Great Lakes sailors honored at annual induction ceremony

A crowd of almost 300 people packed into the St. Ignatius Fellowship Hall Saturday to attend the Great Lakes Lore Maritime Museum’s 14th annual Lake Lore Celebration and Gathering. The guests and inductees enjoyed a baked chicken dinner catered by Karsten’s Restaurant. The organization’s treasurer, Dave Mulders of Bay City, brought up four bushels of fresh cantaloupe for dessert.

THE PROGRAM began with a welcome to all the museum inductees, their families, and honored guests by Rogers City Mayor Beach Hall. Entertainment was provided by the local barbershop quartet, “The Nauticals.” The musicians claim to practice singing on their boats because, “The fish know all about scales.” The guest speaker for the program was Pat Labadie, historian, diver and exhibit coordinator at the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary and Underwater Preserve in Alpena.

Labadie noted that this is the first freshwater sanctuary and the only one that is focused entirely on a large collection of underwater cultural resources. The sanctuary has a collection of over 100 shipwrecks spanning more than two centuries of Great Lakes shipping history. Labadie and his team recently surveyed a sunken three-mast schooner, the Cornelia B. Windiate, near Presque Isle Harbor in 190 feet of water. The ship was built between 1873/74 and was bound for Buffalo, New York with a load of wheat harvested in Wisconsin when she became trapped in the ice, foundered and sank with all nine crew members on board. It was originally thought the ship was lost in Lake Michigan until divers discovered it in 1987.

THE LAST SEAMAN to be inducted on Saturday was retired Chief Warrant Officer Warren Toussaint who gave a moving acceptance speech, remembering the night the Bradley was lost in 1958. That night Toussaint was heading out on the “Sundew,” a Coast Guard buoy tender and he remarked, “I did not know if we were going to make it, there were 30- and 40-foot waves out there. I remember worrying about the Bradley being out there in the storm.”

Toussaint concluded his remarks with a recitation of the poem “Sea-Fever” by the former poet laureate of Great Britain John Masefield, “I must down to the seas again to the vagrant gypsy life. To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife; And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.” Director of the Great Lakes Lore Maritime Museum, Ed Brklacich, acknowledged the new inductees for 2004 and gave each a certificate and a flower. The program ended with a full salute from a ship’s horn.

THIS YEAR’S in

ductees are: Chief Engineer Richard D. Adair, Conveyorman Royal Arkwood, Steward Donald Jack Berg, Chief Engineer John W. Claus, Captain Robert L. Brisette, Chief Engineer John W. Claus, 3rd Mate Charles H. Cook; Captain Edward J. Derry, Captain Howard W. Fisher, Captain James D. Friedrich, Captain Herbert R. Friedrich, Lt. Commander Allen R. Gulau, Captain William J. Hayes, Assistant Conveyorman Victor H. Klee; A.B. Wheelsman William F. LaLonde, Chief Engineer Patrick A. Lamb, Captain Seth W. Lockwood, Chief Engineer Richard J. McDonald, Steward Lanceilot McGinn, Wheelsman Robert J. McGinn, Captain Oscar R. Miller;

Captain Donald M. Monroe, 2nd Assistant Engineer Merlin Pardike, Captain Richard Peacock, Captain Forest F. Pearse, W.L.C. Supervisor Opr. Harvey Peltz; Captain Wayne Randell, First Mate Earle L. Reynolds, 2nd Cook Elijay A. Showers, Stokerman Harry C. Sorgatt, Assistant Conveyorman Terry Sorgatt, Captain Paul F. Stone, Captain John Szczerowski, Captain Walter C. Szymoniak, and Chief Warrant Officer Warren Toussaint.

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