WEBVTT - Christmas Tree Ship 0:00:01.080 --> 0:00:04.600 Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from houtworks 0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:13.840 dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:18.280 Wilson and I'm Holly fry Say. We have a Christmas episode, 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:23.520 a shipwreck episode, and a ghost story all rold into 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:26.880 one thing, and that is the story of the Christmas 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:31.520 Tree Ship at the Rouse Simmons which thank in Lake 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:34.680 Michigan while hauling a load of Christmas trees to Chicago. 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:37.760 That's a really popular story in the Great Lakes region. 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:41.760 It's popular among Coastguard personnel because the Coastguard is carrying 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:44.760 on this tradition today. Um, It's been the subject of 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:48.279 documentaries and histories and folk tales and story books, and 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:52.480 yet I had never heard of it until listener Alfred, 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:56.960 and then many other people requested it. I'm not exaggerating 0:00:56.960 --> 0:00:59.360 when I say many many other people. We've gotten literally 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:03.040 to request for this in the last twenty four hours. Yeah, 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:06.240 we and we've gotten several like throughout the year. It's 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:09.720 not always when Christmas is is imminent, but as we 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:13.440 approached the holidays, it definitely ratchets up in in uh 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:17.200 frequency of request. Yes, So we're gonna start with a 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:20.759 little background on three things. The first is the captain 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:24.320 of the Rous Simmons, the next is the Christmas Trees themselves, 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:26.360 and then the third is the ship that they were 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:28.319 sailing on. And we're going to kind of talk about 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:30.880 those three things before we talk about the actual event. 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:35.640 So Captain Hermann E. Schoeman was originally from Wisconsin. He 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:38.040 was one of six children, and he was born around 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:41.080 eighteen sixty five. This was right at the peak of 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:44.040 sail powered shipping in the Great Lakes. He was growing 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:47.720 up as sail powered ships were being supplanted by steam 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:50.680 powered vessels, and most of the sailing ships that stayed 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:54.800 on the water as steam took overhauled lumber. Herman and 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:58.320 his brother August moved to Chicago when Herman was about 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:02.360 twenty years old. Chicago was home to an extremely busy 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:05.000 harbor where they could try their hands at both sailing 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:11.120 and at other business ventures. On April nine, Herman married 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:15.640 Barbara Schindel. They had three daughters named Elsie, Hazel, and Pearl, 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:19.799 and those last two were twins. Herman in August did 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:23.240 pretty well for themselves, but by far their most money 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:26.560 making time of the year was in November and December 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:30.639 when they sold Christmas trees. So the use of evergreen 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:33.480 bows to decorate homes around the winter solstice is a 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:38.079 European tradition that goes back centuries. Uh Then, in Germany, 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:42.280 medieval Christians began decorating evergreen trees with apples to symbolize 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:45.120 the Garden of Eden, and this eventually morphed into the 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:47.760 tradition of Christmas trees as we know them now, where 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:50.639 it stop being apples and many other ornaments took their places, 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:53.200 and you eventually get what we are used to seeing 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:58.880 in homes today. Decorating Christmas trees really did not spread 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:02.799 far beyond its German roots until the eighteen forties when 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:06.800 Queen Victoria encouraged Prince Albert, who was born in Germany, 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:08.920 to decorate a tree as he had done when he 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:12.400 was a child. Once a sketch of the royal family 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:16.120 next to their tree appeared in the London News, Christmas trees, 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:21.360 as was unsurprising when Queen Victoria did anything, became extremely fashionable. 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:25.160 She's quite a trend setter in many regards. We've talked 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:27.560 about possibly doing an episode on just the things that 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:30.800 she set in motion in terms of cultural popularity, But 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:34.440 by the late nineteenth century, decorating trees had become a 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:38.520 widely popular Christmas activity in the United States, and evergreen 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:41.280 trees were in high demand leading up to the holiday. 