The Romeo Peach Festival is now two months away, and 2026 marks an important milestone in the event's history. This year is the 75th anniversary of when the Romeo Lions Club took over managing the festivities. For those who don't know, the Romeo Lions Club was established in 1942 as a local chapter of the Lions Club International. Its focus is to help the local community through charitable contributions and functions, and the largest event they host is the Romeo Peach Festival.
The Romeo Lions Club float is seen in the photo above at the 1951 Romeo Peach Festival Floral Parade. It's by Schaaf's Pharmacy, which is where Paramount Roofing is at now, on South Main Street. A bunch of young girls and one woman sit on the float while holding flowers. Sadly, they haven't been identified. The picture can be found in the Romeo Peach Festival Collection at the Romeo Community Archives. Although the Romeo Lions Club float didn't win any prizes, the fact that the picture was taken during the parade proved how important the organization was that year.
To understand why this marked an important shift in the festival's history, we have to go back to the event's inception. The Michigan Peach Festival began in 1931, and the Michigan Peach Festival Association (MPFA) initially managed it. The organization was non-profit and had a board of directors who were elected every two years. The main purpose of the festival was to advertise Michigan peaches. The Great Depression was happening at that time, so it was far more difficult for people to make and keep money. Since the Romeo area was filled with tons of orchards and abundant peach crops, the festival wanted to bring people in, so they could buy that fruit and benefit the farmers. In fact, the program for the very first Peach Festival starts off with a history of the peach industry in and out of Romeo and ends with peach recipes. In addition, attendees could go on orchard tours during the festivities.
After 20 years of the festival, the MPFA announced that it was going to be an one-day affair in late May 1951. The headline from the May 24, 1951 issue of The Romeo Observer Press can be seen below. It cited lack of interest from the community, shortage on help and materials, rising costs, and "current national and local conditions."
The first three reasons need no explanation as it certainly takes a lot of money and effort to put on events like the Romeo Peach Festival. The last one needs some context. Nationally, the Korean and Cold Wars were going on at the time. There were people from Romeo who were enlisted in the former. Also, like many areas of the country, they were dedicated in stopping the spread of communism even if it wasn't always explicit.
Locally, the village was occupied with promoting a new school building program and civil defense. The former consisted of a four-room elementary school; a four-room addition to Washington Elementary School; and a combination bus garage, manual training, and agricultural shop. The residents approved of the program in Spring 1951, and construction was about to begin. With the latter, even though World War II was over, Romeo and the rest of Michigan continued to look out for air raids in the case some adversary decided to drop a bomb on them.
This was the situation the MPFA found itself in. After the May 1951 proclamation, the board received various comments about its proposal. The general consensus was that the community wanted the event as usual in "its customary splendor of shows and parades," but few were interested in serving on the committees or contributing financially.
In other words, the residents wanted the festival as is, but only a few were willing to help out. This lead to another announcement in the July 26, 1951 edition.
Given the circumstances, they doubted if they could raise sufficient funds to meeting rising festival costs. While it was certainly devistating for the citizens to hear that, the board had two ideas to solve this problem. The first was make the MPFA a for-profit association, and any money made would go to some community enterprise like a youth center. The second was to turn over management to organizations like the Romeo Lions Club, Romeo Rotary Club, and the Veterans' Building Association. Each would run the festival every three years to minimize the burden of one group to operating it constantly.
When the news reached the Romeo Lions Club, they went above and beyond by asking for permission to take over the festival and run it every year. At first, the MPFA rejeced this proposal due to two reasons. First, it meant replacing at least seven members of the current board with Romeo Lions Club members. At the time, the MPFA was comprised of 13 directors. Second, the board still held onto the belief that the other clubs mentioned above would manage the festival on a rotational basis along with the Lions Club.
However, neither the Rotary Club nor the Veterans' Building Association made a statement about running the festival, and the MPFA suddenly changed their minds, for this declaration was made in the August 9th issue.
According to the article associated with that headline, the Lions Club planned it from Saturday, September 1 to Monday, September 3. How did they do it? They formed a 15-man board that would present the Romeo Peach Festival or another fruit-related festival suitable to the area each year. It was a non-profit organization called the Romeo Festival Association, and Edward A. Jacob - the man responsible for the event to begin with - was appointed general chairman. It managed to secure funds from concessions, private donations, the Romeo Village Council, and wait for it, the now-disbanded MPFA! The latter donated $200 ($2,577.87 in today's money).
More imporantly, the Lions Club placed a heavier focus on the Romeo community to show that it was as just as vital as the peaches grown. As Jacob explained, "The festival is designed to promote industrial, agricultural and recreational facilities and advantages of Romeo and the surrounding territory by bringing about better relationships between the rural and urban areas.”
The Lions Club didn't spare the extravagance in 1951. Events that were planned included the Floral, Children's and Mummer's Parades; free acts; a wrestling show; agricultural exhibits; airplane rides; a parachute jump thrill act; and the Queen's Ball to honor that year's Peach Queen and court.
When the Romeo Peach Festival finally arrive on that first weekend in September, it was a resounding success! The September 6th edition mentioned that thousands attended the festivities, and 700 of them came to the Peach Queen's coronation. Big crowds were present during the Floral Parade as seen in this photos.
Through the efforts of the Romeo community, the Romeo Lions Club, and public and private donations, the 1951 Romeo Peach Festival went on despite the “unsettled world and local conditions.”
This marked a shift in what the festival emphasized. Sure, it still promoted peaches since that's in the title of the event itself, but it placed a greater importance on the Romeo community. The festival had put the village on the map, and the Romeo Lions Club wanted to thank the people for that.
Happy 75th Anniversary, Romeo Lions Club! Here’s to another 75!
On Thursday, July 9, I will give a presentation on this very subject and show off some artifacts from the Romeo Peach Festival Collection. It will take place at 6pm at the Romeo District Library - Kezar Branch. See you there!
To learn more about the 1951 Romeo Peach Festival in the meantime, you can contact the Romeo Community Archives at rca@romemodistrictlibrary.org or call (586) 690-4890 to check out the Romeo Lions Club and Romeo Peach Festival Collections.. If you want to search for articles on that topic, you can find the Romeo newspapers like The Romeo Observer on the Suburban Library Cooperative's Local History Digital Collection website.
Images and sources courtesy of the Romeo Community Archives; Melvin E. and Joan D. Bleich Collection, The Romeo Observer, May 24, 1951, p.I-1 and Romeo Peach Festival Collection, 1951