Document text
WPA L. C. PROJECT Watt:Ts' UNIT
i Accession no.
1% 3658
Date received
10/10/40
Consignment no.
Shipped from
Wash. °Moe
Label
Amount
Sp
Form -3
Iskiklore Collection (or Type)
Title Great lakes folklore
Place of originC hioago Illinois Date I/00
Project worker JO r Ore We Power
Project editor
Remarks
Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview
CHICAGO FOLKS:Lune
FORMA
Circumstances of Interview
e.\
STATE Illinois
NAME OF WORKER Jerome W. Power.
ADDRESS 708 lest 76th Street
DATE April 5, 1939
SUBJECT Great Lakes Folklore
FOLKLOIM
CHICAGO
No. Words
1. Date and time of interview
April 5, 1939 1,30 P. M.
2. Place of interview
N. M. U. headquarters, 92nd Street Baltimore Avenue
3. Name and address of informant
S. J. Promo
ttivt4
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant.
Ralph Rogers, General Orginizer, National Maritime Union,
9 2nd St. Baltimore Ame.,Chloago, Ill.
.5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
None
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
Union Headquarters. Large second floor hall. About a dozen sailors
present, sitting at tables or standing in small groups, talking. Radio going.
This is in South Chicago, one of the main ports on the Great Lakes.
Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading and the number tm which the material refers.)
W3658
FORM B
Personal History of Informant
CHICAGO FOLKSTUFF
STATE Illinois
NAME OF WORKER Jerome W. Power'
ADDRESS 708 Mist 76th Street
DATE April 5, 1939
SUBJECT Great Lakes Folklore
NAME OF INFORMANT S. J. Promo
1. Ancestry French
2. Place and date of birth
Marinette, Wisconsin, February 2, 1900
3. Family Same
FOLKLORE
CHICAGO
No. Words
4. Places lived in, with dates
Marinotte,(Boyhood); Lake Boats, 1917; New York(Deep Water
Sailor) 1917-19244 Great Lakes Boats 1924 to date.
5. Education, with dates
Grammar School
6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates
Sailor; Machinist; 1917 to date.
7. Special skills and interests
Maritime
8. Community and religious activities
Catholic
9. Description of informant
A small man 39 years old, appearance neat, sooiableim411 mannered and
intelligent. Speaks good English with no accent or dialect.
10. Other Points gained in interview
Difficult to get informant to discuss small incidents of daily life on boats;
he seemed to think wrecks, collisions and such only subjects worthwhile.
No. Wbrds
1,500
FORM C TEXT -1—
CHICAGO FOLKSTUFF
When I became 17 years old I got a little tired of Marinette,
Wisconsin, my home town. So I went to Norfolk, Virginia and joined
my brother, Clifford, who was a salt water sailor. We both got
berths on the "Saxola", a coal barge. In February, 1917, With two
other barges, all towed by a tug in a string, we left this port
bound for Philadelphia with a consignment of coal. Outside tie
Delaware Breakwater we were hit by a sudden gale, about 75 miles
per hour, I should say. This, of course, is a pretty stiff wind.
The barges had sails up, to help the tug and before we could reef
them they had frozen. We dropped anchors in 25 fathoms of water,
but the hull of the barge right in the rears the Saxola got fouled
with the anchor chain and bobbing up and down in the high seas must
have sawed a deep out across her bottom. Whatever it was, she suddenly
began to sink. My brother grabbed an ax and out the hauser attached to
our stern. The barge then foundered in a few minutes and we were in
luck that the "Saxola" was not pulled to the bottom, with her, as would
have been the case had my brother not chopped the haueer.
In 1917, just after the United States entered the World War,
I shipped on the "Omsk", a Russian freighter loaded with cotton,
from Baltimore to Liverpool. She was 12,000 tons and a pretty good
boat. In Baltimore her entire crew had deserted, having turned
bolsheviks at the time of the upheaval in their country. Only
FORM C TT. -a
CHICAGO FOLKSTUFF
four Russians remained aboard the captain, first officer, second
officer and third assistant engineer. They were all part owners
of the boat. Arrangements were made with the authorities so that
the *Omsk' left Baltimore with an American captain and orew, the
Ritssians sailing more or less as passengers. We proceeded up the
coast to Halifax, N. S., our first top. Here, just a few days
before our arrival some German agent had touched off a ship loaded
with T. N. T. while she awaited clearance papers. The explosion
had made a mess of the harbor. Boats as big as 150 tons had been
hurled clear out of the water up on the rooky shores. Many were
killed, We set out across the Atlantic under convoy of destroyers
and while several periscopes were sighted we did not get a torpedo,
reaching Liverpool in safety.
Sinking of the Cedric
I wished to return to the United States early in 19178 when I
was in Liverpool after completing an outward voyage in the "Omsk",
loaded with cotton for the Allies. This was not so easy. American
consuls will go far to help a big corporation of some sort, but they
seem to regard American sailors as nuisances. I finally made arrange-
ments to return on the Ridriation, a passenger boat, -I had to pay my
fare. We left Liverpool with three other passenger boats protected by
a convoy of destroyers. When we had been under way three days, between
3 and 4 o'clock in the afternoon, I was on deck shooting drape
with some ether sailors when the alarm sounded, telling us that pen-
CHICAGO FOLKSTUFF
scopes had been sighted. No crap game in the history of the world
ever broke up with more speed. MY dropped a number of depth bombs,
or "ash cans", as they were called, from the "Adriatic" and hoped
for the best. The destroyers rushed around like mad, seeking peri-
scopes to shoot at. I stood at the rail, looking at the "Cedric",
one of our sister ships about half a mile away, when a column of
white water suddenly shot up near her bow. In a few seconds I heard
a dull boom, not very loud, but giving the impression of terrific
force let loose. A second torpedo struck her amidships and the two
of them must have torn her tottom out, for she sank in less than twenty
minutes, going dawn by the head and at the last throwing her after part
high into the air. Six hundred, if I remember, were lost on the "Cedric*.
