Departure Day

More childhood memories.  The passenger liner Independence of the American Export Lines was due to sail from Pier 84 on the West Side of Manhattan at 11:00am on Monday, October 31, 1966, bound for several Mediterranean ports.  My grandparents, Robert Burns and Julia Murphy, would be two of the vessel’s passengers.  In honor of the occasion, my brother and I did not attend school that day, nor did my parents go to work.  Instead, my father drove the entire family into the city, and we all took part in the traditional departure festivities.

My grandparents had been travelling to Europe regularly since 1953 for my grandfather to attend the annual international engineering conferences.  Sailing overseas back then was always a special occasion, and the passengers’ families and friends customarily came to the ship dressed in their best to see them off.  I remember their sailings that took place in the mid-1960s, such as their departures aboard the Atlantic in September of 1964 and aboard the Constitution in August of 1965.  Their sailing for Europe aboard the Independence on Halloween of 1966 was their last, as my grandfather subsequently retired in March of 1967.

When we arrived at the pier, my father let the rest of us out of the car.  Then he drove away to find a parking space, usually at a nearby gas station.  Longshoremen took the luggage.  Later it magically appeared in my grandparents’ stateroom.  Once my father had rejoined us, we all hiked up the gangway and boarded the ship.  My grandmother took care of the business of showing tickets and passports, settling into the room, and choosing a table in the dining hall.  In addition, we all toured the ship, posed for pictures, and joined in the general merriment of the morning.

Since we were free to roam around the ship at will, we made the most of the opportunity.  To a teenager and a small child, the Independence was an object of fascination, full of all sorts of interesting things.  To my young eyes, everything looked so very, very big, as if constructed on a gargantuan scale to add mystery to the fascination.  There were towering funnels, cavernous lifeboats, expansive public rooms, long passageways, high railings, and wide-open deck spaces, but a diminutive swimming pool.  While the pool was closed, the grand library was not.  I especially loved this room.  It had deck-to-overhead bookshelves fronted by glass doors, oversized windows for viewing the sea, plush couches and lounge chairs, and in the center, a large globe, probably four or five feet in diameter, that stood taller than I did.  I remember liking this shipboard library so much that I didn’t want to leave it.  For that matter, though, I liked the whole ship so much that I scarcely wanted to return ashore, let alone return to school!

Unfortunately, though, as sailing time approached, all the visitors needed to leave the ship.  White-coated men paraded through the passageways beating gongs and calling out repeatedly, “All ashore that’s going ashore!”  Naturally, my brother and I imitated this until the adults grew tired of the incessant repetition.  After we took leave of my grandparents, the four of us returned to the pier, and found a viewing space from which we could wave good-bye and watch the great ship depart. 

This was an exciting finale, as a carnival atmosphere prevailed over the crowd.  We spotted my grandparents at one of the large promenade deck windows and waved enthusiastically to them.  Other folks were less subdued and shouted valedictions across to their friends on the ship.  People threw streamers, waved pom-poms, let go of balloons, and generally raised a good-natured and celebratory commotion.  Somewhere in the background a band played, but this was hard to hear.  At the appointed time, the Independence blew her whistle and slowly backed out of her berth and into the mid-stream of the Hudson River.  Tugboats assisted her, whistles tooting in response to the pilot’s commands, and after the ship had gotten well clear of the pier, they turned her sharply to starboard and pointed her seaward.  Then the tugboats left, and the Independence proceeded downstream on her own.  A new atmosphere of quiet melancholy now prevailed.  With the ship passing out of view on her way to sea, the crowd dispersed.  My father went to retrieve the family car, and soon we were on our way home.

Since it was Halloween, I suppose I went trick-or-treating that evening, but I really don’t remember.  For me, visiting the Independence and watching her sail was the big event of the day.  Nothing else could compare to that.

Back in this earlier time, such bon voyage celebrations were standard practice when a passenger liner sailed.  Now, of course, all this festivity is a thing of the past.  For one thing, few people now have any interest in sailing to Europe when they can fly there overnight.  The golden age of the transoceanic passenger trade came to an end in the late 1960s, and airplanes have dominated the business ever since.  Families and friends could see travelers off at the airport, but it was not the same thing. 

