Document text
Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview
CilIGAGO FOLKSTUFF
FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
STATE Illinois
NAME OF WORKER Jerome Power
ADDRESS 70 8 West 76th Street
DATE April 25, 1939
SUBJECT Folklore ,ireat Lakes Sailors
1. Date and time of interview
01
April 25, 1939 4:00 P. M.
FOLKLORE
CHICAGO
No. Words
2. Place of interview
home of Fred Smiths who, when in port, lives with his sister
at 8602 Muskegon Avenue, South Chicago.
3. Name and address of informant.
Fred Smith, 8 602 Muskegon Avenue, South Chicago.
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant..
Ralph Rogers, general organizer, :iational Maritime Union,
92nd Street and Bellmore Avenue, South Chicago.
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
None
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc..
A neat, well maintained frame house, two stories, with a spacious back
yard. Interview in dinirg roam. Furnishings about average middle class
American. Nautical trophies on malls. Lir. Smith's young nieces two girls
about 17 years old, in courteous but quiet attendance, to bring tobeoco,
matches, sharpen lead pencils and dig up old notebooks to refresh informant's
memory.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading and the number tb which the material refers.)
FORM B
Personal History of Informant
CHICAGO FOLKSTUFF
STATE Illinois
NAME OF WORKER Jerome W. Power
ADDRESS 70$ lest 76th Street
DATE April 25, 1939
SUBJECT Folklore Great Lakes Sailors
NAME OF INFORMANT Fred Smith
1. Ancestry British
2. Place and date of birth
Iona, Michigan 1885
3. Family
Bashelor
4. Places lived in, with dates
Every port in the world, from 1900 to date.
5: Education, with dates
Elementary
6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates
Beaman
7I Special skills and interests.
None
8. Community and religious adtivities
Roman Catholie
FOLKLORE
CHICAGO
9. Description of informant** A rather Light but yell built min of 52 years.
Broad shoulders. Rolling walk. Cleanly out, bromssd features. Cheerful
disposition. Talkative. Speaks good English with no accent. Less than
usual profanity and blasphemy in his spook,.
10. Other Points gained in interview
Although this informant never went beyond the fourth grade in school, he shoes
the education of the average high school graduate. This Peat:121mi* AAmmow.
40
Great Lakes sailors, showing value of travel as an educator.
FOLKLORE
FORM C
Text of Interview (Un•3dited)
CHICAGO FOLKS TUFF CHICAGO
STATE
NAME OF TOR REF
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
1\TAE OF INFORMANT
Illinois
Jerome Power
708 West 78th. Street
April 25, 1939
Great hakes Sailors
Fred Smith
A Rough Initiation
Jack Mc Nellie is now captain of the P.41 fleet which has South
Chicago as the home port. I have a vivid memory of haw he was initiated
as a wheel man many years ago. We were in Duluth, about Thahkshiving
time, when we both shipped as hart of the crew to talcs a yacht through
the lakes to Prooklyn, New York. The name of the yacht was the "Salt
Lake City". She had what is known as an open bridge, that is, the man
at the wheel had no protection against the weather. Jack had experienee
as a wheel man and thought he was pretty good, too. The skipper assigned
him to the wheel, which was all right with Jack, since that work pays
more money than an ordinary A. B. he forgot to figure on the weather,
however, on Lake Slperior, at that late season. Cold rain, snow, sleet
like bullets and plenty of fog was the daily dish. Poor Jack was so
frozen when he came off duty that he could barely get the ice out of his
system before it was time to take the wheel again. Ne kidded him a lot
but I am quiete certain he would have died rather than funk on the job.
He stuck and we brought the yacht to Brooklyn without more than the usual
difficulty of navigation on the lakes at this advanced time of the year.
FORM C page -2
CHICAGO FOLKSTUFF
Jaok and I are great friends and when we meet these days always
talk about this trip, taken when we were both young sailors.
Call of the Fresh Aater
When I was thirteen years old, I ran away from my home in South
Chicago to become a fresh water sailor. I knew I was too young to
get a man's berth on one of the big boats, so I stowed away on the
"Wings of St. Joe", a small sailing vess41 which plied between Benton
Harbor, Michigan and South Chicago. She brought in fruit and vegetables
from ;Lichigan and returned with poultry. I remained hidden until we
were well out into the lake and then introduced myself to Captain
Gettner. That gentleman laughed wheh he heard my story and expressed
wonder that any lad, with a good home on shore, should wish to become
a sailor. Five nibs from St. Joe we were struck by a savage gale and
wrecked on a sand bar. The shore, however, was only a stone's throw
distant. The skipper grabbed me under his arm and struggled through the
breakers to safety. We had a lot of chickens and ducks on board, which
escaped from the orates when the storm smashed them. The ducks swam
ashore but the chickens all drowned. No human lives were lost and the
U. S. Coast Guard went out after the storm had passed to float our
vessel off the sand bar and bring it into port.
Off Whitefish Point
Off Whitefish Point, in Lake Superior, I had an adventure once
which shows the danger of heavy snow on that most treacherous of the
FORM C page -3-
lakes. When darkness fell on the "Vulcan", which was my ship, a
heavy snow storm, with a high wind, was raging. Our skipper,
following the southern shore, decided to go between a small rocky
island and the main land, about forty miles distant. He set his
oourse correctly, as he thought but there was a cross wind and
as we were without a cargo the ship rode high in the water. All
night we kept looking for the island, which should have appeared
to starboard, or on the right hand. We did not see the island,
but with the dawn our lookout made out the Canadian shore. Our
skipper took bearings and found that the wind, during the darkness,
had drifted us far out into the lake. Instead passing the is-
land on the lee side, close to the shore, we had gone on the other
side. The skipper turned very white when he had determined our
position. We could have piled up on the island.
His Master's Voice
Sailors, I believe, are born and not made. I took to the boats
when I was thirteen years old and have reached the age of fifty-two
without being able to leave them, although I have tried several times.
On the Great Lakes navigation stops during the winter, on account of
the ice. During the winter of 1911, therefore, I worked in the
Illinois Steel Co., in South Ghica7o. By spring I was running an
overhead crane, which is a good, well -paid job. I was making more
money than I could rake on a boat, several times over. Perhaps I
would have stuck, but one uo ning I heard a big freighter cut loose
with her whistle down in the river. I got to thinking, with the
FORM C page -4-
CHICAGO FOLKSTUFF
,result that I asked for my time at the mill and in a few days was
once more on a boat, with a good old rolling deck under my feet.
The Sitting High Jump
I can't prove what I ,ay and have no evidence to support me, but
I tell you that I saw the record for the sitting high jump broken all
to hell. It was at the start of the orld War. I was wheelmee on a
lake boat at the time, but I quit in Duluth and enlisted with the
Canadians. We left Ualifax in a transport bound for England about
5,000 of us. ie were not -;Tany miles at sea and I was down below,
taking with members of the crew who were off watch. One of them was
a huge negro oiler, who was bewailing the fact that he had ever left
the southern cotton plantation on which he was born. He sat on a
stool right across from me. Suddenly there came a shock as if an
enormous club had walloped the ship in the side. That colored man
went straight up into the air off his stool, a distance of several
feet. ie et out a yell and rushed for the ladder. The club landed
ar°ain and he fell hackwards off the ladder. We all made the deck
promptly enough, to find that a German submarine was among those
present. She had fired two torpedoes into us. We were in a sinking
condition, but were able to beach ourselves between a couple large
rocks, which are numerous alonf; that shore. This was before the time
of convoys, but destroyers soon came to chase the submarine and all
of us were taken off the transport, after a few hours, without any
loss of life.