Interview with Art Samson

Interviewee

Art Samson

Files

Interviewers

Alan Hoff

Description

Interview with Arthur Aaron “Art” Samson (1921-2006) recorded on August 9, 1995 in South Haven, Michigan. Originally recorded by Monadnock Media for a Kalamazoo Valley Museum exhibit on Jewish resorts in South Haven. As a child, the youngest of 5 kids, Art came with his family from Chicago in 1928 when his father, Fishl Samson, bought a building, which later developed into Samson's Resort. He recounts his memories of the resort, including:

• his father calling in family to help build new additions, like a dining hall, and "paying" them only with whisky, herring, and rye bread;
• working summers at the resort along with his siblings;
• resort entertainment, open-air dance floors with color lights;
• how their resort attracted clientele and poached guests at the docks;
• washing dishes, checking the lights, cleaning the bathrooms, driving the bus, and other jobs on a typical day at the resort;
• working hard all summer with little downtime, as usual for the resort workers in-season;
• facing antisemitism;
• leaving for the Army and WWII in 1942, then returning to South Haven to run a gas station;
• Samson's Resort closing soon after the death of his father in 1949.

Date of Interview

8-9-1995

Location of Interview

South Haven, MI

Series

The South Haven Jewish Resort Oral History Project

Keywords

Resorts, Hotels, South Haven (Mich.)

Disciplines

Jewish Studies | Oral History | Public History

Notes

Digitized from videocassette.

Language

ENG

Document Type

Interview

Recommended Citation

Samson, Art, "Interview with Art Samson" (1995). Kalamazoo Valley Museum - The South Haven Jewish Resort Oral History Project. 8.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/south-haven-resorts/8

Length of video

0:47:21

Length of video log

-