Belle Isle is an island park in the Detroit River. There used to be a ferry that ran from Detroit to Belle Isle but it hasn’t run for years, decades. You can drive, bike or walk across on the Belle Isle Bridge.. From one side of the island you can see Canada, and from the other, Detroit.  There are, or use to be, a Conservatory, a petting zoo, a herd of  Fallow Deer (I believe disease got them), an aquarium, an exclusive yacht club (Did it ever integrate?), a casino, riding horses, horse drawn buggies, ponies, ice skating, a wonderful fountain that had colored water in the summer (It was done with lights), fishing, picnicking and swimming.  We spent a lot of time on Belle Isle when I was growing up. My mother told us that when she was growing up, people slept there during heat waves. In the last few years Belle Isle has been made into a State Park and there is a charge for visiting.

My mother, sister and I seem to have spent the day at Belle Isle with some family friends.  Harold and his family are the only family I remember my parents taking us over to their house to visit, as a family.Harold was about Pearl’s age and there was a sister, Andre, and a brother, Edward, who were older than we were.  Andre’s mother made her get rid of her Betsy McCall paper dolls at some point because she was “too old to play paper dolls.”  Many years later there was a younger daughter, Michelle.

It says “Belle Isle” on the back of the photos.  I don’t remember so many houses or buildings as you can see in the background.  Corrections or confirmation from other Detroiters welcome.

The picture of the horse to the left looks much fancier than the ones we are riding above.

 Connie was my mother’s best friend from Eastern High School. She and her husband, Warren, lived on the East side in one of the new little houses built after WW2. We lived on the West side and we only went to visit once or twice a year. It wasn’t in another city though and I don’t quite know why the visits were so infrequent. Perhaps my mother was too busy to go during the school year and Connie didn’t drive because I never remember her visiting us.

Other posts with photographs taken on Belle Isle  Skating Champions and  Mershell Cunningham Graham, Jr   From a different blog, a post about outtings at Belle Isle back in the 50s and 60s. With photos of various places around the island – Detroit Chinatown: Blast from the past Belle Isle.