Piper, all trying to get slivers of ice from the wagon. In return they
happily helped with the deliveries. The ice pick and the ice tongs
from that era still hang on the wall of our cottage.

The Thomas family were old timers at Victoria Beach, and
Walter Thomas kept a motor boat at the pier called the Valtannis. It
had once been his fishing boat and seemed a colossal big boat to me.
Itwas perhaps 28 feet long. Waltertook people on trips across Traverse
Bay to Black River and other places too. When our cottage needed
maintenance and Sam didn’t have the time, Walter helped us out.
He was a good friend.

I remember we were at the Beach when we heard the news that
World War II had ended. The only radio was at Falls’ store and Mrs.
Falls sent word to someone on First Avenue. The news was passed
along by the banging of pots and pans, till everyone in every cottage
knew the war was over. It was the most wonderful cacophony ever
heard at the Beach. All the people rushed to the village and gathered
between the train station and the store. Hundreds of people came
from miles around; I’ve never seen so many people hugging and
kissing and crying.

When I was grown and married with children of my own, the
Beach was still the same wonderful place and Sam Ateah often
organized adventures for the cottagers. We would set off with a train
of cars following his truck, all the children riding in the truck box,
atop a layer of hay. We'd travel along the trails to such places as
Manigotagan and Black River and Bissett. On one of the early trips
we saw a huge spider the size of a saucer in a crevice in the rocks with
a yellow pattern on its body. Sam said it was a kind of water spider
that ate minnows and could actually skate along on the water,
snatching its prey when it surfaced. Ten years later we returned to the
same spot and looked in the same crevice to see what was there. We
saw the huge spider, yellow patterned body and all. It was a marvel!

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