Only an ordinary sea was running, but half a dozen subs were around the
spot and rescue attempts were not very successful on that account.
The destroyers got one of the subs, or perhaps it was one of our depth
charges. The bow of the sub shot high out of the water not very far
from us and then she went down like a rock, leaving an oil slick all
over the sea. It happened so spickly that aboard the "Adriatic" we did
not even have time to get into our life preservers, but everybody was calm.
We had proceeded only about a mile fromthe spot when the subs appeared
again. One of them came to the surface, probably by mistake, not far
from a destroyer and got a solid shot through her conning tower.
She sank at onoe. We kept a very sharp look -out at dawn and sunset
after that, for these times were the worst for subs. reached
FORM C TEXT -4-
CHICAGO FOLKS TUFF
New York Harbor without further adventures.
Jonah Ships
Jonah ships are on the Great Lakes, and bad as many seamen need
jobs, it is hard to get a crew to work some of these. All the sailors
know the Jonahs, and hate them like the devil hates holy water. Jonah
ships are born unlucky, like certain people and they have trouble as
long as they stay on top of the water. It is not a case of structural
defects. Some of these Jonahs have trim lines and good speed records.
They are just unlucky, I guess.
Women and Cats
A good skipper, in the old days of sail on the salt water, would
hot allow a woman to set foot aboard his craft. This was not a matter
of morality, at all. Women were considered unluckp. Their presence
aboard put a curse on the ship. Cats were also considered bad luck
and were seldom allowed aboard, On the Great Lakes, in these modern
days of steam, this old superSition does not prevail. The chief
steward oh a lake boat often gets his wife to sign on as second cook.
The sailors consider her bad luck only if she is a bad cook. Cats are
welcome as mascots, too, the same as dogs, goats, snakes and such other
animals as take the fancy of members of the crew.
The End of the Colgate
Young captains on lake boats are often driven into bad errors
by the greed of owners who demand that they make fast time under all
FORM C TEXT .5.
CHICAGO FOLKSTUFF
circumstances. The captain is on the spot. For errors of judgment
in navigation he may lose his captain's license, but if he is too
cautious he may lose his job. The end of the "Colgate", a "pig" or
‘whalebaok" as they are called, illustrates this point. She set out
from Buffalo in 1917 loaded with coal. Near Long Point in Lake Erie
she struck heavy weather and took refuge behind a headland. She
should have waited out the blow, as did about fifteen other ships on
the same spot, but the captain, who was green, began to fret about
the loss of time and put put from his refuge, right in the teeth of
the gale. His ship was heavily loaded and not entirely seaworthy.
The waves pounded her full of leaks and she sank before she was out
of sight of the headland.
Free Liguori
During prohibition I sailed on a private yacht belonging to a
Chicago manufacturer. He was considered a tight proposition, so that
when he announced one day, soon after we had left Detroit, that he was
throwing open his liquor closet to the crew and for everybody to help
himself, we could net believe our ears. We thought he had gone crazy.
Just the sane, we didn't argue, but made a rush for the liquor closet
and cleaned out the stock in a hurry, so that not so much as a half
pint of whiskey was left in the place. He was particular about this.
"Take everything, boyst Don't leave a thing not even a smell of
liquorr We never obeyed an order with more joy. The liquor, whioh
FORM C. TEXT -6f
CHICAGO FOLKSTak
consisted of whiskey, rum, brandy, gin and everything else which was
scarce in those days, went into the bunks of the sailors all except
a case of good shiskey which was seized by one Andy Maoltb, a Scotch
A. B. Be tucked the bottles into a partially reefed top -sail and
then reefed her tight. Bunks, he said, were not safe places.
Everybody got as drunk as possible, although the offioers insisted
that enough men remain soberio operate the ship. )!hen we reached
Chicago the whole cresrwas pinched for violation of the prohibition
laws. You see, somebody had sent a wireless tip to the owner and
that old fox, knowing that his liquor would be seized anyhow as soon
as be reached Chicago, figured that he could dodge trouble with the
authorities and at the same time be a good fellow to the orew of his
ship for once in his life. We were all held for a couple hours
while the yacht was searched. They found the booze in the bunks,
of course, and decided that it was just as case of a bunoh of sailors
with too much money being reckless with Canadian liquor. The fact
that we were all more or less drunk was in our favor, since it indi-
cated that we wanted the stuff for our awn purposes and not to sell.
When they questioned the owner he played innocent and said that sailors
would be sailors. Everything turned out well, although some of the
crew actually shed tears over the liquor which was confiscated by the
feds.' In the bunk of Andy MacRib, of course, nothing was found, which
the feds would have thought strange, if they had known Andy like we
did. When we were out of sight of land once more willing hands helped
Andy to unreef the top -sail and the unoonfisoated case of whiskey brought
cheer again to all hands.