By Scott Sullivan
Editor
The Douglas Divas since 1953 reconvened in the lakeshore for the summer solstice 72 years later — and what memories they had.
Classmates since Our Lady of Lourdes grade school, then Villa Duchesne all-girl Catholic High School in St. Louis, Mo., they spent untold summers together here centered at the home, spinning out like spokes, Joseph Hummel first bought in 1919 north of Douglas Beach.
“He was my grandfather,” hostess Jeanne (Van Brecht) Macheca said. Heather Foderingham, her cousin, still has her summer place across the backyard fence. Coming for three days to join them were Laurie McLiney from Kansas City, Mo., Gertie Wagner from Naples, Fla. and Ann Ludwig from Denver.
“Our parents all knew each other,” said Jeanne. “They hung out together in St. Louis.
They remember in second grade “Sister Emily was mean,” said Gertie. “She’d crack boys’ knuckles with a ruler and made errant girls stand in the cloakroom.”
“What was that? Almost 80 years back now.”
Golden summers for teens in the 1950s meant bonfires on the beach with boys, Budweisers and “church keys” they could use to pop open cans, all available at Bill and Gertrude McVea’s grocery store two lots away.
“Nobody had TVs, nobody had phone then,” said Heather. We’d use McVea’s pay phone, it cost a dime and everything was long distance.
“We’d sit on the bench out front and wave hi to people going by on Lakeshore. We all knew each other and each other’s cars as well.”
“We used to climb Mt. Baldy, run down the dunes, play at West Shore Golf Course right behind my house,” Jeanne picked up. “During night parties at the beach we had to watch out for Mr. Chap.”
“Mr. Chap,” explains Heather, “was a retired police chief our parents hired to keep on things out here summers. He sat at the public beach in his car that had a ‘Lakeshore Patrol’ sign on it we used to steal.
“During late-night parties on the beach he’d come down with his flashlight to break us up.”
Some of the St. Louis boys stayed at the Rosemont Inn, others at Idyll Ease (later Valentine Lodge, now a private residence.
They went to church at St. Peter’s, played bingo in the 1870s-built former Douglas church that became the library and joined the boys on pontoon trips from Lake Macatawa here and back.
“We did nothing malicious, obeyed our parents — and most of all had fun!” Jeanne said.
They took part in each other’s weddings and moved away from St. Louis after but stayed in touch.
The five’s last big reunion came 26 years ago when all were 60. “We are shocked at the age we are now,” Gertie said.
Between them they have 34 grandchildren. Laurie alone has 11 great-grandchildren with two more “on the way. Catholic families, you know,” she said. All are widows now.
New Pope Leo X1V, formerly Robert Prevost, went to the nearby Augustine Seminary High School from 1969 to ’73 in what today is the Felt Mansion, but “would have been just a young pup to us then,” Jeanne said.
“We weren’t always ‘the Douglas Divas,” Heather said. “Some of our children bought tote bags inscribed with that and our names on the other side and gave them to us for our visit.”
Tonight they were going out to eat at Clearbrook; last night they’d ordered out from Pizza Mambo.
By Saturday the out-of-towners would start dispersing. “Summers seem like forever when they’re happening, but they go fast too,” Jeanne said.