Then, too, there came the matter of security.  Cruise ships now depart from the West Side piers.  Since the terrorist attacks of 2001, however, no one but passengers and employees are permitted access to these facilities.  The families and friends of those going to sea now say good-bye in the street in front of the piers, and the passengers must pass through modern-day airport-style screening before they are allowed to board the ships.  All of this was simply unimaginable in 1966.

Whether I like it or not, the world of my childhood and the world of today are vastly different.  It is tempting to view the age of the transatlantic passenger liners as the good old days, but the world had problems then, too.  I experienced this era with the innocence of childhood.  Later, I watched as my own children and eventually my grandchildren gazed in fascination upon big ships and jet airplanes with the innocence of their own childhood.  But there were restrictions by this time.  No longer could we just walk up the gangway and wander around the ship.  Blissfully ignorant of these new rules and the reasons for them, though, all the children and grandchildren had a wonderful experience.  Such a beautiful thing is the innocence of childhood!  Little wonder the Lord told his disciples,

Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not:  for of such is the kingdom of God….And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them (Mark 10:14, 16).

 

My childhood visits to the Independence and other passenger ships were very happy and special occasions, and in retrospect they have become sacred memories.  Viewed in the larger picture of life and against the backdrop of often cataclysmic world events, these bon voyage parties now represent an age of innocence, like the innocence of childhood, when embarkation was festive and gracious and not the logistical security nightmare it has since become.  Would that we could all “become as little children” (Matt.18:3) and return to such an Edenic state!

Now for some photographs from this happy time:

In one of my earliest attempts at photography at the age of nine, I took several pictures aboard the Independence, all of them off-center to the left.  First, we have the swimming pool near the stern.  The mile-wide Hudson River flows behind the ship.  The shoreline beyond that features the Palisades of New Jersey.

 

Next, we see one of the funnels.

 

Now, part of a row of lifeboats.

Then, a life ring, stowed upside-down.

 

As the ship sailed away from the pier, I tried a dramatic shot and achieved this ungainly result.

Fortunately, my father owned a better camera and took better photographs.  Here, he caught me unaware as I came down these steps.

He also took this picture, which looks much more professional than my humble efforts.

Finally, I include this three-generational portrait because it's one of my favorites.  My father actually took this aboard the Constitution on Wednesday, September 13, 1961, when I was not quite four years old.  My mother stands next to her father and my grandfather, who stands behind me with his hands on my shoulders.  In the several family pictures taken that day, my grandfather has his hands on my shoulders in all but one of them.

A Broader Canvas

Since childhood, I’ve collected pictures of ships.  Mostly postcards, these portraits were easily affordable and portable during travels.  The collection started with the passenger liners on which my grandparents sailed, and then continued with whatever seemed relevant to the family or historically noteworthy.  The result is an eclectic assortment, a little of this and a little of that, with a little from here and a little from there.

Each image has its own story, and in several instances, its own connection to our family.  With no further ado, then, let me present a dozen or so of what I think are the best and most interesting photographs:

The place where it all started.  An aerial view of the passenger piers on the West Side of Manhattan.  Shown at left are three Cunard ships, including the Queen Elizabeth in the center.  At right are the America of United States Lines and one of the twins Constitution and Independence of American Export Lines.  Note the overhanging fantail tern on the American Export ship.  This is a long gone aspect of the shipbuilder's art, a lovely finishing touch on a very attractive vessel.

The Constitution and the Independence were my grandparents' favorite ships.  They made unhurried voyages between New York and several Mediterranean ports, and while certainly first class operations, they did not engage in the movie star sophistication of some of the more famous liners.  This is my favorite portrait of the Constitution, one of a half-dozen that my grandparents collected.  She appears to be at anchor, probably off a Mediterranean port, judging by the shadows cast by a high summer sun.

  

Twice my grandparents sailed aboard the Cristoforo Colombo of the Italian Line in the late 1950s.  They mailed this portrait of the ship home from Italy following a voyage from New York to Napoli in October of 1959.

When the Cristoforo Colombo arrived in Napoli, she docked here at the Stazione Maritima.  Monte Vesuvio looms in the background across the bay.  The American Export ships also docked here.  Note the multi-colored twin stacks of either the Constitution or the Independence rising above the building.  Many years after my grandparents' travels, the Rigel docked here during my time aboard here in 1979.  More recently, the Nieuw Amsterdam, on which my oldest son got married, has docked here while on her summer cruises.

