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| Billie Johnson, who served as the social director at French Lick Springs Hotel for about three years in the 1950s, was able to return to the resort back in November and spent tree lighting weekend at West Baden Springs Hotel with her niece, Bennye. |
You think our hotels are a beehive of activity today? Let Billie Johnson introduce you to the time when the resort was really alive.
“It was hoppin’,” Billie recalls. And she, of anybody, would know. For almost three years in the mid-1950s, Billie served as the social director at French Lick Springs Hotel.
“It was just unreal. You couldn’t believe the number of people that were coming in and out, and in and out. It was so popular back then. It’s still popular, but I mean, it was hustling back then.”
Billie, who’s celebrating her 86th birthday this weekend, was able to return to the resort back in November — this time as a guest, thanks to Live a Dream, a nonprofit organization that grants unique bucket-list experiences to seniors. Some of them pick a motorcycle ride, hot air balloon trip, or a ballgame.
Billie’s wish? Revisiting the place that became a surprise landing spot when she was fresh out of college.
“I was at a women’s school down in Texas,” explains Billie, who was originally from Arkansas. “The dean called me in the office right before graduation and I thought, ‘Something happened, I’m not graduating.’ There was a man there and he offered me a job at French Lick as social director. I said, ‘Well, I’ve already got this teaching job.’ He said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get you out of it.’ So I said OK. That was back around 1955.”
Anything and everything fell under Billie’s new job description as social director.
She gave hotel tours and entertained guests. She wrote news releases to send to the media — and there was a lot going on at the time, as the hotel had been bought by Sheraton in 1955 with a major remodel following.
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| French Lick Springs Hotel in the 1950s. |
And giving dance lessons to guests in the afternoons? Yep, Billie did that, too.
“Cha-cha was the thing back then. And out there in the lobby. And there was an orchestra that played every night in the lobby.”
Conventions also booked big-name entertainers or speakers, and Billie was the one who’d pick them up in Louisville to transport them to and from the hotel.
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| Walter Hagen |
“But my favorite of all was Walter Hagen. He was a character,” Billie recalls with a laugh. “When I met him, my heart went…” she trails off, motioning an excited and nervous heartbeat.
Even with the regular hotel guests, things were constantly in overdrive.
“In my heyday, it was 29 dollars for two days and six meals,” Billie remembers. “And man, I’m telling you, it was packed.”
So much so, that when the hotel filled up she’d occasionally get displaced from her own room where she lived in the hotel.
“I had to pack my stuff up and put it in a closet, and they would rent my room out for the weekend,” recalls Billie, who’d sleep in a spare room in the personnel office instead. “It was just unreal. You couldn’t believe the number of people that were coming there.”
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| More of French Lick Springs Hotel from the 1950s, including a ladies' night out at dinner, the hotel lobby, convention hall and entrance to the ladies' spa. |
We probably owed Billie one for ceding her own room to guests when she worked here. So during her visit here back in November, Billie was treated to one of the best views in the house — a balcony room at West Baden Springs Hotel on the day of the Christmas tree lighting.
French Lick Springs Hotel looked much the way Billie remembered. But West Baden, which housed a seminary during the years Billie was working at French Lick, looked like a whole different place altogether.
“At that time, the Jesuits were in there. But we could take guests into the atrium and show them the dome on tours. I never thought it would be back to a hotel. It’s beautiful.”
And as Billie watched from the balcony to the swarm of holiday guests and scurrying children below, she smiled. There were shades of a bygone era. It was hoppin’, much as it did in the 1950s.
“It’s a fascinating place, it really is.”