Name/Title
Larry Jones interviewEntry/Object ID
2024.41.317Scope and Content
LARRY JONES: A REMARKABLE HISTORICAL RESOURCE
9/2009
One early summer afternoon in the SDHS Museum a smiling, compact man in his early 70s with bright blue inquiring eyes was directed to me by a Museum host. Larry Jones had been asking about to whom he could entrust his collection of Saugatuck/Douglas early photos. As we talked, it became apparent that he could recall a considerable amount detail about this area, especially the 1945-60 period. When he disclosed that he lived his first 19 years in Douglas and bunked during numerous summers in the Pavilion where he did maintenance work, we made a date to do an oral history.
During our first three hours of oral history interviewing, Larry outlined his early years. Born in 1939 in the Community Hospital on Center Street, he was the second youngest of seven children born to parents who moved to Michigan from Central Illinois around 1935. His father Frank Harley Jones and his older brother, Billy, worked on the fishing tug Gotham on which both perished when it sank offshore in a December, 1943 storm. Subsequently, WWII and other tragedies took three more of his older brothers, leaving his mother [Margaret L. (McClure) Jones 1903-1984] in a deep despair. When she sold their “octagon house” on Randolph and Mixer in Douglas to move to Holland, Larry at age 13 opted to remain behind to keep his summer job at the Pavilion and to remain in the local schools.
On his own, Larry wintered first in his octagon house with its new owner and later, in other homes and finally a cottage he rented for himself. It seems that the three Chicago men who owned the Pavilion (together with several other major food, drink and entertainment venues) provided Larry a surrogate father experience. He slept during the summer months near the Pavilion’s projection room while working until the early morning hours to prepare the building for the next day’s activity. His knowledge of the building, its owners and other employees, town characters and the evolution of the area culture during the 1950s is richly detailed and colorful. He occasionally challenged historical facts about specific details he found chronicled in our museum’s various publications.
Larry’s remarkably sharp and extensive memories of Saugatuck/Douglas in the 1940-50s were enhanced by having to survive on his own with the direct or indirect assistance of many people. He did not take his life for granted, as most of us do during childhood. Instead Larry paid close attention to the people around him and the social dynamic of his times driven by both curiosity and survival. He did remarkably well in school, especially in the humanities and social sciences. Early on he identified himself as a Democrat in a Republican neighborhood; one of three in town who voted for Adlai Stevenson.
Subsequently Larry attended Western Michigan University, majoring in political science, and went on to work running plants for Weyerheauser Paper Company, married and created a family of his own. Personal losses continue to follow him as his wife subsequently passed, as did some of his children. Currently [2009] he has remarried and lives in Indiana with his wife, an antique dealer.
Several photos and a video recording of over three cumulative hours of the interview with Larry are available. [See 2024.14.01]
Synopsis by John ShackContext
Video recording of Larry Jones recounting post-WWII culture changes and his memories from the 1940s-1950s.Collection
Childhood, 1909 Big Pavilion -1960Cataloged By
Winthers, SallyAcquisition
Accession
2024.41Acquisition Method
Found in CollectionCredit Line
To view this recording, scroll down to the bottom of this entry and click the blue web link.
This video was created by Saugatuck-Douglas History Center volunteers or was donated to the Center in a good faith effort to preserve local history. If you feel this content should not be available to the public — or have additional information that will add context to this interview — please contact the SDHC Archives at archives@mysdhistory.org.Oral History Details
Interviewee
Jones, Larry Paul 1939-Interviewer
Shack, JohnInterview Date
Aug 27, 2009Length of Interview
56Dimensions
Dimension Description
DVD versionWidth
5 inDepth
5 inLocation
* Untyped Location
AWS/VidArch SSD/DVD originals drawerRelationships
Related Person or Organization
Person or Organization
90 Mixer/Octagon House, Gotham (boat) -1943, Jones, Frank Harley 1902-1943, Jones, William Reese "Billy" 1927-1943, Constantine, John, Big Pavilion 1909-1960, Shutter, Herb, Byfield, Herb A., Schreckengust, Bud c1938-2003, Goshorn, Stanley 1939-2005General Notes
Note
Also mentioned in the interview: Details of liquor laws. Four bars in the Big Pavilion: The Dock, the Marine Room, the Ozark Room and the service bar. Stocking cookers with cases of beer. Details about the bar layouts and sized of the crowds. Running out of glasses. In 1952-53 the Dock was underwater, so the owners put in the Ozark Room with red cedar paneling like their property in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Serving steaks to and spilling cream corn on celebrities Johnny Desmond the singer. Musician Jens Jensen hailing him as Swing Shift Manager. Going to Ross Phelps' hardware store, next to Funk's newsstand, to buy eight boxes of D-Con to kill rats. Elsa Ulbricht and the Beau Arts Balls. Theory that if the town had allowed the Big Pavilion to serve alcohol in the ball room, the enterprise would have been profitable.
Trip to Chicago with his best buddy Stanley Goshorn to meet the owner of the Aragon Ballroom, who described how the cocktail lounge allowed the operation to be profitable. How after the war the Big Pavilion crowd got rowdier so Saugatuck Village government would not allow alcohol served in the ballroom. Police officer Bud Schreckengust using his "master psychologist" skills to calm rowdy behavior. Movie "Marjorie Morningstar" (book by Herman Wouk) captured his let-down feeling and loneliness after Labor Day.
His siblings were Harold Leon, Harmon Maxwell, Theron Hugh, Joy Ruth, Larry Paul (himself), and Beverly Loretta.Create Date
April 5, 2025Update Date
June 18, 2025