SDHS Newsletter

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14 PROGRAM

The Wages of Sin and Other Tales
with Marsha Kontio
7 p.m., Old School House History Center

So, sit back and relax and join in a walking tour of Douglas. We will visit old haunts, talk about the early day of Douglas and see what "dirt" we can uncover.

Are you aware that a gas station use to sit in the middle of Douglas?

Are you aware that the mast from the Chicora had a prominent spot in Douglas?

Are you familiar with the Longest Bar in the State of Michigan?
--- yep, Douglas again.

Sinful refreshments will follow.

The exhibit "Small Towns, Big Picture - the Photography of Bill Simmons" consisting of 31 giant 'blow-up' photos from the huge Simmons collection of the Society's photo library of Saugatuck area life in the 1940s and 1950s runs through March 9. The exhibit is sponsored jointly by the Society and the Saugatuck Center for the Arts and is featured in the Center's gallery.

You don't have to be a bowler to join the party!

Start building your 5-player teams for an evening of laugher and cheers.

The 2012 Party Time Bowl-a-Rama is focused on FUN!

Prizes will be given for best cheering section, best costumes, player with the most sponsors, player with the most pledges, etc.

Got your team together? Reserve your lane now by REPLYING TO THIS EMAIL or emailing Judi Vanderbeck at hj.vanderbeck@comcast.net

WELCOME NEW MEMBERS

We would like to welcome these new members who have joined the Saugatuck-Douglas Historical Society since the last newsletter.

l Dawn Stafford & Nicholas Barna, Saugatuck, MI
l Ronald & Lynda Sandberg, Saugatuck, MI
l Scott & Marilyn Hajicek, Douglas, MI & Lakewood, CO

SDHS LEGACY CIRCLE WELCOMES NEW MEMBERS.
INVITES SOCIETY MEMBERS TO CONSIDER JOINING.

You can help ensure that the Saugatuck-Douglas Historical Society continues to "Keep History Alive Here" by becoming a member of the Society's new Legacy Circle. Legacy Circle members have pledged to remember the Society by including the SDHS in their estate plans. You can use the following assets, for example, to make a charitable gift to the Society: a cash gift named in a will, a percentage of your estate, naming the SDHS as the beneficiary of an IRA or insurance policy, gifts of stock, bond and shares of mutual funds, a charitable remainder trust, a piece or collection of local art. Your estate planner can tell you which of the many options are best for you and your family.

You also have the ability to make an 'unrestricted gift' or a 'restricted gift' that can be used only to benefit a specific Society activity. For example, your gift can be restricted for use to fund museum exhibitions, the Tech Center, the Old School House garden, the Society's art collection, etc. If you would like to become a member of the SDHS Legacy Circle or have any questions about the Legacy Circle, please contact Bill Hess at wwh71@comcast.net or call Bill at 269-857-1081. Growing membership in the Legacy Circle will contribute to the long-term sustainability of the Society and allow you to show your support in a everlasting way that will guarantee the Society another 25 years of success and contribution to the quality of life in Saugatuck and Douglas.

The Legacy Circle program was introduced as part the 25th Anniversary "Keep History Alive Here" campaign. We are very pleased to announce that the following members have already joined the Legacy Circle and we send our thanks and appreciation to them: Bill Hess and Mike Mattern, Steve Hutchins, Jon Helmrich and Stephen Mottram, Peg and John Sanford, Ken Carls. Our goal is to reach a membership of 25 Legacy Circle Members this year --- we hope you can help us reach that milestone.

NEWS FROM THE ARCHIVES

The photo above from 1962 shows the abundant snowfall that year. It was taken by Verne Houl, Rector of All Saints' Church at that time. Cynthia Sorensen, a volunteer in the Society archives, recently donated a number of his photographs as well as the painting below by Verne of the Peterson Mill.

