Iowa lake is summer home for Indiana couple

LAKE IOWA PARK — George and Donnette Williams are spending their second summer as camp hosts at Lake Iowa Park, but they’ve camped there many times before.

The Indiana couple has family in the area. They’re closer to their grandchildren and great-grandchildren here, they said.

Donnette grew up in Brooklyn. She went tent camping with her family from about the time she was in fourth grade.

“We would go up to Pine Lake in Ladora,” Donnette said, and to Lake Iowa. The family — Mom, Dad, three kids and the family dog — visited the Black Hills and Devil’s Tower.

“We met a lot of people that way,” said Donnette.

The family once followed the path of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Donnette said, camping in all the places the Ingalls family had lived.

George didn’t camp as much as a child, said Donnette, though he said he had a great-aunt and uncle who had their own camp site at the Iowa State Fair.

George grew on a dairy farm near Deep River and graduated from Millersburg High School. “I drove over the road for about 40 years,” he said.

Donnette mostly worked office jobs, she said, though she spent a year as a custodian at Grinnell College and worked for GTE before that.

After George and Donnette married they traveled on two wheels. “We motorcycle camped for a couple of years,” George said. They had a tent and camping gear in a trailer behind the bike, which they took as far as Montana.

Later they got a bunkhouse tent trailer, said George. It set up quickly and easily.

In two minutes, Donnette said. And all the storage for their supplies was in it.

The last time they used that setup in Indiana, the weather was too hot, said George, so the couple bought a motor home. They had a class A motor home for about five years before buying the motor home they’ve set up near the Nature Center at Lake Iowa Park.

It’s longer, said Donnette, bigger, but it doesn’t have the storage of the class A.

“The small one we had clear out to Arizona,” said George. It was a 21-footer.

“It was handy,” said George. “You could go anywhere with it.”

Some campgrounds didn’t allow larger campers because they didn’t have room for them, said Donnette.

The couple used to set up the class A at Lake Iowa and use it as a base to visit family in the area, Donnette said.

One year George told a park ranger at Lake Iowa to let him know if the camp hosts ever decided not to return. A couple of years ago, a ranger encouraged the couple to put in an application for the job.

“It is just so beautiful out here,” said Donnette. “The fishing is good. You can hear the owls at night.” And the birds. And frogs. Summer intern and naturalist Emma Edelen made a frog hotel out in front of the nature center, said Donnette

Sometimes they hear coyotes at night, George said.

The Williamses don’t have to take money from campers. “It’s all pretty much self check-in,” said George.

They clean the bathrooms and showers and sell firewood. They answer questions and take care of problems.

The couple meets many interesting people while camping at Lake Iowa.

“Last year we had a couple from England that was riding across the U.S.,” said Donnette. The visitors from the U.K. cycled from Washington, D.C. to Washington State.

George and Donnette also met some Canadians who camped at Lake Iowa last year.

Some people find Lake Iowa through a camping phone app, said George. Lake Iowa also gets campers coming off the interstate, he said.

“And you know, they’re all so nice,” said Donnette. “Campers are just good people.”

“We have very little problems,” said George.

Everyone knows that quiet time starts at 10:30 at night, and they follow that rule, said Donnette.

George takes care of renting the three Jon boats with trolling motors to people who want to fish on the lake. Quite a few people come out and kayak, George said, though they use their own. The park doesn’t rent kayaks.

When camping season ends in September, the couple will drive their motor home back to Greencastle, Indiana where they’ve lived for 17 years.

Donnette said they plan to come back next year as hosts. “We want to be in their 10-year plan.”

That will depend on their health, said George. So far they’re doing well.

Lake Iowa has a good staff, said George.

“We’re very blessed to be here with all these people,” said Donnette. They’re like family.