The Passing of the Torch

Buoyed by the happy memory of his recent last voyage aboard the ferry Cape Henlopen, and sustained by frequent visits from his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, my father spent his final months in quiet repose at Nashua Crossings, an assisted living facility near the family home.  The staff there took good care of him and kept him comfortable, well-fed, and safe.  In the summer, he enjoyed the great outdoors of the courtyard.  In the winter, he appreciated the warmth of the great indoors, thankful that cleaning up the snow and ice was no longer his responsibility.  In all seasons, he enjoyed the company of his family and took special delight in his three great-grandchildren.  They eased the loneliness and mitigated the infirmities of his old age.

But just as his time aboard the Cape Henlopen went by too quickly, so did his time with the family.  The debilitations of advanced age overtook him. He passed pleasant holidays at Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, but in this new year he required hospitalization and then hospice care.  Finally, on Friday evening, January 24, 2020, my father quietly rang up “Finished with Engines.”  Concluding an earthly voyage of 98 years, 2 months, and 22 days, he returned to the celestial sphere from which he had arrived almost a century ago.  There he joined our Mom and many other family members and old friends who had gone before him.  As the last of his siblings and cousins to leave this life, he has passed the torch on to a new generation that must now preside over the family.

A week later, on Friday the 31^st, I attended an interment service for my father at the Cemetery of the Holy Rood in Westbury, Long Island.  He had made his return to New York for this occasion not aboard a ship, but in a hearse.  I followed him on a bus.  In our last moments together as father and son at Holy Rood, the deacon intoned the customary prayers for the dead and, quoting Saint Paul, reminded us that “we have our citizenship in heaven” and that “we await the coming of our Savior” (both Phil. 3:20, NAB).  These good points remind us that all of our earthly voyages are temporary and imperfect.  The best is yet to come.

We who now carry the family torch in this life have the obligation and the opportunity to serve both the living and the dead.  This year, we plan to continue the temple ordinances for my Mom and several of her cousins.  Next year, we will start the temple ordinances for my father.  For many years, we will help with the temporal and spiritual needs of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  These family projects are “a sacred duty”[1] because “the family is ordained of God”[2] and is “central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.”[3]

Now, two photographs from the family archives.   My Mom took this father-and-teenage-son portrait on the bank of the Penobscot River at Fort Knox in Prospect, Maine, in October of 1976.  In the background, an unidentified tanker was discharging cargo at the oil dock in the paper mill town of Bucksport.  Many voyages lay ahead of us when this picture was taken.

Finally, a closer view of the rusty tanker that we were admiring.  Regarding my choice of a career in the Merchant Marine, I recall my father remarking that there was more opportunity for advancement aboard ship than there was in his field of school administration.  Every ship had a Captain.  Every ship had a Chief Engineer.  If I worked hard and studied diligently for the license exams, I could make it to the top.  It didn’t quite turn out that way, but he did have my best interests at heart! 

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[1] “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, General Relief Society Meeting, September 23, 1995.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

Sentimental Journey

In the earliest years of my seafaring career, the great city of Philadelphia and its environs loomed large on my itinerary.  I first arrived there as a cadet on the old State of Maine on Friday, June 11, 1976.  She spent three days docked at Penn’s Landing, a recently constructed center city waterfront tourist venue.  I wondered if this was really the site where William Penn had landed in 1682, but I never researched this point.  Next, on Tuesday, May 3, 1977, I traveled on Amtrak and then a local commuter train to Marcus Hook, seventeen miles downstream from Philadelphia, and there I joined the tanker New Jersey Sun as an apprentice.  She sailed for points south on Monday, May 9.  Finally, for three weeks in August of 1978, I sailed around Philadelphia and its suburbs on the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers as a deckhand aboard the oil barge Interstate 50.