During my transatlantic travels of the 1970s, I happened across this souvenir log of the United States, which I gave to my grandfather.  He and my grandmother had made one voyage on this ship in 1955, and I thought he would find this item interesting.  He did.  He told me, however, that the United States went too fast--New York to England in three days--and he preferred a slower, longer, and more leisurely crossing.  The voyage data on the back of this card brag about speed, speed, and speed.  I've come to agree with my grandfather.  The ships I later sailed on typically took ten days to reach Europe.

The troop transport Upshur is about to sail under the Golden Gate Bridge, most likely after departing from the Military Ocean Terminal in Oakland, California.  For years this vessel carried American military personnel, their families, and their belongings between the West Coast and the Far East.  She also carried South Korean troops during the Korean War.  Long afterwards, as the school ship State of Maine, notices stenciled in Korean remained on the bulkheads in the troop compartments.  I made two summer voyages on this ship as a teenager in the mid 1970s.  I also sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge several times, not on the State of Maine, but while aboard the Mercury and the Comet in the 1980s.

The ferry R. S. Sterling of the Texas Highway Department.  I rode this ferry on Monday, May 30, 1977, during the time of my apprenticeship aboard the tanker New Jersey Sun.  While she was drydocked at the Todd Shipyard in Galveston, I wandered around town on Memorial Day and found entertainment in free ferry rides between Galveston and Port Bolivar, Texas.

The aircraft carrier Lexington moored in her home port of Pensacola, Florida.  On another side trip during my time aboard the New Jersey Sun, my brother and I took a tour of this ship on Saturday, May 21, 1977.  Years earlier, as a student pilot, he had landed on and taken off from the Lexington at sea in the Gulf of Mexico.  I remember him remarking that the flight deck seemed pretty small.

A winter view of the first Queen Elizabeth at the Ocean Terminal in Southampton, England.  While such snow is unusual in southern England, the Queen Elizabeth and her sister the Queen Mary called at this spot regularly for decades.  Years after they reached the end of their careers, the oceanographic survey ship Wilkes docked at this same berth several times with me on board in the winter of 1980 and 1981.

Cunard's new flagship Queen Elizabeth 2 leaves Southampton for the first time in 1967.  The QE2 and I have followed each other along the American East Coast.  I saw her a few times in Fort Lauderdale when I was posted on the Bartlett and the two ships tied up across the pier from each other.  Years later, I took the children to see the Queen several times in New York and once in Portland, Maine.

An aerial view of the passenger ship piers in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the 1970s.  I acquired this postcard in Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico, in early November of 1979 when I was sailing aboard the General Hoyt S. Vandenburg.  I wanted very much to visit San Juan and see the old colonial city, but that would have to wait a few years.

The nearly identical twin sisters Caribou and Joseph and Clara Smallwood of Marine Atlantic.  These were two of the four vessels that connected North Sydney, Nova Scotia, with Argentia and Port-aux-Basques, Newfoundland.  We sailed aboard the Joseph and Clara Smallwood from North Sydney to Argentia on Monday, June 21, 2004.  At the time, it was the longest voyage the children had made--fourteen hours--and they loved every minute of it.  I did, too.  I remember that it felt absolutely wonderful to sail out of sight of land and onto the open Atlantic again!

The cruise ship Nieuw Amsterdam of the Holland-America Line appears in a computer-generated image.  While the line of foam alongside the ship would lead us to believe she is underway and making way through the water, there is no bow wave, no side wave, no stern wave, and no wake.  There are also no passengers or crew out on deck.  My guess is that this is an artist's rendering made while the vessel was under construction in 2010.  Still it's a good likeness of a fine ship.  Our oldest son, James, was married aboard the Nieuw Amsterdam in Fort Lauderdale on Sunday afternoon, February 5, 2012.  Three days later, with the whole family aboard, the Nieuw Amsterdam docked at the cruise ship piers in San Juan.  A dream come true, I happily spent the day exploring this beautiful city.  In one further family history connection, my grandparents' final voyage was a winter cruise to the Caribbean in January and February of 1968.  Sailing one last time aboard the Constitution, they visited San Juan and docked at the same piers as the Nieuw Amsterdam.

