The Romeo Peach Festival is three months away, and the Romeo Community Archives will be there this year to conduct oral histories about the cherished event.
All interviews will be apart of the digital Romeo Peach Festival Oral History Collection. Each will contain the audio and transcript.
Each participant will also be given a sticker for sharing their memories of the festival. Charlie Turner, the man seen above, wore that sticker proudly after we interviewed him at last year's Romeo Peach Festival.
We recently added Charlie's interview to the digital collection. He has gone to the Peach Festival many times since he was a young child. In our conversation, he talked about how it pulls the community together and pondered if this type of activity can resonate in the era of social media.
One of Charlie's fondest memories was pulling the Romeo Youth Center's float with his family's tractor when he was 12 or 13. The Romeo Youth Center was located on where the Romeo-Washington-Bruce Parks & Recreation Romeo Community Center stands today on Morton Street. He recalls that it offered plenty of summer programs like tennis, twirling, and crap classes. Plenty of kids came every day.
At the end of the season, the Youth Center decided to have a float for the Peach Festival parade. The people in charge asked some of the kids if they wanted to participate, and they were looking for a tractor. Luckily for Charlie, his family had a brand new shiny one on their farm on 33 Mile and Campground Roads. He was able to drive that in for the parade and pull the float while the kids on it had tennis rackets and twirled. For him, it was a lot of fun.
The Romeo Youth Center officially opened on January 11, 1958 even though its first official event was a Romeo Cub Scouts of Pack 87 meeting held on December 17, 1957. As Charlie described it, it was a place that kids could hang out and participate in a lot of activities. It was involved in Peach Festival parades for many years.
Unfortunately, The Romeo Observer barely mentioned them during the Peach Festival that Charlie was in. However, there are three interesting articles about the Youth Center that appeared in the paper during those festitivies. The first was in the September 4, 1958 issue. In it, a nine-year-old boy named Bernard Butkovich fell off the Youth Center float after the Floral Parade happened. He broke his collarbone and bruised his head and jaw. Luckily, two men stopped their car and offered assistance. Soon after, the Romeo police station and Dr. E.E. Stone took care of young Cub Scot of Den 7.
The other two stories are more uplifting. In the September 10, 1959 edition, the Romeo Cub Scouts won fourth prize in the Floral Parade with their replica of the Youth Center. Finally, the September 7, 1961 issue reported that the Romeo Youth Center won first place in the Children's Parade, but it wasn't with a float. Instead, they took home the top prize in the Walking Groups and Singles category.
Charlie and I had a great time talking about the Romeo Peach Festival. The Romeo Community Archives looks forward to talking to more people about their memories of the Peach Festival and what it means to them.
It doesn't matter if you're young or old. We want to hear all of the stories about the festival.
To check out the Charlie Turner interview, you can go the Romeo Community Archives online catalog. More will be uploaded in the near future.
If you want to participate in the Romeo Peach Festival Oral History Collection, you can contact the Romeo Community Archives at rca@romemodistrictlibrary.org or call (586) 690-4890. We can also conduct interivews outside of Romeo Peach Festival weekend if you feel more comfortable that way.
Images and sources courtesy of the Romeo Community Archives; Romeo Peach Festival Oral History Collection, 2024 and Melvin E. and Joan D. Bleich Collection, The Romeo Observer Press, December 19, 1957, p.A-3; January 16, 1958, p.A-1; September 4, 1958, p.A-1 and p.A-4; September 10, 1959, p.A-1; and September 7, 1961, p.A-1