In all these travels, my association with the Philadelphia area lay primarily with industrial facilities.  I was on intimate terms with the Sun Oil and BP refineries in Marcus Hook, the Gulf docks at Point Breeze, the Interstate tug and barge headquarters and repair shop at City Dock, the Pennsylvania Railroad coal pier (which also sported oil piping) in South Philly, and the big oil storage facilities across the Delaware in Eagle Point and Delair, New Jersey.  In the little free time that I had, I visited a friend at Villanova University and dined at Sweeney’s in South Philly.  When not underway on the water, I walked and rode trains.  By these methods, I came to know the “guts of the city,” as we called them, quite well.  I loved Philadelphia!

But I saw only a small part of the cleaner and more sublime side of the city.  One of the oldest and most important settlements in the United States, Philadelphia stands out as one of the historical, cultural, educational, and religious capitals of the country.  It is home to famous historical sites dating to the colonial era; major museums, libraries, and learned societies; world renowned colleges and universities; and a denominationally diverse collection of churches, cathedrals, basilicas, and temples.  Three of these structures commanded my attention on a recent return to this city of my vagabond youth.

On Tuesday, May 16, 2017, Miss Patty and I traveled on Amtrak to Philadelphia.  She was on her way to business meetings; I was on vacation.  On arrival at the Pennsylvania Railroad’s magnificent 30^th Street Station, we took a taxi to the Sheraton Hotel on North 17^th Street, our headquarters for the next two days.  From this location, everything I wanted to visit lay within reasonable walking distance.

On Wednesday morning, I set out.  My first important stop was Penn’s Landing, where my initial introduction to Philadelphia had taken place 41 years ago.  The old State of Maine was long gone, of course, her berth now occupied by the sailing ship Gazela.  Otherwise, little had changed.  The Delaware River stretched out placidly before me, and I thought of the many transits I had made of this great river aboard the Interstate 50.  I had passed by Penn’s Landing and passed under the adjacent Benjamin Franklin Bridge numerous times.  As the Interstate 50 plowed along, I painted her decks, fittings, and superstructure, often with the music from the hit film Saturday Night Fever blaring from the radio.  I was a teenager then.  Life was good, and it seemed to stretch out endlessly before me.  Little did I realize just how quickly it would all go by.  For some of us, it would go by much too quickly and be over much too soon.

From Penn’s Landing I walked a half-mile south to my next destination, a building that I’ve wanted to visit for a long time.  This was the Gloria Dei Church, locally known as the Old Swedes’ Church.  A colonial structure dating to 1698, it originally served a Swedish Lutheran congregation.  Today it is Episcopalian.  While this structure’s colonial and denominational history is very interesting, I had come primarily for its maritime significance.  Situated across Delaware Avenue from the Delaware River and the old break-bulk cargo ship piers, Old Swedes’ seemed an appropriate place to honor those “that go down to the sea in ships” (Ps. 107:23).  It was precisely for this purpose that I had come to visit.

Entering through the red-painted front door—red is the ecclesiastical color of welcome—I found that I had this small and cozy church entirely to myself.  Sitting momentarily in the rearmost pew, I looked around to get my bearings and noticed several memorial plaques on the walls.  I had come to see one of these in particular, and there it was.  On the back wall, under the balcony, and on the right-hand side of the church, was the large bronze plaque dedicated to the memory of the cargo ship Poet and her crew.  With a feeling of reverence, I approached it and read the main inscription:

In Memory of The 34 Men of The

U S Flag Merchant Vessel

S. S.  POET

Lost At Sea  October 25, 1980

Approximate Position

38 to 39 N Lat  63 to 66 W Long

The Serenity Prayer followed, and the next panel listed the crewmen’s names, ages, and hometowns.  One of these, Mark S. Henthorne, was a former school acquaintance of mine. I had known him slightly in Maine and aboard the old State of Maine.  He sailed as third assistant engineer aboard the Poet.  He left the girl he had planned to marry behind.  Very sad.

