When I was a kid my father used to bring me (and sometimes my friend, Jill, a reader of this blog) to Ramona Park. We explored and played while he worked–maintaining and refurbishing the pavilion, the grounds, and the shore of Long Lake that ran along the property.
I’ve written before about this park, located in Portage, Michigan here:
The Park with a Literary Name
A Re-telling of Ramona: The Park with a Literary Name
I remember trying to imagine what the pavilion, which was called Ramona Palace, was like back in its heyday, when people came to listen to live music and dance in the ballroom.
Notice that this old photograph locates the park in Vicksburg, but it is now Portage, Michigan. This is the ballroom as I remember it–big and empty. The lake was just outside those windows.
A while back I was contacted by Shawna (Smith) Raymond about those days. Her grandfather, Eddie Smith, and his Big Band used to play at Ramona Palace.
Eddie Smith and the Revelers
courtesy of Shawna (Smith) Raymond
Shawna passed on a story from her aunt about those days.
When Mom, whose name was Margene, would walk into the Ramona Palace ballroom where Dad was playing, he’d always stop whatever song they were playing and play ‘My Little Margie.’
Shawna’s aunt has a framed collage of the sheet music to “My Little Margie” and Shawna’s grandfather’s conducting baton. According to Wikipedia:
“Margie“, also known as “My Little Margie“, is a 1920 popular song composed in collaboration by vaudeville performer and pianist Con Conrad and ragtime pianist J. Russel Robinson, a member of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. Lyrics were written by Benny Davis, a vaudeville performer and songwriter. The song was introduced by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1920 as Victor 78, 18717-A, in a medley paired with “Singin’ the Blues”. The B side was “Palesteena”.The Rega Dance Orchestra recorded the song in October, 1920 for Okeh Records, 4211. The ODJB recorded their instrumental version on December 1, 1920. The song was published in 1920 and was named after the five-year-old daughter of singer and songwriter Eddie Cantor. Cantor is credited with popularizing the song with his 1921 recording that stayed at the top of the pop charts for five weeks.
Here is a Benny Goodman version from 1938:
The Family Kalamazoo 
I like how I can left-click on your images to enlarge!
Ruth, I’m sorry. I just noticed that my response to your comment last week did not make it on here permanently. I’ve been having some WordPress troubles lately. So sorry. Thank you for pointing that out for readers!
I have issues all the time with WordPress even though I’m not doing anything different. Eventually they seem to resolve, but once I had to seek help in a forum, which helped fix the issue.
No need to be sorry! I didn’t get my feelings hurt. Things have been topsy-turvy here.
How fun to read this! It makes me think that Vicksburg was a much more important town back in those days. It also reminds me of the TV show “My Little Margie” with Gale Storm. I used to watch that when I was little.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Little_Margie
This show was followed by “The Gale Storm Show,” which I also watched.
Also, I thought of the pavilion at Toledo Beach, near where I grew up. I knew it only as a deserted wreck, but it had once been beautiful, like the pavilion at Ramona Beach. There must have been a lot of dance pavilions on big and little lakes. How lovely that must have been — music, dancing, lights, beach, and water. It must be hard to keep up pavilions on lakes due to the humidity. Toledo Beach Pavilion faced the additional problem of massive ice piles attacking it each winter. It’s lovely that you have a personal connection to the Ramona Beach pavilion.
Wilma, I just wanted you to know that I did respond to this earlier and to the comment above by Ruth, but they disappeared. I loved your comment–lots of good stuff here! I agree about the personal connection!
LuAnn the picture of the big empty ball room was not, I repeat was not Ramona Palace, It was Summer Home Place where the Long Lake Roller Skating Rink is today, it was owned by the Bucholz. The Carpenters bought the the old Summer Home Palace and turned it into a skating Rink and it is still there today. Just wanted you to know what the picture really was really of, alot of people get the two parks mixed up… But they were two intirely different places.
Paula, I sent you an email with a copy of the photo so we could discuss this. This photo is from a matched set of Ramona that belonged to the Remine/Waruf family. They themselves wrote on the photograph that this is the Ramona Pavilion ballroom. Check for my email so we can talk about it! Thanks!
Paula, just heard from my dad and he agrees with you! It’s so crazy that the family passed on photos with the wrong information on them! Thank you for pointing it out. I’ll post in the morning a correction and I’ll also correct the info on here. Thank you!
