Abe La Fave

Abraham La Fave, proprietor of Island Lake Resort and of Inland Resort, on Island Lake, Vilas County, was born in Canada in 1858, and there received his schooling, which was very limited, as he had to enter the ranks of industry at a very early age. As a small boy he went to work in the cotton mills of Massachusetts and continued in that line of employment until reaching the age of nineteen. He then went to Point Sable, Mich., where he found work in the neighboring woods as a logger and general employee in the lumber business, being thus engaged until 1888.

In that year he came to Vilas County, of most parts of which he soon acquired a sound geographical knowledge, and was employed as a guide on Trout Lake and the vicinity by John Mann. After spending a short time in Mr. Mann's employ, he went to work in the woods for the Chippewa Logging Co. at Grandfather's dam, and remained with them subsequently for four years. His next move was to Price County, where he spent three years in logging and driving, by the end of which time he had discovered an easier and pleasanter way of getting a living.

Buying a camping outfit he began work as a guide for fishing parties on the rivers and was thus occupied during the summers until 1897. He then started the Island Lake Resort, located on an island in Island Lake, of Manitowish Waters, Vilas County, which, with the assistance of his wife he has built up very successfully. In 1920 he established Inland Resort on the same lake and now conducts them both. The Inland Resort consists of 80 acres of land, a main lodge and four cottages, while the Island Resort, with a main lodge and five cottages, is also well developed. Mrs. La Fave does the cooking and looks after the welfare of everything on the inside, while Mr. La Fave attends to the outside work, and together they are doing a nice business.

Mr. La Fave was first married in the fall of 1898 to Mary Fernette, who died in 1900, leaving a son Thomas, who is now a resident of Minneapolis. Mr. La Fave later married Mrs. Sarah Noonan, of which union six children have been born, Frank, Wilbur, John, Marie, Charles and Olive. Mrs. La Fave has three children by her first marriage, Dora, Patrick and George Schroeder.