Another officer, Leroy A. Warren, may have known my grandparents.  As a young mate he had sailed aboard the American Export Lines’ passenger ships Constitution and Independence in the 1950s and 1960s.  My grandparents made ten voyages aboard these vessels between 1956 and 1968.  It’s possible that they may have sailed with and met this man on one or more of these voyages.  Aboard the Poet, he sailed as Master.  He left a wife and several children behind.  Also very sad.

I studied the memorial plaque carefully and took several photographs of it.  I noticed the ages of the crewmen and realized that 29 of the 34 were younger when they perished than I am now.  A very disturbing statistic.  I also recalled that I had read the book about the Poet[1] and had written something myself[2] about the loss of this ship and its crew.  Sitting down again in the pew in front of the plaque, I spent several minutes in quiet contemplation.

This time passed quickly.  When I thought that I should leave and continue about the day’s activities, I found that I could not go.  At least, not yet.  An intangible but clearly discernible spiritual presence, for lack of a better description, seized upon my mind and bid me stay a little longer.  At first I dismissed this as imagination.  I had seen what I had come to see and done what I had come to do.  What was left?  But the feeling intensified.  I felt compelled to remain a while longer, and so I did.  More time for quiet meditation, and an opportunity to pray for the repose of these men’s souls and for solace for their families.  The old Roman incantation that I had learned in my youth came to mind:

Requien aeternam dona eis, O Domine,

et lux perpetua luceat eis.

In pace requiescant.  Amen.

In time, the intensity of the feeling that I must stay diminished.  A happier thought, that I was visiting with old friends, took its place.  This seemed strange at first, for I had known only one of these men, and just slightly at that.  But then I remembered Joseph Conrad’s famous lines, and I realized that I shared “the strong bond of the sea”[3] and the “fellowship of the craft”[4] with these seamen.  That explained everything.  With a sense of accomplishment, then, I rose to leave the Old Swedes’ Church.  I felt confident that these seamen were not “lost at sea” but were truly in God’s hands.  He was taking good care of them in “a state of happiness, which is called paradise, a state of rest, a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care and sorrow” (Alma 40:12).

After nearly an hour in the Old Swedes’ Church, I returned to the center city area where I ate lunch and did some sightseeing.  This was very interesting, but another more sublime experience awaited me.

In the afternoon, with the Poet and her crew still on my mind, I visited two more churches: the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul of the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia and dating to 1846, and the Philadelphia Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, built in 2015.  Situated across Vine Street from one another, these magnificent and beautiful buildings complemented each other very well architecturally.

I entered the cathedral initially to admire its artistic grandeur.  But then a staff member met me near the front door and explained that while I was welcome to visit, an ordination rehearsal was taking place.  Two young men would be ordained to the priesthood on Saturday, she informed me, and they with several seminarians and older priests were preparing for the ceremony.  Watching them rehearse for this important event was a fascinating experience.  It led me to consider the tremendous personal sacrifices these young fellows would make in order to fully dedicate themselves to doing the Lord’s work for both the living and the dead.  I found this very inspiring and worthy of my utmost respect.

Similar thoughts filled my mind across the way at the Philadelphia Temple.  Men and women with careers and families sacrificed much of their personal time in order to participate in ordinances of salvation for the living and the dead and assist them in their progression into the presence of God.  This, too, I found inspiring and deserving of the greatest respect.

In both of these sacred spaces, I thought of the crew of the Poet and others who have left this life prematurely.  I appreciated deeply the opportunity I had to visit their memorial plaque in the Old Swedes’ Church and to pray for the safety of their souls.  And I hoped that in the Philadelphia Temple the ordinances for their continued spiritual sanctification would be done someday soon.

In the meantime, as John Henry Newman prayed, “in His mercy may He give [them] safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last!”[5]   

Following are some photographs from my visit to Philadelphia:

The sailing ship Gazela moored at Penn's Landing, the site that hosted the State of Maine in June of 1976.  In the background stands the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, linking Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The Gloria Dei (Old Swedes') Church and churchyard, a half-mile south of Penn's Landing.

