven sourdough bread. And maybe best of all is my brother’s crisp summer saison beer, Forget Me Knot (a beer invented for his wedding, and later distributed at his local micro-brewery, Beards).
Whatever that treat is - from a local small-business, or your family and friends arsenal, why not make it your - self, gathering your friends around a fire pit, barbecue grill, or outdoor cauldron to enjoy the experience of doing it for yourself. Gather your family’s most beloved recipes, batter your fish in micro-brewed beer, and make some treats on-site, for the togetherness experience that will spark memories and pass along sacred family knowledge to the next generation.
Celebrate Family Heritage.
Choose a date or a year, and be there. For my family, it could be 1902, when my great-grandparents arrived from Eastern Prussia to what would eventually be their home in Petoskey. Or it could be 1977, the swinging summer when my parents were married. One of my uncles turned up in plaid, looking like the Pink Panther - and they have wedding photos to prove it.
Choose a time period or “family moment” to represent for this party. Invite your family and friends to dress up, and bring the food, stories, and music to relive the moment. Lucky for me, my grandmother gave me all of the dresses she wore to her children's’ weddings, so I’ve got a head start on this one. But whatever moment you’re recreating, go all out. Find news articles, revisit popular culture, get out the record player or radio, and make it real. You’ll discover a version of your family’s past that all those present will never forget. And you’ll probably get to know your ancestors a whole lot better, too.
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