MY FATHER ROBERT MARRIOTT - THE MAN WHO BUILT THE BIG POOL
Part One - by Dale Marriott Williamson

My father, Robert William Marriott, Sr., was in the University of Michigan, when he and his father had a difference of opinion. He didn't like his father remarrying after his mother died. He was very close to his mother, and he was really offended when his father got interested in another woman. They had this unpleasantness, so his father, rather than sending him to college gave him some money to buy a farm in Michigan. That's how it happened that we were there at all. My father bought the property and built the house (Editor's note: called "The House in the Grove") in the grove of trees on the Old Allegan Road, a year and a half before he married my mother in 1913 (I would suppose 1911 or 1912).

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He married my mother, Mildred Stetson, in 1913 and he took his bride over to live there. And they lived many years in that house and ran the farm, and it was a big farm. They had many hundred trees and a huge vineyard, and that's what supported them until my father got this idea about the pool, which came along much later. I was born in 1921.

My father had a lot of trees - apple and cherry, and peach trees, a huge vineyard, and then there was another house on the hill between the river and the farm. The Kalamazoo River was the other side of the farm and then the hill that you could look out toward the farm, and my grandfather built his summer home on that hill. It was a house which was built for ventilation it had windows on both sides of the house and the when the bedroom doors were open there was a breeze that went across, and the rest of the family my grandfather and his other children would come there for their vacation. (Editor's note: called "the House on the Hill", also built in 1911-12).

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That was my grandfather's summer place, he was a man of means. Abraham Robert Marriot, President of the Chicago Title and Trust Company, Oak Park, Chicago. He died in May 20, 1931. He was a very beloved and revered man, everybody loved him and everybody called him "Daddy". He made a lot of money. He was well paid for being president of the company.

I went to the Saugatuck grammar school until the fourth grade. I don't recall any of the children I played with. We had a hired man on the farm and he had six boys. He was called "Mart", that's all I remember. He and my father were pretty good friends. They had an outhouse I remember. And the barn yard which was where his house was a little distance from where most of the groves were. There was a house and a barn. We had 2 horse and 3 cows, I think, or maybe 3horses and 2 cows, and we had a pony. And I wasn't allowed in the barnyard because my mother thought I didn't belonged over there with all those boys, My brother could go over there.

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Click on the image for a higher resolution copy.

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(Note: The 1930 census for Manlius Twp, Allegan Co, shows Robert W. Marriott two families away from a Josef Martin, age 39, born in Montreal, Canada.)

I remember the pavilion. There was a movie theater in the pavilion. When I was a kid we'd always sit down front. All the kids got to sit down front with their popcorn. Their parents would sit in back. What a wonderful dance hall that was, those big things that opened up onto the river from the dance floor and the music was just wonderful coming over the river. I was a little girl and I got to dance with other people, oh it was a wonderful place. And there was a veranda, a porch off of the dance floor, we could step out there on about an 8 foot wide veranda, and the boats were parked there and the people would come in from their boats to dance. It was quite a resort town at the time

And there was Mt. Baldhead, when I was a kid we'd climb Mt Baldhead and then they put up a stair way and you could climb up the sand or the stairway. I remember going up on the side on the sand, it was a challenge. The Oval Beech came into being and damaged the business at the pool, because it didn't cost anything to swim at the Oval beech. In Douglas there were a lot of wealthy people who would stay in those houses overlooking the lake. It used to be that it was a real exclusive place - it was people with money who could afford those places.

We lived 5 miles out from town, and in those days it was a big production to come to town. My mother used to drive me into town to play with another girl, but I don't recall any names (Editor's Note: it was Shirle Springer, Dale also remembers June Force). My mother was a little snooty. I couldn't play with just anyone.

We had a house in Oak Park too, when we lost the farm we moved to Oak Park and my father worked for his brother in Oak Park-- his brother Thomas Benjamin Marriott. It all happened at once; the whole thing fell apart because we had no money. No one could afford to buy that beautiful fruit my father was raising, he'd polish the apples and put them in special crates and send them to Chicago, but no one could afford to buy them.

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Next Month: Robert Marriott - Part Two - The Big Pool

Editor's note: The Robert Marriott farm house ("House in the Grove") and the neighboring summer place of his father A. R. Marriott ("House on the Hill"), were located south of Old Allegan Road, on either side of the present 60th street going down to the Kalamazoo River. Both homes, and the barn, have been torn down and there are now housing developments where the groves used to be. contributed by Chris Yoder