The Honorary Grand Marshals for this year’s Fourth of July Parade are longtime Lakesiders David Glick and George McCormick. They will lead the main parade from Fourth Street down Harsh Road and precede west down Second Street ending at Maple Avenue. Both were founding members of the Lakeside Heritage Society (LHS) in 1968 and both were members of the 2023 LHS Sesquicentennial Book Committee.
Glick first came to Lakeside in 1929 and has been here every year except two. His father, a Lutheran pastor, purchased the family cottage at 429 Oak Avenue in 1941 where Dave spends his summers after his 31-year employment at the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, retiring as VP for Education. Glick joined the Lakeside Volunteer Fire Protective Association (also known as the Lakeside Volunteer Fire Department) in 1943 at the age of 14 when he was employed as a messenger in the Administration Office.
Many LVFD members were serving in World War II and all help was appreciated, so Glick took off on his bicycle. He remained active until June 30, 2013. Glick was instrumental in leading efforts that resulted in the placement of Lakeside’s second Ohio Historical Marker about the LVFD and the 1929 Fire.
Glick became interested in Lakeside history while working summers with Charlie Knight, who came to Lakeside in 1896. Later, Glick spent his summer vacations in Lakeside in Heritage Hall going through old newspapers and Lakeside Bulletins to fill in forms he created in notebooks about what was going on in Lakeside each year beginning in 1873, including physical changes, building projects, transportation, highlights of the season programs and businesses operating in Lakeside. He searched newspapers from Sandusky, Toledo, Cleveland, Detroit and smaller towns for articles about Lakeside and amassed an enormous collection of clippings that he donated to the Heritage Archives along with his notebooks, which formed the core of the LHS Archives. The Glick collections were invaluable in writing the Lakeside Sesquicentennial book published this summer.
When Glick became a summer resident after retiring, he became active as a speaker for the LHS, sharing his stories and slides of Lakeside history with locals and visiting groups and through authoring articles in the MANIFEST as part of the LHS newsletter, beginning in 1991. He wrote four issues a year for 25 years and continued as a guest author. Glick also created walking tour scripts for five different areas of the Lakeside grounds and led those each summer until passing that on to others in recent years. Glick was a member of the Lakeside Association Board of Trustees from 1980- 1986.
McCormick grew up enjoying Lakeside summers with family at his grandmother’s cottage on Laurel Avenue and where he has continued to vacation for over 80 years. McCormick worked at the Hotel Lakeside during college where he met his future wife, Pat. After completing his PhD, McCormick accepted a professorship in geology at the University of Iowa. He used his knowledge of geology to lead weeklong educational seminars beginning in the mid-1970s that included lecture/discussions combined with field trips to the Marblehead quarries and Gypsum mines and boat trips to the Lake Erie Islands. Through more than 40 years of dedication to saving Hotel Lakeside from deterioration and demolition, including leadership roles in the Friends of Hotel Lakeside organization, he became the local authority on the hotel and shares that history and general history of Lakeside and the American Chautauqua Movement through lectures and walking tours.
McCormick was a member of the Lakeside Association Board of Trustees from 1998-2003.
