I find this week’s Sepia Saturday 63 fascinating for various reasons. When anything relates to ships or water there are so many courses one can sail......If you desire more information for playing along too just go here
http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2011/02/sepia-saturday-63-saturday-26-february.html
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| This man sitting outside during a cold Minnesota winter is an example of a vendor making a profit from our curious nature for all things at sea. He knows he'll sell many copies with a headline "30 ADRIFT IN SOUTH SEAS" image courtesy Minnesota Historical Society, photographer unknown, appeared in Minneapolis Tribune. |
So my Sepia Saturday begins this week's theme about the great Four-masted barque, "Richelieu"
and my bond and attraction to water with stories from the sea or other waterways. "Richelieu" refers to- a French prelate and statesman, principle minister to Louis XIII (1585-1642), was the name-ship of a class of French battleships in WWII, is an airport in Quebec, Canada, also a river, a color and so much more.
So many boats, so little time…here are just a few. A most interesting note is the building of ships, their christening, names given and later renamed, the labels/flags/names they carry (for country too) the ports they visit, and often their momentous demise, or rebirth.
The changing or reissuing of past names can confuse things....you see the French had another more famous ship named "Richelieu" later which was a battleship....in her honor I present several other vessels much like that French navy battleship.......
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| Postcard from, Tanapag Harbor, Saipan November 11, 1944. Vessels (left to right) USS Salmon, USS Saury, USS Besugo, USS Burrfish, USS Pipefish, USS Sea Cat, USS Fulton, (tender) USS Ronquil, USS Tambor, USS Perch II, USS Pampanito, USS Archfish, and USS Searaven. (I've seen the USS Pampanito a museum ship berthed at Pier 45 San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf) |
Now for a maritime disaster in Chicago, Illinois .... about a much documented ruin of the Eastland. These images are from postcards from an antique store.
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| The S.S. Eastland- Clark Street Bridge- Chicago River |
Just what happened? The S.S. Eastland based out of Chicago was a passenger ship used for tours. On July 24, 1915 she rolled over while tied to a dock on the Chicago River. A total of 844 passengers and crew were killed in what was known as the largest loss of life disaster from a single shipwreck on the Great Lakes. Following that disaster, the Eastland was salvaged and the United States Navy bought her and designated her as a gunboat
(here we go again) renamed, USS Wilmette, and primarily used as a training vessel on the Great Lakes and was scrapped following World War II.
In her touring days they called her "Speed Queen" of the Great Lakes. Sadly she was known to have too many flaws, too top heavy, her center of gravity too high, and she was over crowded once in 1903 causing her to list and water to flow up one of her gang planks. So many incidents proceeded even a mutiny ensued on the 14th of August 1903 while on a cruise from Chicago to South Haven.
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| S.S. Eastland, after disaster on the Chicago River. July 24, 1915. |
...and this photo is of....
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| A postcard of : The brave and the strong divers, and their untiring efforts aided greatly in the recovery of bodies from the hull of the ill-fated Eastland. |
Flipping over to my father's scrapbook a look at a saying and a long time treasure.....
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| "Down East" a most asked question of the Maine tourist is what does "Down East" mean? In early times it seems the state was generally reached from Boston and other points by sailing vessels and with a prevailing westerly wind travelers sailed downwind to Maine, creating the local term, "going down to Maine" or "Down East." |
also from that scrapbook is a Christmas greeting card from my father to his mother (now mine)
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Apparently my father was aboard the U.S.S. Macomb DMS - 23 and besides my father's note my grandmother typed this message on the inside with her name below it...
A Mother's Prayer
God bless the ship Macomb
Wherever she may be
May His angels chart her course
Through every kind of sea.
My grandmother loved writing and creating poems, and yes this is a common sediment most mothers have while their sons or daughters are serving their country. But my grandmother had a scare besides. This is the story I heard. It's not always the best of times to be in an automobile accident, but my father suffered one during a weekend leave, and lucky for him he had a short time in the hospital instead of going out on his scheduled ship which had some incident and sunk. |
I close this post with sort of a mystery on the water.
Going back to a family album this grouping of photos remains a mystery to me yet.
(I won't post them all) All are untitled, no story quotes and pasted in the middle of photos from
Marseilles and
Versailles France.
So your guess or knowledge could solve this unidentified collection of ship disasters.
For the purpose of this post my best presumption would be the location
Marseilles, France, in and around the military fort located there. Please offer any information if possible.
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| Smoke drifted like lost barges across the morning sky..... |
heavy bursts of smoke...drifted away.....clouds sailing calmly as though nothing had happened...
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| Two ships together they slip....... |
like lost soldiers never to return home again...
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| Side by side they shared a lost journey.... |
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| Interesting ship to the left of this photo....... |
Through the smoke churning up on the right side of photo you wonder if something wasn't brewing on shore as well?
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| Oh these barrel drifting by could bring answers to this mystery.... |
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| The black-clouded smoke swirls no more and soon she will be completely out of sight, but surely not out of mind. |
.....and so ends this brief flash through life on the water......and just a short few of the very many vessels that have roamed our world......just as ships will forever more pass by in the night...so live long those lives that live by the sea...