 

Three views of the memorial plaque honoring the Poet and her crew inside the Old Swedes' Church.  A very sublime sight.

A pen-and-ink rendering of the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.  From a brochure provided by the cathedral staff.

The Philadelphia Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  From a brochure produced for the temple's dedication.

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[1] Robert J. Pessek, The Poet Vanishes: An American Voyage, Allston, Massachusetts: 1^st Books Library, 2000; biographical information on Captain Leroy Warren from p. 75-77 & 101-102; information on Mark Henthorne from p. 207-208.  Also, Mark’s surname is misspelled on the plaque.

[2] Included in my essay “The Dead.”

[3] Joseph Conrad, “Youth,” in Tales of Land and Sea, Garden City, NY: Hanover House: 1916, p. 8.

[4] Ibid.

[5] John Henry Cardinal Newman, “Sermon 20: Wisdom and Innocence,” in The Newman Reader, at www.newmanreader.org.

When My Ship Comes in

Some folks find this a bit strange, but I like to watch the comings and goings of commercial ships. Other people watch ball games; I prefer ships. I’ve always wanted more out of life than what sports could offer, and I’ve often turned to the sea in order to reach for the higher things of life. Living inland, it’s not always possible to spontaneously visit the waterfront. With the new technologies of the internet and harbor webcams, though, watching, if not actual visiting, has become easy and convenient. Thus on Sunday morning, October 27, 2013, I turned on my computer to watch my ship come in.

Peering into the darkness at 5:30am, I beheld the docks, the basin, and the inlet of Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The adjacent satellite image of the port was dotted with markers identifying the vessels already moored. The passenger ships Allure of the Seas, Carnival Freedom, and Royal Princess had arrived early and occupied the largest berths. Two Dutch freighters, the Dijksgracht and the Spiegelgracht, appeared at the cargo docks. And three tankers, the OSG Navigator, the Hellas Endurance, and the Overseas Houston, filled out the picture at the petroleum piers. Still at sea about five miles from the inlet stood the star of the morning’s show, the Nieuw Amsterdam. She was the one I had logged on to watch.

The Nieuw Amsterdam was returning to the United States from Europe. She had spent the summer and early autumn in the Mediterranean, carrying sightseers to such exotic ports as Barcelona, Palermo, Marseilles, Tunis, and Napoli—places I had visited in my vagabond youth—as well as Istanbul, Corfu, Piraeus, Dubrovnik, and Monte Carlo—places I had missed. Now, after a transatlantic voyage of ten days’ duration from Cadiz with a stop in the Azores, the Nieuw Amsterdam was returning to Fort Lauderdale, her base of operations for the upcoming winter months.¹ This was a special arrival, one not to be missed!

I watched the video on the computer screen intently. At 5:55am, having taken on a pilot at the sea buoy, the Nieuw Amsterdam entered the inlet. She came in slowly and gracefully, and at 6:00am was fully inside the basin. By 6:05am, using her twin azipod propellers and triple bow thrusters, she was gradually backing toward her berth. At 6:17am, the Nieuw Amsterdam was still backing down when her fleet mate Eurodam entered the inlet. Arriving from Canada with an intermediate stop in Port Canaveral, the Eurodam had hugged the Florida coast overnight and followed her sister to the pilot station and into port. At 6:20am the Eurodam was clear of the inlet, and two tugs and a pilot boat then started out to meet the incoming container ship CSAV Rupanco. At 6:21am the Nieuw Amsterdam was in position and being made fast at the same berth where my family and I had boarded her a year and a half ago. The Eurodam was by this time backing toward a berth diagonally opposite the Nieuw Amsterdam. At 6:36am she, too, was in position and being secured to the pier.

After spending the day discharging passengers, taking on food, fuel, and supplies, cleaning staterooms, and then embarking new passengers, the Nieuw Amsterdam and the other cruise ships would sail again, this time for Caribbean ports. Lots of folks in diverse locations, myself included, would watch these departures on their computers in the late afternoon. It would not the same as actually sailing, but an enjoyable and inexpensive substitute.