Since my childhood, then, ships have been important means of transportation as well as the centerpieces at family gatherings on many occasions.  From the bon voyage celebrations at the West Side piers to the wedding aboard the Nieuw Amsterdam and numerous voyages in between, these vessels have have served us very well.  Now, even though most of these ships are long gone, they live on in the photographic arts and in the family archives, and they bring back many happy memories.  The family and the ships thus form a dual blessing, and we are expected to “receive it from the hand of the Lord, with a thankful heart” (D&C 62:7).  In looking back on these happy times aboard these great ships, how could anyone not feel thankful?

The Shipping News

For many years The New York Times ran a daily page carrying news of the shipping industry. Located toward the back of the main section of the paper, this page contained news articles concerning merchant shipping and notices of the arrivals and departures of ships in New York Harbor. The news articles were fairly prosaic, involving freight rates, schedule changes, service adjustments, weather reports, and so on. The arrivals and departures were presented in tabular form. These tables listed every commercial ship and military transport vessel, its time and date of arrival or departure, its pier, and its voyage’s destination or port of origin. Sometimes entire itineraries would be listed if a ship was scheduled to make several port calls on the same voyage. In addition, it listed arrivals and departures for selected foreign and American West Coast ports.

There was nothing artistic or literary about this writing. It was strictly business. Today, however, it’s history. The names of the world famous passenger liners as well as the names of comparatively unknown freighters and tankers filled these pages as if they were a social register. In an era when the vast majority of the passengers, mail, and cargo crossed the oceans by ship instead of by airplane, the names of the ships and their times and piers of arrival and departure were important news items.

Here’s an example. Going back 56 years, we read that the passenger ship Nieuw Amsterdam of the Holland-America Line sailed at 12:00 noon on Friday, June 21, 1957, from Hoboken. She was scheduled to arrive at Southampton, England, on the following Friday, June 28, and then call at Le Havre, France, later that same day. Continuing her voyage, the ship would arrive at her home port of Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on Saturday, June 29.1

This routine transatlantic voyage interests me because my grandparents, Robert Burns and Julia Murphy, made this sailing in order for my grandfather to attend an engineering conference in Switzerland. They disembarked from the Nieuw Amsterdam in Le Havre, took a train to Paris, and after a few days there resumed their journey. When his business was completed, they travelled by train to Genova, Italy, where on Sunday, July 14, they embarked on the Italian Line’s Cristoforo Colombo. This vessel subsequently delivered them to the passenger piers on the West Side of Manhattan at 9:00am on Tuesday, July 23, 1957.

Day after day and voyage after voyage, this tabular data of arrivals and departures indicate that merchant shipping was a big business. The movement of passengers, merchandise, and mail across the world’s oceans commanded the attention of millions of people who had a personal or financial interest in the shipping. For my grandparents’ travels, this news was important to the family twice a year—the voyage out and the voyage back—for about thirteen years. For many others, it was a livelihood. Hence the importance of devoting daily an entire page of a major metropolitan newspaper to this information. But now, it’s history.

For me, it’s a very interesting history. The shipping news combines my family’s history and my affinity for the things of the sea. Big ships, long voyages, exciting destinations—these are some of the finest things in life! Sailing to Europe is always so much more enjoyable and adventurous, even if it takes longer, than strapping oneself into an airplane seat and getting there overnight. I have flown to Europe once and flown back from Europe once. I’ve sailed there and back many more times. Sailing is definitely better. My grandparents agreed. They certainly had the option of flying, and they did cross the Atlantic a few times by air in the mid 1960s, but they strongly preferred to travel by sea.

Here’s another example. In 1956 they sailed aboard the American Export Lines’ Constitution for the first time. Departing from Pier 84 at the foot of West 44th Street in Manhattan on Saturday, September 1, she called at Algeceras, Spain, on Friday, September 7, and at Cannes, France, and Genova, Italy, on Sunday, September 9. My grandparents disembarked in Genova.

They liked American Export and the Constitution so much that beginning in 1959 they sailed almost exclusively with this company. That year they returned to New York from Genova aboard the Independence, the Constitution’s twin sister. These are the ships that I remember from the 1960s. I was a small child then, but old enough to find everything about these great liners fascinating. On sailing day I spent hours wandering around these vessels with my family, examining everything and asking many questions before the ritual call of “All ashore that’s going ashore” was sounded.

