Interview With Madelyn Dankers Stevenson

Conducted by Historical Commission Member Marjorie DeFrancis on January 24, 1992

MADELYN DANKERS STEVENSON, DISCUSSING HER SUMMER JOB SERVING MINERAL WATER TO THE GUESTS OF THE PARK HOTEL:

There were a lot of mineral springs here in Mount Clemens. And in the summertime, we youngsters in high school would go over there, and serve the water to the guests from the Park Hotel that would come over there and sit at tables and visit, and drink the mineral water. It wasn't the kind they bathed in, it was the kind you can drink--spring water, it was. And they would eat lots of popcorn and peanuts. I can remember they'd say, "put lots of salt on the popcorn!" --- because they wanted to drink more water.

INTERVIEWER: Did you work there?

MADELYN STEVENSON: Yeah, in the summertime when I was in high school -- early high school. And we would carry these trays of half gallon jugs that held half a gallon of water and glasses to the tables, and serve the people their water, and take them their popcorn and peanuts. I think they had to pay something for that. So, we'd go with the water first.

INTERVIEWER: So this was really to get them to drink the water ... supposed to be healthy.

MADELYN STEVENSON: That's what they went for, that's right.

INTERVIEWER: And then you would serve them the popcorn and peanuts.

Boats taking Park Hotel guests to the springs, ca.1922

MADELYN STEVENSON: And nobody would go there these days. When you think of the conditions under which we worked. The glasses were all washed afterwards in cold water by young kids in high school. I don't know how much we ever got off of them, and as far as I know there was never any chemical put in the water. They were just washed in water. We had to dry them, though. I suppose to get the lipstick off.

INTERVIEWER: Did people come from out of town to drink the water?

MADELYN STEVENSON: No. This was mostly the Park Hotel people. It was part of their cure, they thought. And there was a bell, over on the Park Hotel side, and they would ring ... like a big dinner bell, the old-fashioned kind that was mounted in a half-circle of iron ... they would pull that bell to ring it, and then this Nick-Something-Or-Other --I can't remember his last name-- would take a flat-bottomed boat, and he would --you didn't row it, you stood in one end and you sculled, you went back and forth, like this, with an oar-- and the boat would glide across the river, and then the Park Hotel ladies all dressed to kill --they didn't go like we'd have gone, to slacks to a place like this, they were all dressed up --no hats, but they were all dressed up-- they'd come across and sit and these tables, then when they'd want to go back, Nick would take them back in this boat. And then their husbands came over --usually the men came earlier, I guess, I don't remember them coming with the ladies, particularly. And they would play cards in the pinochle house. It was a covered little pavilion, there, and the sides kind of opened out, and there'd be lots of air in the summer. They gambled, and they wanted lots of peanuts and popcorn and water. We only got about ten cents an hour --I think it was more than ten cents a day, I think it was ten cents an hour-- and tips. And, of course, the tips were hardly anything, except when you had the pinochle house. And then, sometimes, when the pinochle house --I don't know how many people would be at a table playing cards-- but anyway, the tips would be better. We'd just wait for our turn to get the pinochle house.

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