Paula, this is indeed Ramona Palace, both my sister and I remember it well, having danced on this very floor many times in the late 1960s. It was where Ramona Park is presently located at the end of Zylman Rd. but then it was called The Summer Place, and was run by Harrison & Lois Bull. Long Lake Roller Rink is part way round Long Lake and, as you stated, still there today. I skated there often as a young girl with my girl scout troop. On one occasion, I fell and broke a tooth, and still recall Bertie Carpenter giving me the pieces he had retrieved from the rink! I remember both places fondly.
Gotta jump in here, albeit years down the road from this last post. Paula, thank you, but I think these others here are correct. There are too many windows across this pictures’ lake view. Ramona Palace’ dance floor was wider than what is now the Beginner Floor @ LLRR. We still have 3 original windows on the SW side at the rink, and they are not the same as the windows shown in this pic. We changed the layout inside, but we didn’t change the layout outside! The south end of Long lake, where we are, has a cove in the waters edge……whereas Ramona runs alongside the south flow from deep point as it always has. I can see the difference in the waters edge. Dad built that skating floor…later to be known as ‘The Beginner Floor’ deep. The snack bar was where the rental counter is now, and the rental counter was over to the side where the snack bar is now.
Regardless, all of us with property abstracts and details really should connect and have each others’ details! If anyone wants to use the rink as a launch pad to reconstruct the Real Summer Home Park History, we would So jazz on it! Give us a call at the rink! Long Lake Roller Rink 269-327-0407.
You’re looking for Danette or Colleen.
Thanks so much for this info! I sent it to Paula in an email. So you are saying that you do believe that this photo that is labeled Ramona really is the Ramona pavilion? Because this was written by family when Ramona was still owned by my family so you would think they would know!
Long Lake Roller Rink recently closed June 2018.
I had heard that! The end of an era . . . .
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I remember Eddie Cantor very well with his Vaudeville style but I don’t remember my mother having the sheet music to My Little Margie. I do remember the tv show in the 1950s called My Little Margie starring Gale Storm. I loved her.
Thanks, Luanne! 🙂
What a fun era for music!!! As for the show, it’s one of those I just missed out on, but heard about when I was growing up. I’m catching up with YouTube clips :). I hope the vacation was all you hoped it would be, Sheila!
[…] a previous post called What Went On at Ramona Palace, the photograph that was marked Ramona that actually was the Summer Home Place sparked the question […]
That is SO sweet! My husband would have only stopped to ask if I parked OK, and would I go get him a sandwich ! The jazz age had all the romance 🙂
That is something we are really lacking today!!!!!
[…] What Went On at Ramona Palace […]
[…] What Went On at Ramona Palace […]
Luanne, after alot checking and double checking, your picture is indeed the Palace and not summer home park. Alot of these old photos are deceving, but it is Ramona Palace dance floor. Sorry for all the confusion, but when I talked to your Dad he was convinced too, so the mystery is solvd and we can go on with the rest of the story. Thanks.
Thanks for letting me know, Paula!!!
Band Leader Eddie Smith and I were close friends. Later in his life, he played drums with Frank Maida (guitar) and myself (piano and trumpet) for quite awhile. In his Ramona band, Treva Reed (long time owner of the Treva Reed Music store in Kalamazoo) played piano. For years, I worked off and on for Treva.
Wonderful info, Robert. I remember that store! Thanks for visiting.
In the 1960s, besides Treva Reed Music (Owned by mother and daughter Treva Reed and Lil Thomas, with essentially only sheet music), there were numerous fine music stores such as (but not limited to) Meyers Music (mainly pianos, owned by a father and son), Grinnells (general music instruments and lessons, out of Detroit), Kalamazoo Musical Instruments (emphasis on instruments, owned by Eddie Cornhill, with Bert Boysenberry as the instrument repair man), Stannards Music (instruments and lessons, owned by brothers, and later the famed big-band leader, percussionist Bobby Davidson), Jackson’s Pawn Shop, Vahay Pianos, Nicolai Music (owed by Ed Nicolai, with guitar instruments and lessons, and a second store in Battle Creek) and the list goes on.
This is wonderful information, Robert! Thank you so much.