But this is digression.² The shipping news pages in The New York Times call to mind a bygone era, when travel by sea was the norm, not the adventurous exception. It was a time when a person would speak literally of “when my ship comes in.” Shipping was a far-reaching business, a way of life, not just a vacation cruise or a novelty. From the humblest ferry crossing the Hudson River to the grand Queen Mary, vessels of all sizes, shapes, and purposes dominated the waterways. This changed as bridges and tunnels increasingly replaced ferries and the airlines became the mainstay for overseas travel. Ships do remain, of course, and they carry the freight and the petroleum the world uses, but so much of this is so far from public view that it is largely unknown. I’ve met people who honestly had no idea how all the Japanese automobiles arrived in the United States!

To read the shipping news, then, is to step back in time. Scrolling through reels of microfilm researching the ships and the voyages of my grandparents’ travels, I become absorbed by the lists of vessels arriving and departing from New York. The data, while tabular, is not impersonal. Merchant ships with names and personalities stand out on the pages. The American flagship United States; the two Queens of the Cunard Line; the –dam ships of Holland-America, including the Statendam, Noordam, Westerdam, and Nieuw Amsterdam, aboard all of which my grandparents sailed; the pragmatic Swedish Gripsholm and her fleet mates; the diminutive Atlantic; the several Export freighters; the numerous Esso tankers; the military troop transports including the good old Upshur³—these and dozens more connected New York with the rest of the world, and their comings and goings were important news to many, many people.

For some of us, the comings and goings of merchant ships remain very important. Something that was once a chosen career and a way of life for me does not lose its significance. Despite the passage of time, the yearning for the sea remains with me. While my seafaring days are regretfully long past, I can in some sense go to sea again by reading the old newspapers.

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¹ Rather than cite every last detail, I will simply note that all the voyage information comes from three sources: the shipping news pages on the appropriate dates in The New York Times, which are supplemental to my grandmother’s travel journals and my grandparents’ letters. They wrote frequently when they were away, and I consider this body of scripture a family heirloom.

² To continue the digression, see Leonard A. Stevens, The Elizabeth: Passage of a Queen, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968, for a fascinating and in-depth description of the workings of a passenger liner in commercial service between New York and Europe.

³ The Upshur later became the State of Maine, on which I sailed in 1976 and 1978 while studying for the license as third mate.

Pictures of Ships and Family

Some pictures of the family visiting the waterfront on various occasions between 1955 and 2012.   I took all but one of these photographs.  I think they convey a sense of the family's attachment to the sea and the ships that sail on it.  Click on each picture for a larger view.

The picture that started it all.  My grandparents, Robert Burns and Julia Murphy, aboard the American Export Lines' Independence at Pier 84 in New York on Monday morning, October 31, 1966, just prior to departing on their final transatlantic voyage.

The next generation.  The four children with their Mommy and Nana watch from Battery Park in Lower Manhattan as the Queen Elizabeth 2 proceeds to sea.

Steven, Michael, James, and Miss Karen visit the schoolship State of Maine at the State Pier in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on July 1, 1999.

Steven and Michael with the cable ship Global Mariner also at the State Pier in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on August 5, 2001.

My three sons with the Cunard Line's Caronia at the Block Falcon Cruise Terminal in Boston, Massachusetts, on August 13, 2001.

The three boys pose with the Dutch freighter Schippersgracht at the State Pier in Fall River, Massachusetts, on August 27, 2001.

Underway aboard the ferry Governor Herbert H. Lehman, the boys watch the outbound tanker Falcon and the inbound container ship Zim Mediterranean pass each other off St. George, Staten Island, New York, on a hazy August 23, 2002.

The next day, August 24, 2002, the three boys pose in the rain in front of the fabled United States at Pier 82 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Before my time.  My grandparents sailed from New York for Le Havre, France, aboard the United States on June 24, 1955.  My father took this photograph of them with my mother and older brother on sailing day.

Back to the younger generation.  Michael and Steven stand on the stone beach at Orient Point, Long Island, New York, on a cold April 26, 2003.  They have disembarked from the ferry Susan Anne after completing a voyage from New London, Connecticut.

The million dollar view.  Sunrise over Campobello Island, New Brunswick, seen from Eastport, Maine, on June 23, 2003.  The children arose very cheerfully at 3:15am in order to see this.  

A wedding aboard ship.  James poses in the Crow's Nest Lounge of the Holland America Line's  Nieuw Amsterdam in Port Everglades, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Sunday, February 5, 2012.  Behind him the container ship Melbourne Strait is departing.