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:45.400 To in Chicago in particular, schooners laden with Christmas trees 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:48.520 arrived from Wisconsin and northern Michigan, which were the nearest 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:54.560 evergreen forests. These shipments came much later in the season 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:57.880 than your typical lumber run or even your typical other 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:01.880 shipping across the Great Lakes, because the objective was to 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:05.280 deliver the trees not too long before Christmas, but before 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:09.400 the absolute worst winter storms made the Lake two hazardous 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:13.000 to cross. This meant that Christmas trees were traveling on 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:16.440 Lake Michigan as much as a month after all of 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:19.159 the rest of the shipping operations had pretty much shut 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:22.440 down for the season, and there were not that many 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:25.520 people willing or able to make this late season trip. 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:29.400 Estimates put the number it maybe a couple dozen vessels, 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:33.279 and included among these were ones captained by the Schuneman brothers. 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:36.800 This is a job that Herman Schuneman seems to have 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:41.160 really genuinely enjoyed, and he even continued to Hall trees 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:44.440 after his brother was killed in a shipwreck doing that 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:50.080 exact thing. August Schuneman was aboard the schooner s Thal 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:54.080 which broke up in a storm near Glencoe, Illinois in November. 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:59.640 Of everyone aboard the ship was lost. Most likely the 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:01.839 only reason that Herman was not on board with his 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:05.559 brother was because his twin daughters were newborns at that time. 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:10.279 But after his brother's death, Herman Schunemann kept hauling Christmas 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:13.880 trees on a number of different schooners. As he expanded 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:16.599 the Christmas tree business, he kept meeting to go farther 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:19.719 and farther north to get better trees for less money. 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:22.400 This was great from a business perspective, it gave him 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:26.000 a bigger profit margin, but the farther north he went, 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:29.159 the more likely he was to face really dangerous weather. 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:34.120 And he also upgraded his vessels, working his way up 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:37.359 through larger, more stable vessels that could hold more trees, 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:39.839 and the last of these, which he used for three years, 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:43.800 was the Rouse Simmons. The Rouse Simmons was a two 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:47.560 hundred five ton three masted schooner which measured a hundred 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:50.320 and thirty two feet long and twenty seven feet wide. 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:53.840 It was licensed and enrolled out of Milwaukee on August 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:57.520 eighteen sixty eight, and it was named after a prominent 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:01.240 merchant from Kenosha, Wisconsin, who was one of the primary 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:06.640 investors in the ship. Like most captains, Schuman couldn't afford 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:09.200 to just buy a ship of his own, so in 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:13.120 Captain Schuhman bought a partial share of the Ralph Simmons, 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:16.159 and that same year he established a new business, the 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:20.880 North Michigan Evergreen Nursery. It's address was the southwest corner 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:23.480 of Clark Street Bridge, which let him sell the trees 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:26.840 directly from the ship, rather than having to offload them 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:30.760 and then distribute them to grocers and other resellers. He 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:33.560 wasn't the only person who was doing this. There were 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:37.520 other Christmas tree sellers who were uh selling directly from 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:39.720 their ships, and they would generally decorate the ships and 0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:42.599 it would be a big production. And like, getting to 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:45.160 that part of the story made me kind of wistful 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:47.320 that I didn't live in Chicago during this time, because 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:49.919 I think going down to the docks to pick a 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:52.839 Christmas tree off of a ship would have been really cool. 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:55.800 I would love to hunt down some pictures of the 0:06:55.839 --> 0:07:00.279 decorated ships if we can. Yeah, I I as of 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:02.840 as as of when we're sitting here, have not been 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:04.120 able to find one that we can use. But I'm 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:10.680 gonna keep looking um So. By nineteen twelve, shoot him 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:14.400 On and Captain Charles Nelson each owned an eighth of 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:18.400 the roup. Simmons and a businessman named Man's Jay Bonner 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:21.520 owned the remaining three quarters of the ship, and by 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:24.920 that year Sheneman had also purchased two hundred forty acres 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:29.720 of land in Michigan, who uses his own Christmas tree farm. 