Gordon Lightfoot Forums - View Single Post - The Fitz

charlene · 11-09-2015, 08:03 PM

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wiscons...343326082.html

and Daughter of cook: http://cjonline.com/news/2015-11-07/...alize-its-crew By Tim Hrenchir
Posted Nov 7, 2015 at 4:37 PM

“The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down

Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee

The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead

When the skies of November turn gloomy.”

So begins Gordon Lightfoot’s haunting 1976 ballad, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

The song holds special meaning for Abilene resident Pam Johnson.

Her father, 62-year-old ship’s cook Robert Rafferty, was among the 29 crew members who all perished when a storm bringing near hurricane-force winds sank the freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior on the evening of Nov. 10, 1975.

Canadian singer-songwriter Lightfoot paid tribute to those who died by writing the song, which rose to No. 2 on the U.S. Billboard pop singles charts.

“I love Gordon Lightfoot and that song,” the 63-year-old Johnson said in a recent interview.

She noted that an autographed copy of “Summertime Dream,” Lightfoot’s album containing the song, is among memorabilia she keeps in the fifth-floor, high-rise apartment where she lives with Bill Johnson, her husband of 46 years.

Pam Johnson said Lightfoot personally persuaded her 15 years ago to begin attending events held each November in the Great Lakes area to memorialize the ship’s crew.

Johnson became an active part of the ship’s community of survivors, and has been interviewed many times for books, TV reports and newspaper articles.

She has also spoken often in public about the sinking. Johnson made a presentation Saturday at a “Gales of November” conference held to mark its 40th anniversary in Duluth, Minn., and she is scheduled to appear Tuesday at an event in Detroit.

During an interview last month in her apartment, Johnson said she looked forward to returning to the Great Lakes area.

“Here, I’m nobody,” she said. “Up there it’s like I’m a famous person, though I’m really not. I’m just the daughter of the cook on the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

The cook:

Lightfoot’s song mentioned the ship’s cook as it described the doomed vessel’s final hours:

“When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck sayin’

Fellas, it’s too rough to feed ya

At 7 p.m. a main hatchway caved in, he said

Fellas, it’s been good t’know ya.”

Lightfoot took some artistic license in writing those words, as nobody knows what the men on the ship really said.

Still, Johnson said the statements attributed to the cook were the type of thing her father would have said.

She recalled Rafferty as a kind, jolly, heavy-set man who loved his family dearly and was accustomed to cooking for 30 or 40 people at a time. On his bald head he often wore a fedora, which is a felt hat with a wide brim and indented crown.

When he was home, Rafferty would make huge pots of spaghetti and chili, Johnson said.

She said, “I would ask, ‘What are we going to do with all that?’”

Johnson opened a worn copy of her father’s cookbook, “Ship’s Cook and Baker.”

“I use a lot of his recipes now,” she said.

The Detroit Free Press reported Johnson used one of those in November 2013 to make apple Dutch cake, which was served to guests at an outdoor memorial ceremony the River Rouge, Mich., Historical Museum held in a park about 1,000 feet from where the Edmund Fitzgerald was launched.

The “winds of November” whipped through the park as “the crowd lapped up her stories and her cake,” the newspaper reported.

The wreck:

Johnson was the only child of Rafferty and his wife, the former Brooksie Williamson, who were married in 1949. She has a half-brother from her mother’s first marriage, Randall Williamson. He lives in Toledo, Ohio, where they grew up.

Johnson married when she was 17 and her husband was 20. When her father died, she was 23 and living with her husband at Fort Benning, Ga., where he was serving in the Army and waiting to go to Germany. They had three children and one on the way.

Rafferty initially wasn’t supposed to be on the last voyage of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which was known as “the Fitz,” but the ship’s cook suffered bleeding ulcers that left him unable to go. Another cook who formerly spent about a decade on the ship turned down a chance to make the trip, Johnson said.

She said her father didn’t feel comfortable on the Fitz but decided to make the trip and retire when it ended.

