“With liberal doses of gratitude, humor, and charming period details, Mamminga recounts her family’s more than 60-year history vacationing on Big Spider Lake in Wisconsin’s Northwoods region…. Wake Robin’s old-fashioned routines continue to bring joy to a fifth generation.”—Publishers Weekly Starred Review
“Wonderful, outsized, loving, adventurous people fill Return to Wake Robin.” —Jim Peck, Host of Milwaukee Public Television’s I Remember
Five generations of Marnie O. Mamminga’s family have been rejuvenated by times together in Wisconsin’s Northwoods. In a series of evocative remembrances accompanied by a treasure trove of vintage family photos, Mamminga takes us to Wake Robin, the cabin her grandparents built in 1929 on Big Spider Lake near Hayward, on land adjacent to Moody’s Camp. Along the way she preserves the spirit and cultural heritage of a vanishing era, conveying the heart of a place and the community that gathered there.
Marnie O. Mamminga has vacationed every summer on Big Spider Lake near Hayward, Wisconsin. Born and raised in the Chicago area, she attended the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where she earned undergraduate and master’s degrees in English. Over the years she raised three sons, taught junior high and high school English, and worked as a freelance writer and columnist. Her publishing credits include the Chicago Tribune, Reader’s Digest, the Christian Science Monitor, Lake Superior Magazine, and several Chicken Soup for the Soul books. She is available for interviews and appearances when feasible geographically and for her schedule.
