The Ernest Race Family Owns The Barrel -1961 and 1962

From Pamela Race Schweitzer- 

 

Robert-8 yrs. old, Ernest-10 yrs. old, and Pamela (me)-5 yrs. old, with Kenneth- 5 months.

My Dad, Ernest Race, owned the Barrel when I was 5-6 years old.  This would have been about 1961 and 1962. I was very young and don't know who owned it before or after he did. My Aunt, who lives in Holland, must have been about 15 or 16 at that time, and then that summer, 1962, she lived with us and worked at the barrel. Her name is Sharon Plooster, and she was both a car hop and worked in the kitchen.  She remembers getting the frosted glasses out of the freezer for the root beer.

I remember there was a miniature golf course right next door to us, when we lived there it wasn't open any more but it had a miniature lighthouse there that you could actually go inside. That lighthouse stood there for years and years. Then they started building up all the boat storage buildings. I used to play in the field behind there, there was nothing there when we lived there.

It was a time in my life when I didn't have any cares in the world. I'd go into the kitchen and my mom and dad would lift me up on the freezer and hand me a frozen foot long hot dog and I'd munch along on that. And the smells, the business, things would go in phases when there would be a lot of cars there and then they'd all take off. They just go in waves you know. It was definitely a hot spot in the summer. My parents had tables set up outside too, with the umbrellas and the chairs around, out on the lawn too so people could sit outside of the car if they wanted to.

I remember my mother planting flowers between the sidewalk and barrel, and they bloomed all summer. I also remember a string of clear lights draped from the barrel to a pole, separating areas for cars from tables with umbrellas. There were also speakers outside, and “WLS in Chicago” playing the top hits all day which made it a popular place for people traveling to or from the Oval Beach.  

As much as I wanted to always help, I usually ended up on a stool inside with a root beer float or a foot long hotdog. I recall sweeping, or putting umbrellas down at the close of the day. The barrel wasn’t air-conditioned. I can picture my mom exhausted from working in the heat, with only a couple fans going all day. My Aunt Sharon  recalls having to keep the freezer stocked with the glass mugs so they would be frosty for the floats. 

I remembered the Barrel was broken into and robbed one night. Police were there, and I recall discussion of some vandalizing, but it appeared they were looking for money because the cash box was taken.

I think my parents did add on the kitchen area at the back of the barrel. I can ask my aunt Sharon about that, but I think they did so.

From there we moved to Holland.

Bonnie (McVoy) Verwys Barrel Memories- 1954 to 1961

Bonnie McVoy

I am the eldest of the three children of Earle and Mary McVoy-  Mike, Melinda, and myself. We came originally from Lansing, and then to Grand Rapids where my grandparents lived, then my father moved us to Douglas in 1947 I think. There he bought what was known as Bonnie Meadows from Miss Graham and Miss Butterfield and we were the second owners. My mother lived on the property for 54 years.

My grandmother and grandfather were in the insurance business in Grand Rapids, it was called Vandenbosch and McVoy. My father liked this area and when he saw the house and the barn and 11 acres in Douglas on Union Street, he bought it.

His father died at about 45, I think, and our father died at 39 in 1955. Before that he was sick with hypertension and he knew that he was not going to be with us forever, and he bought the root beer barrel in 1954 so my mother would have a livelihood. We had it about a year when he died.

Our claim to fame was the steamed buns, the foot-long hot dogs, the frosted mugs and root beer floats. A little later they added those steamed sandwiches, I think my brother said there was a little steamer thing and the sandwiches came from a company in Allegan, and all you had to do was steam them.

I have a picture of myself at the barrel serving customers. Al Pshea was the man who managed it when my mother wasn't right on deck, and then Ev Bekken worked there.  I was married and busy at home, but did work there in the summers. My brother Mike worked there the most. He added the stays, the steel stays, to keep the barrel together. He got Stew's welding to put three stays, one near the top, one near the middle and one near the bottom. It was always varnished when we had it.

My first husband, Dave Tomlinson, borrowed my little playhouse which my Dad had built, and we made a miniature golf course which tied in to the barrel property.

My mother remarried about 1957. 

She sold the root beer barrel, I think at that point to Ernie Race, who was a disabled veteran. I don't know if it was difficult for them to run it or not, but he's the one who put that little run-way to that little cottage.  Ernie is gone now but has a daughter Pam in Grand Rapids.

Then Joan and George Gallas bought it after that.

It's stood empty for many years and it is in pretty bad repair, we did go down and take a peek.

My grandparents owned what is now Tranquility Lane on the Lakeshore in Douglas and it was called Sunset Orchard. They owned it together with Mr. Vandenbosch who they were in the insurance business with. You know what's ironic, my grandfather and father died young and about 6 or 7 years ago I was in Grand Rapids at an Antique Mall and I found the brass plaque from my grandfather's insurance agency, now that has to be some kind of miracle.

When we lived in Douglas I won the "Fix-up, Clean-up, Paint-up" poster contest. I was sent for a week to Ox-Bow. I was in about 7-8th grade and around 1946.