The ship was carrying 26,000 tons of taconite pellets, which are tiny balls made from refined iron ore, to be used to build cars. It was going from Superior, Wis. — just south of Duluth, Minn. — to a steel mill near Detroit, with plans to dock in Cleveland for the winter afterward.

Divers later retrieved many of the taconite pellets, and Johnson keeps a bucket containing hundreds of them in her apartment.

The Fitz sank about 17 miles short of reaching Whitefish Bay near Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. Crew members ranged in age from a 21-year-old deckhand to the 63-year-old captain, Ernest McSorley. No bodies were recovered.

Johnson was told of the sinking the next day at Fort Benning. She remembers learning from her husband that the ship had gone down, then returning a call from her mother and asking, “Is my daddy dead?”

Johnson had long since stopped calling her father “daddy,” but she said that when she realized he had died, “It was like I was 5 years old again.”

The song:

Thirty-six days after her father died, Johnson gave birth in December 1975 to her fourth and last child, Jeremiah Johnson. She then took her children with her to Germany to join her husband.

Meanwhile, Lightfoot — who had already had four hit singles in the United Sates — became inspired to write a song about the ship’s sinking after reading a Nov. 24, 1975, Newsweek magazine article, “The Cruelest Month.”

Johnson learned in Germany that Lightfoot’s song about the sinking was receiving U.S. radio airplay. She first heard it at a noncommissioned officers’ club.

Johnson said she got a little bit angry because she saw people dancing to the song, but later realized they didn’t understand the deeper meaning of what the crew’s families had endured.

The sensitivity Lightfoot’s lyrics showed toward the surviving family members particularly struck a chord with Johnson.

She said one of her favorite parts goes:

“They might have split up or they might have capsized

They may have broke deep and took water

And all that remains is the faces and the names

Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.”

Johnson sent Lightfoot a letter thanking him for creating the song. She still has a copy of the handwritten letter he sent back, dated Feb. 17, 1977, expressing his fondest regards.
The community

Johnson’s mother died in 1986, and her husband retired from the Army in 1991 at Fort Riley. Today they have — in addition to their four children — 15 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Johnson said she was working at an Alco store in 2000 when a co-worker made a comment about how an item that was dropped “sank like the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

Johnson asked why the co-worker used that particular term, then revealed her father was the cook on that ship.

The next day, Johnson showed the co-worker her letter from Lightfoot, who would appear in concert soon afterward in Salina.

The co-worker contacted a radio station, which interviewed Johnson and arranged for her to have two front-row seats.

There, Johnson said, Lightfoot took her aside and asked if she ever attended services held in the Great Lakes area to memorialize the Fitz’s crew.

Johnson said she hadn’t realized such services existed, and Lightfoot encouraged her to go.

She attended two such services upon the sinking’s 25th anniversary in November 2000, and even talked with Lightfoot at the one held in the Mariners Church of Detroit, which Lightfoot had called “the Maritime Sailors Cathedral” in his song.

Johnson has since had backstage passes while attending four of Lightfoot’s concerts, including one in March 2009 at the Topeka Performing Arts Center.

Hardly a day

Johnson said surviving family members of the ship’s crew welcomed her into their community, and over the past 15 years she has enjoyed traveling north to take part in events held in November to commemorate those who were lost.

She has made numerous speaking appearances in memory of her father, including annual presentations to third graders at Abilene’s McKinley Elementary School.

“Hardly a day goes by that I don’t think of him — but it’s hard not to, with all this,” she said, motioning toward mementos that adorn her apartment.

Those included four artworks on the walls depicting the ship, three of them hand-painted and one Johnson purchased in Sault Ste. Marie.

In a corner of the kitchen stood a Mediterranean deck chair, which Johnson said was removed from the Fitz before it sank.

Also on hand were:

» Her father’s union card, bearing his photo and his birth date, June 16, 1913.

» Several books about the sinking, with Pam Johnson being quoted in each.

» Two full bottles of “Edmund Fitzgerald Beer,” brewed by Great Lakes Brewing Co.

» An empty bottle of “Edmund Fitzgerald Wine.”

