Marcellus Memories #16

The author, Willard Robinson, at left in his Navy uniform, and today.
-NJIT magazine

Marcellus Memories #16
by Willard Robinson, MHS Class of ‘49

  I think of June as Bluegill Frolic month because it started out after WW ll to celebrate our 36 lakes and the fishing season.  They started in 1946 and the first event was held before the Frolic started with the selection of the queen.  The queen selected from the nine that had entered contest was Lois Ann Cree, daughter of Howard Cree who started the local business Cree Coaches.  I don’t remember the dates of the Frolic but it was in June and a few weeks after the fishing season started.  A stage was built on the north side of Main Street just a little west of the Marcellus News office.  It was lighted and had a sound system.  It was used presentations, entertainment, and on Saturday night held a dance band and people danced well into the evening.  Saturday was the big parade with a color guard with flags in the lead.   There were marching bands, some horses and riders, and many floats from local businesses and organizations.  The queen’s float was very beautiful and carried the queen and her court that included all the other girls in the contest.  They were all dressed in their gowns.  One special event was a demonstration of fancy gun work by an officer of the State Police.

   In 1947 a large merry-go-round was added and located at the intersection of Main and Center Streets.  The parade had a Grand Marshal who was army General Collier but I don’t know where he was stationed at the time. He rode in an open convertible followed by an army marching unit.  There were more floats and a car towing a Cree Coach was in the parade.  In 1948 the parade got even larger and included convertibles carrying queens from celebrations in Vicksburg and Decatur.  In 1950 Marcellus probably got its highest recognition when the Grand Marshal was the Governor of Michigan G. Mennen Williams.  (It probably was an election year!)  Another event during the Frolic was a flower show in the Hudson Memorial Building.  I don’t recall if it started at the beginning or was added later.  The Bluegill Frolic was now an established part of Marcellus.

   Marcellus was proud to attract people to its 36 lakes in a 6-mile radius of town and after WW ll people from Indiana and the Chicago started to come and buy up lake property.  Many cottages were being added around many lakes.  Thankfully the State of Michigan recognized that lake access might be lost to to the general public and started to buy up property on many lakes and developed public access sites.  It was a good idea because in a few years some lakes had cottages all the way around the lake.  I really saw the wisdom of this when I went to New Jersey to work.  After Joyce and I were settled in, we decided to visit the Jersey shore and found there wasn’t a State Park for miles and miles.  To park and get on the beach you had to pay because all the land was owned privately.

   The lakes around Marcellus varied in size and Goff Lake was one of the small ones but it was close enough to town that you could ride your bicycle to it.  Many boys around my age went there to swim in the summer time.  I learned to swim there.  All this activity was unsupervised and there were no life guards.  We grew up as “free range” kids.  We knew when to be home for supper or to do some chores.  Otherwise, we were on our own.  The Carroll Jones family lived next door to the Dr. Davis house where I grew up.  Sometimes Mrs. Jones invited me to their cottage on Big Cedar Lake to spend a day.  Their son Danny was a few years younger than me.  I thought Mrs. Jones was such a generous lovely lady.

And just who is Willard Robinson, MHS Class of ’49?

   Willard has very generously submitted 16 installments of Marcellus Memories to his hometown newspaper, The Marcellus News. Willard, MHS Class of ’49 treasurer, graduated that year with 23 fellow seniors, one of whom was his future wife, Joyce Jensen.

   This spring the New Jersey Institute of Technology did a full-page feature of Willard in the NJIT Magazine thanking him for annually giving to his alma mater for 50 years. 

    According to the piece written by Theta Pavis, Willard graduated from what was then the Newark College of Engineering in 1962, thirteen years after receiving a diploma from Marcellus High School.

   “After high school, Robinson enlisted at 17 and became an electronics technician on a Navy destroyer during the Korean War. After the Navy, he got an associate’s degree in radio engineering, which led him to being recruited by Bell Labs in 1954. He worked in the military systems lab as a technical assistant on radar and anti-ballistic missile systems.”

   Willard earned a master’s degree from NYU in electrical engineering and was one of the first to receive Bell Labs’ “sustained individual performance” awards. 

      The News is truly grateful to Willard for sharing his fond recollections of growing up in Marcellus!

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