The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (revisited)

My brother tells a story; fifty years ago, on November 9 (also a Sunday) it was unseasonably warm, so warm that he recalls that mother took me to the beach. I was seven, this was an unremarkable occasion for me, but he was fourteen and would remember how the temperature plummeted the next day, and how soon he and the nation would be rapt by the haunting mystery of the disappearance of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald.

Last night, we invited a small ensemble of friends to have an informal, private reading of the play Ten November by Steven Dietz, with song lyrics by Eric Peltoniemi. Commissioned by the Actors Theatre of St. Paul, the play premiered at Wisdom Bridge Theatre in Chicago in 1987. It is a fast-paced, harrowing tale of the disaster and its aftermath, and also an examination of how, as Blue Öyster Cult put it, “History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men.”

My desire was to invite a number of friends to gather around a fire in the backyard, to spin this yarn on a cool, fall evening, but the weather turned, as weather will, and we seventeen crammed into our beloved, tiny house. An unrehearsed ensemble, reading for ourselves, to mark this historic occasion. Five of us were alive when the Fitzgerald went down. It was an education for most. Folks familiar with the Lightfoot song – and this is a common refrain, which I have heard many times before – often don’t even know it’s a true story, or even that it happened during the twentieth century – let alone the late twentieth century.

Fifty years is a long time for a human. It’s not a long time for history.

Sarah Blubaugh and Scott Hanna interpreted the lyrics, which really elevated the experience, the assembled rewarded them with snaps after each melody as I pressed forward with the stage directions. Everyone who attended was provided a speaking role, it was a marvelous and varied chorus of voices.

It is a script that weaves together a variety of tales to provide context to the mystery. The fact that it was written before we had even visited the ship at the bottom of Lake Superior, before the bell was recovered in 1995, the site designated a grave site, not to be disturbed, actually serves the work. It illustrates the confusion and the frustrating search for solutions in the aftermath of tragedy which are often not to be found.

My grandfather was a merchant marine, and before he settled down to raise children, he piloted freighters like the Fitzgerald, though none as large. One of my recent discoveries in the effects I kept from my parent’s home was the old man’s personal logbook. An illustration he drew of the Steamship Robert Fulton was on display during the reading. Twenty-nine men died in a sudden storm on the Great Lakes on an evening fifty years ago, any man of them like my grandfather.

As the assembled departed last evening, the rain had turned to snow. Not exactly the blizzard we were promised. Sometimes, nature is kind, or so we perceive her to be.

See also: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (song)

Henrik M. Hansen

Helen and Henrik, 1932
Henrik Mayer Hansen (May 24, 1904 - May 28, 2005) worked in the IBM division of Cleveland Trust Co. in 1936. Born in Fevik, Norway, Henrik emigrated to the United States while in grade school. He was a boatworker on the Great Lakes for Pittsburgh Steamship when he married Helen Denison in 1932. They had three stillborn children before adopting their first, named John, in 1935. By this time, Henrik's father-in-law Amos A. Denison had convinced him to settle down and get a job at home, which to them was Cleveland.

He was raised in a house which still stands on West 44th Street. When he was a kid he frequented the Y at 49th and Franklin (since burned to the ground) where he learned a motto which lasted a lifetime - C.S., C.S., C.H. or Clean Speech, Clean Sport, Clean Habits. I am sure some of that fell by the wayside in his time on the seas.

Cleveland Trust Co. was the 6th largest bank in the country in 1936, and in its time employed my father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

There is a box of letters from Helen and Henrik to each other at my folks' place in Lakewood, waiting for me to read them. It has taken several years, but I believe I will have the time in 2010 to finally take care of that business.