“It wasn’t very good wine,” Johnson said.

11-09-2015, 08:03 PM	#7
charlene Moderator Join Date: May 2000 Posts: 16,001	Re: The Fitz - 40th anniversary http://www.jsonline.com/news/wiscons...343326082.html and Daughter of cook: http://cjonline.com/news/2015-11-07/...alize-its-crew By Tim Hrenchir Posted Nov 7, 2015 at 4:37 PM “The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead When the skies of November turn gloomy.” So begins Gordon Lightfoot’s haunting 1976 ballad, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” The song holds special meaning for Abilene resident Pam Johnson. Her father, 62-year-old ship’s cook Robert Rafferty, was among the 29 crew members who all perished when a storm bringing near hurricane-force winds sank the freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior on the evening of Nov. 10, 1975. Canadian singer-songwriter Lightfoot paid tribute to those who died by writing the song, which rose to No. 2 on the U.S. Billboard pop singles charts. “I love Gordon Lightfoot and that song,” the 63-year-old Johnson said in a recent interview. She noted that an autographed copy of “Summertime Dream,” Lightfoot’s album containing the song, is among memorabilia she keeps in the fifth-floor, high-rise apartment where she lives with Bill Johnson, her husband of 46 years. Pam Johnson said Lightfoot personally persuaded her 15 years ago to begin attending events held each November in the Great Lakes area to memorialize the ship’s crew. Johnson became an active part of the ship’s community of survivors, and has been interviewed many times for books, TV reports and newspaper articles. She has also spoken often in public about the sinking. Johnson made a presentation Saturday at a “Gales of November” conference held to mark its 40th anniversary in Duluth, Minn., and she is scheduled to appear Tuesday at an event in Detroit. During an interview last month in her apartment, Johnson said she looked forward to returning to the Great Lakes area. “Here, I’m nobody,” she said. “Up there it’s like I’m a famous person, though I’m really not. I’m just the daughter of the cook on the Edmund Fitzgerald.” The cook: Lightfoot’s song mentioned the ship’s cook as it described the doomed vessel’s final hours: “When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck sayin’ Fellas, it’s too rough to feed ya At 7 p.m. a main hatchway caved in, he said Fellas, it’s been good t’know ya.” Lightfoot took some artistic license in writing those words, as nobody knows what the men on the ship really said. Still, Johnson said the statements attributed to the cook were the type of thing her father would have said. She recalled Rafferty as a kind, jolly, heavy-set man who loved his family dearly and was accustomed to cooking for 30 or 40 people at a time. On his bald head he often wore a fedora, which is a felt hat with a wide brim and indented crown. When he was home, Rafferty would make huge pots of spaghetti and chili, Johnson said. She said, “I would ask, ‘What are we going to do with all that?’” Johnson opened a worn copy of her father’s cookbook, “Ship’s Cook and Baker.” “I use a lot of his recipes now,” she said. The Detroit Free Press reported Johnson used one of those in November 2013 to make apple Dutch cake, which was served to guests at an outdoor memorial ceremony the River Rouge, Mich., Historical Museum held in a park about 1,000 feet from where the Edmund Fitzgerald was launched. The “winds of November” whipped through the park as “the crowd lapped up her stories and her cake,” the newspaper reported. The wreck: Johnson was the only child of Rafferty and his wife, the former Brooksie Williamson, who were married in 1949. She has a half-brother from her mother’s first marriage, Randall Williamson. He lives in Toledo, Ohio, where they grew up. Johnson married when she was 17 and her husband was 20. When her father died, she was 23 and living with her husband at Fort Benning, Ga., where he was serving in the Army and waiting to go to Germany. They had three children and one on the way. Rafferty initially wasn’t supposed to be on the last voyage of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which was known as “the Fitz,” but the ship’s cook suffered bleeding ulcers that left him unable to go. Another cook who formerly spent about a decade on the ship turned down a chance to make the trip, Johnson said. She said her father didn’t feel comfortable on the Fitz but decided to make the trip and retire when it ended. The ship was carrying 26,000 tons of taconite pellets, which are tiny balls made from refined iron ore, to be used to build cars. It was going from