As the rhythms and timelines of life along the lakeshore flow, there are places where changes are continual and frequent, where memories are washed from the beach with each passing season.
But there are others where tradition and family history lay the groundwork for the future.
Scores of lakeshore properties in the Finger Lakes have been owned by the same family for several generations, but there may not be many that can prove, through annual documentation, that an annual house party has been held on Keuka Lake for 100 years.
Joan M. Winters, who lives not far from the Pacific Ocean in Half Moon Bay Calif., returned to the cottage this summer to host the 100th version of the Andrews-Winters parties.
Winters, whose grandfather taught at Keuka College, has seven log books dating back to 1909 that record the signatures and thoughts of those who visited one of the cottages.
The logs began at the cottage,Conklin's Cosy Corner, which was given to Winters’s grandparents, Charles and Edith Andrews as a wedding gift by her father, Charles H. Conklin. The couple re-named the cottage Tionesta after a boat they spent their honeymoon on. Her parents continued the parties at the cottage they bought in 1948. She has hosted the parties at that cottage, Waldershare, since 1963.
Highlights of the centennial party included a tratitional feast that included her mother’s potato salad and grandmother’s chocolate fudge cake, beef roast from Morgan’s Grocery, fresh corn on the cob from Indian Pines Fruit Stand and ice cream from Seneca Farms. The feast was followed by a miniature festival of lights. Friends put luminaries by the road and on the dock and tea lights were housed in recycled scraps and floating in the water.
Winters, who returns to her cottage on Keuka Lake as often as possible, admits it’s taken a lot of effort to keep the party going, especially from California, but she’s determined to not let the memories of past gatherings slip away in her lifetime.
