Carol Rhudy and the Cottage on the Lake

Carol Rhudy, a Fort Wayne resident, grew up in Goshen, where her father owned a hardware store. But her favorite childhood memories and her most cherished times still belong to the family cottage on Lake Tippecanoe.

Carol knows the place like the back of her hand. Walking through each room today, she can recall the origin story of every piece of wall art, every decoration, every piece of furniture. The hard hat displayed near the kitchen belonged to her late husband, Dave, who supervised the last major addition to the house. The prayer on the wall is a Mother’s Day gift from her children, who signed the back. A cabinet in the corner— still stocked with paper plates and napkins— has occupied the same spot for as long as Carol can remember. Upstairs sits a wicker rocking chair that her mother once used to rock her older brother to sleep.

For Carol, the cottage and the lake are more than a place. It’s a standing record of her family’s history.

Five Generations at the Cottage

That history begins in 1930, when Roy and Bonnie Mayse purchased the cottage in Potawatomi Park on Lake Tippecanoe.

Though she wasn’t born until 1950, Carol tells stories of the original lake house as if she were there herself. It’s a clear sign of just how many times those memories have been passed around the family table.

Roy and Bonnie were the first generation to call the place home. Their only son, Bill, Carol’s father, was the second. Carol and siblings, Barb and Chip, are the third generation. The fourth brought four grandchildren. Today, the fifth generation includes five great-grandchildren.

Every year, the family celebrates their own special holiday: Founders Day, marking the date Roy and Bonnie first purchased the cottage on July 30, nearly 96 years ago.

Over the decades, the cottage has grown considerably from the original two-bedroom home that had no running water. As new rooms were built, family members contributed furniture or purchased what was needed to fill them. Out of nine bedrooms, no two are quite alike— each one a reflection of the family member who furnished it and the era in which it was added.

The cottage was never meant to be a showplace. It was meant to be a gathering place. When they added on over the years, they asked their builders to match the style and woodwork of the original home. To them, continuity mattered more than anything new.

There’s a reason for that.

For Posterity Purposes

Carol and her siblings have always prioritized longevity. They put their efforts and funds toward lasting repairs and replacements, ensuring that future generations will have an easier time caring for the place.

They’ve also worked hard to simplify how the property passes from one generation to the next, eventually incorporating the cottage as an LLC.

Carol and her sister always remember: “We’re stewards of something that we didn’t have anything to do with acquiring. We feel the responsible thing to do is to leave it better than we found it.”

Carol’s heart of gratitude inspires her to honor what came before her.

Now, her hopes are simple: that her children and grandchildren will have the same experience at the cottage that she has had. “My grandparents had a vision that we didn’t immediately appreciate. And I think that’s probably true of a lot of these places that are owned by more than one generation.”

Carol has learned many things from managing the property—she’s also learned not to fight what she can’t control, saying, “The more you can not count on things staying the same, the better off you are— because they just don’t.”

Changes on the Lake

The lake itself has changed over the years. Carol has witnessed those changes firsthand.

“The weeds have gotten much worse,” she says, attributing it to phosphorus and other nutrients now used in lawn fertilizers. “People didn’t have these showplace lawns. Everybody just had what they had. Whatever grew out of the ground, they mowed, and that was the end of it. They didn’t have all the lawn treatment stuff going on. Also, we had very few year-round residents in my early years. What the lake needs has changed.”

The family has tried to do their part. They installed glacial stone along their shoreline after reading about the benefits for the lake: reduced erosion and nutrient runoff, more wildlife habitat.

Carol still loves the lake with the same intensity she always has. For years, she kept a personal tradition: waterskiing every summer on her birthday, just to prove she still could. Last summer, she was prepared to hit the water— until her doctor advised her against it, concerned about the risk of fracture.

Carol respected the advice and retired from skiing. “I quit while I was ahead,” she laughs.

While some things change, and some never do, Carol hopes that the lake and the cottage will always mean something special to the family.

Looking Forward

Carol credits both the Lake Tippecanoe Property Owners (LTPO) and The Watershed Foundation (TWF) for giving her hope about the future of the lakes. “That is a committed group of individuals in both cases,” she says— different organizations, but both with the best interest of the lakes as their mission.

For Carol, the future of the lake and the future of her family are not separate things. The same values that led Roy and Bonnie Mayse to put down roots on Lake Tippecanoe nearly a century ago— a love of the water, a commitment to gathering, a belief that some things are worth protecting— are the values she hopes to pass down to the fifth generation and beyond.

The cottage will keep its stories. The lake, she trusts, will too.