MICHIGAN JEWISH HISTORY - Jewish Historical Society of Michigan

MICHIGAN JEWISH HISTORY
MANLEYS VACATIONERS
Vacationers pose with their children, circa 1910, during the early years of the
Manleys’ Myrtle Banks Resort on the St. Joseph River. Several generations of families
came year after year from 1908 to the 1950s. (Photo courtesy Jane Granzow Miles)
The Manley Resort on the St. Joseph River
Although Dr. Gordon and other Jews faced prejudice from hostile
neighbors, there were non-Jews, like the Zborils of Union Pier and the
Manleys of St. Joseph, who warmly welcomed them. Jane Granzow Miles
recalled how her grandparents, Elizabeth Jane Gray Manley and Edwin H.
Manley, started their business, Myrtle Banks Resort, on Langley Avenue,
bordering the St. Joseph River, circa 1908. “Someone in town who was
staying at one of the hotels stopped in one of the grocery stores and asked
the owner if he knew any place that was quiet and where he could get
a good meal, especially a good piece of pie. The grocer thought, ‘I think
Mrs. Manley on Langley Ave.’ He knocked on the door and asked if it was
possible if there was an extra room. He had a good home-cooked meal
and he liked it out here.” Manleys’ first guests were Jewish who, on their
return home, told their friends about the Manleys’ resort and hospitality.
The Manleys served three hearty meals, six days a week, with breakfast
on Sunday. Breakfast included eggs of any style, cereal and sometimes
bacon. Pancakes were served four or five times a week, especially when the
men arrived on the weekends.
Miles reminisced about the women at the resort: “They went through
my mother’s pregnancy with her, and when I was born, they gave me
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