A Clear Lake tradition Baehr makes Outing Club her summertime home for 80 years

By Alli Weaver

In an age when few “summer cottages” dot the lakeshore, Pat Liddle Baehr proudly carries on a family summer tradition.

Pat has been spending her summers at Clear Lake’s Outing Club for 80 years and has owned her own cottage for 39 years.

Pat’s family roots in Clear Lake trace back to her grandmother,  Ethel Moore, who grew up here beginning in 1873, but her history at the Outing Club begins with her parents, David and Sally Liddle.

The Liddles were intrigued by the idea of a summer cottage, so when two Des Moines couples, the Buckhams and the Teachouts, suggested the Clear Lake Outing Club back in 1937, their interest was sparked. There was only one cottage available, and the couples wanted the Liddles to join in on the fun, according to Baehr.

On the weekend after July 4, 1937, the family drove from Des Moines to Clear Lake to stay with Hank and Sunny Buckham in cottage #17, and to get their first look at the Outing Club.

“I vividly remember walking down the alley next to #17 and seeing, for the first time, the beautiful yard and the lake beyond,” said Baehr.  With 695 feet of lakefront property, a spacious yard area, docks layered with mothers on towels and children playing, the club was a summer dream, in Baehr’s

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eyes.

Pat was six-years-old, and her sister, Sally, was two at the time.

The open cottage, #5, had been vacant for several years, during which it was used as a storage space.

“It was dark and dirty, and the only light in the place was a bare lightbulb hanging on a cord from the ceiling,” Baehr said.

With reservations, and second thoughts, David and Sally Liddle considered purchasing the cottage.

“Though I really liked the Outing Club, I thought the cottage was terrible, and I didn’t want to live there,” Baehr said.

However, with some encouragement from David’s father and an offer to purchase the cottage for just the membership fee of $100, the couple saw the potential in the place, and thought that with a little bit of fixing up, it could be good for the family.

David and Sally Liddle purchased the cottage from Jim Irons in 1937, and began to fix it up.

After the summer home was cleaned, painted and furnished, with inspiration from the Liddle’s trip to Mexico, the family’s efforts began to pay off.

“The old storeroom turned into an attractive cottage,” Baehr said.

Cottage #5 still had its fair share of problems, according to Baehr.  The floors were uneven for a number of years and there was no bathtub or shower.  Even so, the Liddles made the most of it, with the children racing marbles across the crooked floors for fun, and their mother purchasing a small pink tub to bathe in, or sometimes bathing in the lake.

Baehr still has the little pink bathtub, and it has become a tradition for all of her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren to bathe in it when they are babies.

There was also only one telephone, which was shared by all Outing Club members in a common area. Waitresses would come to the cottage or the dock to let residents know when they got a call.

Every summer, Pat and Sally would make the three and one-half hour drive, which is now one hour and 45 minutes, from Des Moines with their mother on old Highway 69, then east to Clear Lake. Their father would drive or carpool up each Friday after work and return late on Sunday afternoon.

The Liddles did not have a car in Clear Lake during the week, because there was no real need for one. With three meals a day served at the Outing Club at the time, there was no need for grocery shopping, and downtown Clear Lake was within walking distance for other necessities and entertainment.

Now, dinner is served every day, breakfast is served on the weekends, and lunch is served on Saturdays, due to lower demand.  Currently, the meals are catered from Hy-Vee and served by the kitchen staff at the club.  Baehr enjoys the luxury of not having to cook every meal.

As a child, Pat loved buying coloring books and paper dolls at the variety store, as well as visiting the Corner Drug Store, which was on the corner where the Red Geranium is now.  She spent her days with two friends that she met at the lake, playing in the water, laying out in the sun and reading during the “quiet hours” from 1 to 3 p.m. each day.

“It was always a treat to sit at the counter and have a Mud or a Green River,” Baehr said.

In 1937, most cottages were 12x24 foot singles,  including the Liddles’, but there were about seven or eight double wides.

When Pat married Bill Baehr, the couple bought their very own cottage, #8, in 1978, and #7 in 1980. They combined the two to create a double, as most of the 21 cottages are now.

Each cottage includes a porch facing the lake and a designated dining table in the dining hall. Each cottage owner decorates their own porch and table as they choose, creating a unique touch to each cottage, and an eclectic feel to the long, enclosed porch area on the lake side.

Many of the cottages also include a second floor, which were mostly added at separate times, which creates a bit of a hodgepodge of building designs throughout the Outing Club, though the paint, railings and shingles are all required to stay uniform.

There is a community fire pit, a ping pong table, a common area for reading and relaxing, along with the 695-feet of lakefront property right outside.

“It’s just a great place for family and friends,” Baehr said.

Her daughter, Caroline, comes from Virginia each year to spend the Fourth of July at the Outing Club, and her two sons, Bob and Jim, also come to visit from Des Moines for a week or so out of each summer.

Pat also has six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

She enjoys seeing people growing up and coming back to the Outing Club throughout all of the changes that life brings.

  “I think the greatest part about the Outing Club is children who grow up here, come back married, have children and want to bring their families back,” Baehr said.

Pat and Bill no longer spend the entire summer in Clear Lake, but they usually make the trip from their home in Des Moines and spend a few weeks at the club here and there throughout the summer. The Outing Club is open from May 1 to Oct. 1, during which meals are served.

The Outing Club is not a winterized building, so the place goes into hibernation starting on Oct. 1.

Baehr had a hand in writing The Outing Club Reflections in 2003, an updated history of the Outing Club, which inspired her to write her own book, Baehr, which is a collection of her family history including photos, documents, and stories of the family’s past.  Baehr’s book tells the family’s Outing Club story, and many others, for future generations to read.

The $100 investment that David and Sally Liddle made in 1937 turned into a five-generation tradition in the Liddle-Baehr family, and continues to bring the family together, year after year.

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