West Bluff Cottager Dottie Sharer Leaves Island After 43 Years
By Caitlyn Kienitz

Dorothy Sharer began spending summers here with her late husband, Ed, in 1965.

Dorothy Sharer has seen many changes on Mackinac Island through the years. After all, the West Bluff cottager first visited the Island with her family at the age of four.

"We stayed at the Iroquois, and I remember it vividly because I lost my purse," she said.

Since then, she said she has seen the number of people on the Island increase greatly, as new houses were built and the Island's phone book expanded from a page and a half.

"It's interesting to see all the new homes," she said. "Most of them are very nice."

After visiting the Island as a child, Mrs. Sharer, called Dottie by her friends, began spending summers here with her late husband, Ed, in 1965. Their first cottage was a little yellow house in the Annex, which they sold before buying the West Bluff cottage.

"The first time my husband saw the Island, he just fell in love with this place," Mrs. Sharer remembers.

She said she and her husband became the fifth and sixth members of Little Stone Church, and cottager Lorabeth Fitzgerald, who has known Mrs. Sharer for 47 years, said she has continued to be a loyal member of the church since then.

"Her husband initiated the scholarship that we maintain, and she has always been supportive of and interested in that," said Mrs. Fitzgerald. "She is a very gracious lady, and always intensely interested in people."

The Sharers moved in 1970 to the West Bluff cottage, where they frequently entertained friends and family and enjoyed meeting people who had lived in the cottage before them.

Now she is one of the former residents, having sold the cottage this summer and moving into a new apartment in Bloomfield Hills.

For many years, the Sharers rode their bikes around the Island every day, and although she no longer rides a bicycle, Mrs. Sharer enjoys walking just about everywhere she goes.

She also likes fudge. "I eat chocolate every day," Mrs. Sharer said. "It gives me energy, and I think it improves my disposition."

She said she loves going downtown to visit the shops, playing bridge at the Mackinac Island Yacht Club, and attending the Wednesday poetry sessions at Grand Hotel, just down the hill from her West Bluff cottage. She often eats at the hotel's restaurants, as well.

"One of the reasons we bought on the West Bluff was to be near the hotel," she remembers.

She also takes time to go for walks and enjoy the beauty of the Island.

"Even when you walk alone, it's interesting and beautiful," she said.

More than anything else though, Mrs. Sharer speaks of the kindness of her neighbors and others on Mackinac Island.

"The people here are the kindest, most thoughtful people I have ever known anywhere," she said. "If anybody ever needs help, they rally around them, and I thank them for all their kindness."

Mrs. Sharer hopes to pass that kindness on to the new owners of her cottage, as she and her family have left furniture as well as items such as bedding, kitchen utensils, and even soap and tissues in the home.

"We're trying to leave the house as livable as possible," she said, "so they can come in and be comfortable."

Mrs. Sharer left the Island Friday, August 15, to return to Bloomfield Hills, where she will have an apartment in an independent living retirement home.

"Her friends are really sorry that the house is closing and that she's moving on to another kind of life, but we recognize that's what she needs to do," said Mrs. Fitzgerald.

But while the cottage may be closing, Mrs. Sharer certainly has not left the Island for good, as she is already making plans to return for the Fourth of July next summer.

"I'm so grateful to come back," Mrs. Sharer said. "I couldn't go the summer without coming to Mackinac."