But for now, my ship had come in. Long used metaphorically to refer to some great fortune coming one’s way, the expression “when my ship comes in” expressed people’s dreams of doing better financially in an age when the general population was more aware of commercial shipping than it is today. Cargo ships had carried the riches of the Orient and the gold and silver of the Americas to Europe. When they arrived safely after these long and hazardous voyages, their owners became very wealthy men. It was a bonanza! But as in most businesses, these voyages made a few folks rich at the expense of many who did the grunt labor while living in squalor and risking their lives aboard primitive vessels sailing on largely uncharted seas. For most people, then, “when my ship comes in” remained more of a pipe dream than anything that would realistically happen.

Ships do come in and go out again, however. I’ve seen plenty of them come and go over the years. Whether for an hour or for many months, a ship becomes part of one’s life for a time and then is gone. When a passenger disembarks or a crewman is discharged, the ship on which he sailed recedes into his past. One’s association with it is thus only temporary. Another ship may take its place, but the new voyage or assignment will one day end, too, and the cycle repeats itself. Ships simply come and go, as does nearly everything else in life. Money, jobs, houses, vacations, holidays, and material possessions all come and go. Few things in life are truly permanent.

In my family, however, our ship has come in four times, or perhaps more accurately, four separate ships have come in. Taking the metaphor on a different course, these four ships are the James, the Steven, the Michael, and the flagship Miss Karen Elizabeth. These are my four children. They arrived at intervals over a period of six years, and like real ships they have come and gone from the family home many times. One has married, appropriately aboard a ship, and will in time be operating his own fleet. The others are well underway, too. But for all their departures from home to attend school, go scouting, visit grandparents, travel to college, and so on, they always were, are now, and always will be my children. The immutable laws of biology, the natural bonds of parent-child affection, and the temple ordinances of parent-child sealing work together to ensure that my children forever remain my children. They cannot be unborn or unsealed. God himself cannot change this, nor would he even want to, having authored the biology, the affection, and the ordinances that eternally bind us together.

Like a far-flung fleet of ships, our children have grown up and left home for distant places. They chart their own courses through life now, but they remain in contact with home via mail, email, telephone calls, text messaging, and now Skype, too. In an era when such telecommunication is available, the bonds between us command its use, for people who love each other naturally crave each other’s companionship despite distances.

The scriptures inform us of

the great work to be done in the temples of the Lord in the dispensation of the fulness of times, for the redemption of the dead, and the sealing of the children to their parents (D&C 138:48).

I think the redemption work for the dead is fairly well-known, but I suspect that the eternal parent-child connection may sometimes be overlooked in this age of high-powered, dual-career couples and professional day-care institutions. Miss Patty and I were very fortunate to have raised our children ourselves. It seemed like the natural thing to do, given our feelings for them. In this way the bonds between us were nurtured as well as sealed over the years. Now, distances notwithstanding, these bonds remain strong and ineradicable, family unity as our Creator intended it to be.

The commercial fleet in Port Everglades sailed again late Sunday afternoon and evening. My ship the Nieuw Amsterdam had come in, stayed about eleven hours, and then left again. As much as I may call her “my ship” for having made one voyage with her, she really isn’t. Owned by a major corporation, registered in a foreign country, and operated by other seamen, the Nieuw Amsterdam is not mine at all, and never has been nor ever will be. Like many ships before her, she came into my life and will eventually go out of it again. But the James, the Steven, the Michael, and the Miss Karen Elizabeth all came into my life to remain permanently and to be mine forever. They are the grandest fleet that any merchant seaman could ever want to sail with.

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¹ Voyage information for the Nieuw Amsterdam and the fourteen other ships of the Holland America Line comes from the company’s Cruise Atlas 2013-2014. This booklet contains full itineraries, maps, deck plans, photographs, and—alas!—prices.