Ardy Youngren

Ardy Youngren is pictured here with her oldest son Larry. They are spending some time up at the family cabin this summer.

Ardy Youngren and her late husband Bill are long time property owners here on Oak Point. They bought their cabin at 10500 Chippewa Beach Road back in 1969. Just prior to buying their cabin they were fishing with another couple at Red Rock Reef just east of Pelican Island and they were catching big Walleyes one after another. So they were sold on Leech Lake. Next they ran into Lon Ivan who took them out to Squaw Point to show them some cabins. They ended up buying the place which was the first one that they saw on a contract for deed which was 41 years ago and went back to Joliet, IL which was their home. Bill owned and operated Ace Root Beer Stand which was a car hop drive in that also sold food. The Youngrens had three children, six grandchildren and now 16 great grand children.

The next time they came back was at Easter Vacation in 1970 and they couldn't find their cabin and had to call Lon Ivan for directions to get there. This was before the present modern road system with the looping road by the Narrows. Pastor Schmidt from the Chippewa Bible Church had a tractor that he used to pull cars through the wet areas by Welch Lake.

Some of their neighbors at the time were the Savolas, Browns, Howlands, Reidel, Ray, Schuppe, Obergs, Darko, Loves and Nobles. Harold Kleen was the area handyman while he ran the Oakdale Resort. The telephone was a party line that ran trough the woods attached to trees to get here. The Youngrens' took their laundry to Walker by boat and would bring groceries and supplies back with them.

Some of their memories included the big storm of 1979 that destroyed their boat and store station. They have a plaque made out of one of the remaining boards from the boat that is attached just outside of their back door. They remember all the great fishing trips primarily after Walleyes. They remember one summer they put a new roof on the cottage and the garage. They remember Albert (aka) Oh-Gee-Che-Dah and his sister Susan Starr who lived entire life out on Oak Point. They remember some of the relatives losing a prop out on the lake. The forest fire in the Little Hardwood area in the 1970's that they called in to the forest service. They remember when son Dan swam to Goose Island and back. Ardy gave me a file titled Squaw Point Road, which contained all the correspondence, petitions and news articles about the efforts to get the modern looping road built in the early 1980's. The total effort took many years to get done with a total cost of less then $1.5 million that was completed in 1984. Contract that to the 2010 road improvement costs of approximately $3.3 million and took quite a bit of time to get done as well. Some of Ardy's best memories are about the family gatherings and the great food they ate.

Ardy said her husband Bill closed up his business in Joliet earlier and earlier every year fall so that they could travel north to their cabin. They use to stay until November when they headed back home. After they sold the business they spent the entire summer up here fishing, riding bicycle and doing what they enjoyed doing.