Published: September 29, 2009 08:00 pm      

Photographer explains shot outside Dill's

Readers responded to a request for information on the Traverse Area Historical Society archive photo that appeared in the Sept. 23 Community section. The photo was of a group of people standing outside Dill's Restaurant in Traverse City.

Gerald "Jerry" Martineau e-mailed that he took this picture in the mid-1960s when his parents Hunce and Wanda Martineau owned Dill's Restaurant. He says the photo shows a portion of the kitchen and wait staff in front of the restaurant by the partial facades of the original three historical buildings that comprised the restaurant and bar.

Martineau writes: "The employees are all wearing cowboy hats as part of a week long Olde Towne "Western Days" promotional festival by Wilhelm's clothing store that was next door which encouraged all the Olde Town businesses to join in the idea by wearing western garb. So my dad bought cowboy hats for all his employees."

In his e-mail, Martineau identified almost all of the workers in the photo. Pictured left to right: Francis "Hunce" Martineau, owner; his daughter Zandra (Armstead) Martineau, waitress; Nancy Lappo, waitress; unknown, Alice (Wagner) Zeits, waitress; Edna Potts, waitress; Leona Reicha, waitress; Virginia Beitner, waitress; Leona Reicha's son Michael, kitchen help; Beulah Griffin, kitchen help; Roberta Lappo, waitress; Steve Mikowski, chef; Wanda Martineau, co-owner; unknown, Henry Bugai, chef.

Martineau, a staff photographer for the Washington Post, also worked at his parents' restaurant, but in this case took the photo. He recalls that he snapped the image using a Yashica-Mat EM twin lens reflex camera using 120 Verichrome Pan film developed in Microdol-X developer.

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Reader Ray Newman also identified two Dill's staff. He writes: "I'm pretty sure the handsome devil on the far left is Hunts Martineau and the young lady next to him may be his daughter Sandy. How I miss those Fish Fry's!"

Traverse Area Historical Society archive photos that appear in the Community section can be found online at www.gtherald.com/history