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Posts Tagged ‘Vicksburg’

Ramona Palace, View from the Lake

Posted in Adrian Zuidweg, Cora DeKorn Zuidweg, Family History, Genealogy, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Michigan history, Paak, Richard DeKorn, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 20, 2014| 12 Comments »

In 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 if the Ramona pavilion had windows on the lake side. By the sixties, when I saw it, the lake windows either didn’t exist or had been blocked off behind the bandstand.

The other day my father found a postcard of the Ramona pavilion–a view from the lake. Clearly, the structure was built with windows facing the lake.

 

On the left side of this photograph are the windows at the end of the building that face the lake. The bandstand was just inside those windows. And see the steps leading down to the lake? They would lead you right into the . . . bottomless drop-off! That was such a scary part of the lake by the sixties! I imagined all kinds of underwater beasts living in that mysterious section of the lake.

The property was originally owned by Henry and Carrie (Paak) Waruf. Carrie was my great-great-grandmother’s sister.  What do you think is the material of his hat in this photo?

This is a photograph marked “Hank Waruf (cigar in mouth). He’s definitely much older in this photo than the one above.

More posts about Ramona:

The Park with a Literary Name
A Re-telling of Ramona: The Park with a Literary Name
What Went On at Ramona Palace

 

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More Ramona, Long Lake

Posted in Adrian Zuidweg, Cora DeKorn Zuidweg, Family History, Genealogy, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Michigan history, Paak, Richard DeKorn, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on July 30, 2014| 11 Comments »

When my father ran Ramona Park, he used to sit on a ticket taker stool to admit dance patrons. He still had the stool until recently.

 

The other day, he gave it to Paula Taylor, who is writing a history of Ramona and Long Lake.

 

 

 

Update on why the Ramona/Long Lake photos say Vicksburg:

Maggie Snyder for Vicksburg Historical Society says this:

Vicksburg never included Ramona Park, which was at Long Lake. However, at that time Portage as a town was much smaller than Vicksburg, so it would have been the closest “big” town. Also, the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad had a flag stop at Ramona Park, and their closest depot was in Vicksburg.

On another note: here are a couple of online articles about Long Lake:

Long Lake: from sinking houses to sea serpents

Portage Couple Has Spent a Lifetime on Long Lake

 

More posts about Ramona:

The Park with a Literary Name
A Re-telling of Ramona: The Park with a Literary Name

 

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What Went On at Ramona Palace

Posted in Adrian Zuidweg, Cora DeKorn Zuidweg, Family History, Genealogy, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Michigan history, Paak, Richard DeKorn, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 23, 2014| 27 Comments »

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

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:

 

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A Re-telling of Ramona: The Park with a Literary Name

Posted in Adrian Zuidweg, Cora DeKorn Zuidweg, Family History, Genealogy, Kalamazoo late 1800s - early 1900s, Michigan history, Paak, Remine, Richard DeKorn, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 11, 2014| 14 Comments »

Last year, I published a post about a park that once belonged to family members and that had an inpact on me when I was growing up. Ramona Park, on Long Lake, outside of Kalamazoo, Michigan, featured a pavilion called Ramona Palace.  Ramona was named after the “Indian Princess” in Helen Hunt Jackson’s popular novel Ramona, which was published in 1884.

When I was growing up, the property was owned by a relative named Therese Remine.  Therese’s mother was Mary Paak (Peek), the sister of my great great grandmother, Alice Paak DeKorn.

Therese had inherited the property from Henry and Carrie Waruf, who had owned it for years.

Here are some photos of the pavilion and property that I inherited from the Waruf/Remine family:

Although these photos were taken before my time, not that much had changed by the time I hung out there–except that things had slowed down considerably. There were fewer picnic tables and fewer people.

You see that long dock in the 3rd photo? It’s so long it needs to be called a pier, I think! I don’t remember that either.

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