Collection Item - Saugatuck-Douglas History Center

Marriott family and Big Pool

Archive

Scope and ContentDigital information about the Marriott family including Dale Marriott Williamson and Mel Hershaw interview, photos, newspaper clippings and research compiled by Chris Yoder plus Yoder's SDHS newletter insert article about Robert Marriott and the Big Pool. Research includes references to Marriott family, their homes, the Big Pool and its swim teams. Much of the information was provided by Nancy Gregory, the daughter of Dale Marriott Williamson.

RobertMarriott-Pt1.doc 4.3MB; 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

RobertMarriott-Pt2.doc 5.6MB; MY FATHER ROBERT MARRIOTT- THE MAN WHO BUILT THE BIG POOL - Part Two - by Dale Marriott Williamson
My parents had the pool built. The pool was opened around 1927. It was the largest outdoor pool in the state of Michigan at that time. There was a photograph of the pool which hung in the Pavilion.
I don't remember a lot about the construction as I was only six years old when it was built and I'm sure they just kept me on the farm with my grandmother. When it was finally open, the building which had the changing rooms and so forth was that long building at the side of the pool, the front of the pool. There was a parking lot out there for people to park, and you came in and paid and went into the dressing room and changed your clothes and went out the other side of the dressing room to the pool. There was a side walk all the way around the pool.
I remember my grandmother painting the sign. I don't know where the design of the sign came from. I don't think my grandmother drew it, it wasn't the kind of art that she did, but I remember her painting the sign with the woman in the swim suit. She painted it in the yard of our home on Old Allegan Road. I think she painted more than one of the same sign. Her name was Carrie Stetson. She lived with us there. She came when my older brother was born, and she came to help take care of the baby. She was a widow and didn't have a cent, so there she stayed, much to my father's dismay. He didn't like that very much and it made awkwardness in the home. Anyway she stayed, and five years later I came along, and they needed her again, and she stayed for 14 years.
The Big Pool Station Wagon would pick up people at the Parrish Drug Store and take them up to the pool. When we send you the picture of the station wagon, I think I'm inside and my brother is standing by. You'll see that there's a sign on the wagon, in the picture, that this is a swimming team that they were taking to Chicago to the Chicago Tribune Swimming Meet that was on the lake front in the water. At that event my brother, Robert William

MRT-GrandmotherAndFriendsOakPark.JPG 321KB

MRT-HouseInGroveUnderConstruction.JPG 411KB

MRT-HouseOnHill-frmNEndofVineyard.JPG 478KB

MRT-HouseOnHillFrmNorth-Spring1913.JPG 124KB

MRT-LookingN-FrmWEndofHill-1924.JPG 451KB

MRT-LookingNFrmRoofOfHoh-summer1912.JPG 227KB

MRT-LookingNFromFrtStepsofHoH-1924.JPG 571KB

MRT-LookingNorthFrmHoH-Fall1921.JPG 234KB

MRT-RobertMarriott-WithFruitTree.JPG 497KB

MRT-RobertMarriottAtHomeAtFarm.JPG 708KB

MRT_LookingNFrmEEndofHill-PlumOrchard-1924.JPG 518KB

MRT-CottageWhereRobertMLivedWhileBuildingHouseInGrove.JPG 493KB

MRT-DownRiverFrmTopOfHill-Fall1911.JPG 214KB

MRT-Fall1911-DownRiverFrmBoatHouseSite.JPG 238KB

MRT-Fall1912-NorthFromHouseInGroveSite.JPG 175KB

MRT-HouseInGrove-Winter1911-12-FromWest.JPG 151KB

SouthEndOf60thStreetAtRiver-MarriottSatelliteView.jpg 195KB

1930Census-ManliusTwp-AlleganCo-RobertWMarriott.jpg 245KB

cr1929062801BigPoolTestForLifeGuards.jpg 238KB

cr1927070105BigPoolAd-GrandOpening.jpg 141KB

cr1927050601NewAmusementsForSaugatuck.jpg 115KB

BigPoolSign.jpg 123KB; see catalog entry for sign

cr1935083001BattleCreekWinsTitleAtBigPool.jpg 185KB

cr1935080901GirlScoutSwimmingMeet.jpg 91KB

cr1931073101SaugatuckBringsHomeHonors-pt1.jpg 46KB

cr1931073108SaugatuckBringsHomeHonors-2.jpg 44KB

cr1929080901SwimmingMeetDrawsAttention.jpg 56KB

cr1929072601VenetianNightSwimMeet.jpg 226KB

cr1931073108ShirleeSpringerBeechParty.jpg 161KB; Party attended by Dale Marriott

cr1930082201-ShirleySpringer-Indianparty.jpg 131KB; Party attended by Dale Marriott

Interview with Dale Marriott Williamson.doc 2.6MB; The Big Pool

Interview with Dale Marriott Williamson, May 31, 2011, about to celebrate her 90th birthday

Recorded by Chris Yoder, Saugatuck

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 and 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 12).

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.

The pool was opened around 1927. They had the pool built. It was the largest outdoor pool in the state of Michigan at that time. There was a photograph of the pool which hung in the Pavilion. When we lost the pool and the farm in the depression, that all happened at once and we were allowed to keep 20 acres which include the house and the pear grove. The rest had to be sold for taxes. And of course the pool had to be closed, and we went over a number of years later and the pool had been filed in with dirt and covered over. That was a heart-breaker, I'll tell you.

I don't remember a lot about the construction as I was only six years old when it was built and I'm sure they just kept me on the farm with my grandmother. When it was finally open, the building which had the changing rooms and so forth was that long building at the side of the pool, the front of the pool. There was a parking lot out there for people to park, and you came in and paid and went into the dressing room and changed your clothes and went out the other side of the dressing room to the pool. There was a side walk all the way around the pool.

I remember my grandmother painting the sign. I don't know where the design of the sign came from. I don't think my grandmother drew it, it wasn't the kind of art that she did, but I remember her painting the sign with the woman in the swim suit. She painted it in the yard of our home on Old Allegan Road. I think she painted more than one of the same sign. Her name was Carrie Stetson. She lived with us there. She came when my older brother was born, and she came to help take care of the baby. She was a widow and didn't have a cent, so there she stayed, much to my father's dismay. He didn't like that very much and it made an awkwardness in the home. Anyway she stayed, and five years later I came along, and they needed her again, and she stayed for 14 years.

The pool was finally closed about 1935. We moved back to Chicago when the farm was gone. Both things were operating at the same time. We didn't get rid of the farm when we built the pool. 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.

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

Entry/Object ID

2023.50.121

Collection

SDHS NL Inserts

Cataloged By

Winthers, Sally

Location

* Untyped Location

Digital data in CatalogIt

Relationships

Related Person or Organization

Person or Organization

Big Pool c1927-1935Marriott, Robert William Sr.Marriott, Abraham Robert c1860-1931Hershaw, Melvin Arthur 1921-2020Maines, Shirely (Springer) 1924-2003

General Notes

Note

This information was OCR text scanned from SDHS newsletter supplements. A binder of original paper copies is catalog item 2023.50.01

Create Date

05/31/2025

Update Date

05/31/2025