As told to Mary C. Kahle
March 8, 2006
In the early days, Sadie and the others
used to go out to the property and eat watermelon and
such, throwing their rinds over onto the adjacent
property. Someone once made the comment,
“Wouldn’t it be funny if we had to clean that
up some day?”, which of course they did. In those
early days, they used bulldozers to clean up the area.
Also, at that time, there was already a boat basin.
The Caufield house was built after a nightclub on the
site burned down. Otherwise, there was nothing else along
there except perhaps one more house at the curve in the
road. Grandma McRae, who was very history oriented, built
a little cabin. Nowadays there are two houses on the
property, the little cabin and one built by her relatives
that contained some memorabilia.
Grandma McRae was the matriarch. Her husband died when he
was in his thirties, so she was a mother and a father to
the kids. She often took the four children on picnics at
the property.
Dorothy became like a mother to the others also, and the
entire family was close. In fact, Dorothy told Dan that
he would always be a part of West Lake Beach, and when he
died, Sadie’s daughter saw Dorothy put a note in his
casket. (She doesn’t know what it said, however.)
The family was always out at West Lake Beach on weekends.
Howard would barbecue, someone else would bring a cake,
and so on. Sadie and her family went out there every
weekend (while Stanley was doing weddings) to take care
of arriving customers.
Woodlawn Baptist had a service at West Lake Beach every
Father’s Day, during which they’d do baptisms
in the river.
The boys had a candy/ice cream/fishing pole/worm
operation, which may have been Dorothy’s way of
keeping them busy in the summers.
Eva and Howard didn’t go into the partnership.
Dan built boat docks on the street and north sides of
West Lake Beach.
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