Superior, Wis. — just south of Duluth, Minn. — to a steel mill near Detroit, with plans to dock in Cleveland for the winter afterward. Divers later retrieved many of the taconite pellets, and Johnson keeps a bucket containing hundreds of them in her apartment. The Fitz sank about 17 miles short of reaching Whitefish Bay near Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. Crew members ranged in age from a 21-year-old deckhand to the 63-year-old captain, Ernest McSorley. No bodies were recovered. Johnson was told of the sinking the next day at Fort Benning. She remembers learning from her husband that the ship had gone down, then returning a call from her mother and asking, “Is my daddy dead?” Johnson had long since stopped calling her father “daddy,” but she said that when she realized he had died, “It was like I was 5 years old again.” The song: Thirty-six days after her father died, Johnson gave birth in December 1975 to her fourth and last child, Jeremiah Johnson. She then took her children with her to Germany to join her husband. Meanwhile, Lightfoot — who had already had four hit singles in the United Sates — became inspired to write a song about the ship’s sinking after reading a Nov. 24, 1975, Newsweek magazine article, “The Cruelest Month.” Johnson learned in Germany that Lightfoot’s song about the sinking was receiving U.S. radio airplay. She first heard it at a noncommissioned officers’ club. Johnson said she got a little bit angry because she saw people dancing to the song, but later realized they didn’t understand the deeper meaning of what the crew’s families had endured. The sensitivity Lightfoot’s lyrics showed toward the surviving family members particularly struck a chord with Johnson. She said one of her favorite parts goes: “They might have split up or they might have capsized They may have broke deep and took water And all that remains is the faces and the names Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.” Johnson sent Lightfoot a letter thanking him for creating the song. She still has a copy of the handwritten letter he sent back, dated Feb. 17, 1977, expressing his fondest regards. The community Johnson’s mother died in 1986, and her husband retired from the Army in 1991 at Fort Riley. Today they have — in addition to their four children — 15 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Johnson said she was working at an Alco store in 2000 when a co-worker made a comment about how an item that was dropped “sank like the Edmund Fitzgerald.” Johnson asked why the co-worker used that particular term, then revealed her father was the cook on that ship. The next day, Johnson showed the co-worker her letter from Lightfoot, who would appear in concert soon afterward in Salina. The co-worker contacted a radio station, which interviewed Johnson and arranged for her to have two front-row seats. There, Johnson said, Lightfoot took her aside and asked if she ever attended services held in the Great Lakes area to memorialize the Fitz’s crew. Johnson said she hadn’t realized such services existed, and Lightfoot encouraged her to go. She attended two such services upon the sinking’s 25th anniversary in November 2000, and even talked with Lightfoot at the one held in the Mariners Church of Detroit, which Lightfoot had called “the Maritime Sailors Cathedral” in his song. Johnson has since had backstage passes while attending four of Lightfoot’s concerts, including one in March 2009 at the Topeka Performing Arts Center. Hardly a day Johnson said surviving family members of the ship’s crew welcomed her into their community, and over the past 15 years she has enjoyed traveling north to take part in events held in November to commemorate those who were lost. She has made numerous speaking appearances in memory of her father, including annual presentations to third graders at Abilene’s McKinley Elementary School. “Hardly a day goes by that I don’t think of him — but it’s hard not to, with all this,” she said, motioning toward mementos that adorn her apartment. Those included four artworks on the walls depicting the ship, three of them hand-painted and one Johnson purchased in Sault Ste. Marie. In a corner of the kitchen stood a Mediterranean deck chair, which Johnson said was removed from the Fitz before it sank. Also on hand were: » Her father’s union card, bearing his photo and his birth date, June 16, 1913. » Several books about the sinking, with Pam Johnson being quoted in each. » Two full bottles of “Edmund Fitzgerald Beer,” brewed by Great Lakes Brewing Co. » An empty bottle of “Edmund Fitzgerald Wine.” “It wasn’t very good wine,” Johnson said.