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:32.960 Even by cutting out the middleman and owning his own farm, 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:36.800 his margins were still basically razor thin. He had to 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:40.040 transport as many trees as possible to be able to 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:42.560 pay the salaries of the people who tended and cut 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:45.080 the trees. He also had to pay the crew and 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:47.600 everyone else involved in that chain, even though it was 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:52.640 kind of encapsulated. Even so, he was an extremely generous man, 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:55.200 and he actually gave a lot of his trees away 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:59.400 to Chicago's poor, and he became such a beloved figure 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:02.440 during this Chicago Christmas tree season that people started calling 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:06.400 him Captain Santa. He seems to have loved this title, 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:10.080 and he kept Captain Santa newspaper clippings in his wallet, 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:12.520 which he wrapped an oil skin while he was captaining 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:18.119 the schooner to keep the contents dry. So we're about 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:20.120 to get to the more sad part of the story, 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:23.640 so let's take a brief moment before we do. That. 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:26.560 Sounds like a smart plan, so to return to the 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:30.640 last voyage of the rows Simmons and November of nineteen twelve, 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:33.480 shoot Himan had been doing late season runs to haul 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:37.640 Christmas trees for almost thirty years, so he was really 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:41.559 experienced in doing this. The rows Simmons had also been 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.160 on the water for more than forty years, which was 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:47.160 about twice as long as the typical lifespan of a 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:50.400 sail powered ship at the time, so as you might 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:53.120 expect given its age, the ship was not in great 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:57.520 condition anymore. All of those years of service, especially the 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:00.800 ones that were spent sailing in stormy other had taken 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:04.440 its hole on it. The schooner left Thompson, Michigan on 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:07.600 November twenty two and nineteen twelve with somewhere between three 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:11.280 thousand and five thousand Christmas trees. This was too many 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:13.800 to fit in the hold, so many of them were 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:17.280 arranged on the deck. Some people who saw it leaveport 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:20.559 described it as looking like a floating forest. The reason 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:23.520 for being so overloaded was that many of the region's 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:26.400 Christmas tree farms had been hammered by bad weather that year, 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:30.880 and trees were in particularly short supply. There's a lot 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:33.360 of stuff that we don't have really clear details about, 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:36.120 and one of those is that we don't have a 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:39.920 lot of concrete information about exactly who was aboard the 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:43.800 Ralph Simmons for its final voyage. We know Captain Schunemann 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:46.720 was there, as well as Captain Charles Nelson, each of 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:49.439 them owning an eighth of the ship. There were also 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:52.959 probably nine or ten other crew aboard, and there are 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:56.520 reports that a party of lumberjacks had secured passage to 0:09:56.600 --> 0:10:00.240 Chicago aboard the schooner. None of this is document did 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:04.720 very well. A huge winter storm hit Lake Michigan while 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:07.160 the raw Simmons was en route. We don't have a 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:10.320 lot of information about what happened between the schooner's departure 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:12.920 on the twenty two and to fifty p m. On 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:16.600 the following day, when a Surfman, which is uh what 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:18.880 you would call a member the Life Saving Service, which 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:22.760 would later become the U. S. Coastguard, told his station keeper, 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:26.120 Captain Nelson Crate, that he'd spotted a ship heading south 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:30.600 and flying a distress signal. Captain Crate tried to find 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:33.240 a tug boat that to go out and help the 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:37.400 then unknown schooner, but the vessel he was after had 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:40.959 actually already left a few minutes later, he lost sight 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:43.440 of the ship, so he called the Two Rivers Life 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:46.040 Saving Station, which was the next station to the south, 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:49.600 to raise the alarm. He ordered that they take their 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:52.400 boat out to try to meet the distressed vessel and 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:56.040 offer aid, and they did, heading out to the approximate 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:58.360 position where they should have been able to meet the schooner, 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:01.800 and at first they had clear weather and good visibility, 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:04.679 but as it started to get dark the gale blue 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:09.080 in visibility became extremely poor thanks to missed and heavy snow, 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:12.040 and the rescue crew couldn't find any sign of the 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:15.360 reported schooner, and forty ft swells meant that their own 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:18.720 lives were then at risk. There are tales that are 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:21.680 break in the storm allowed some of the rescuers to 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:24.000 catch a glimpse of a ship that looked like it 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:28.040 was completely encased in ice and riding dangerously low in 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:32.439 the water. This is probably kind of a romantic embellishment 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:35.920 from later on. When the Ralph Simmons didn't arrive in 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:40.200 Chicago has scheduled on the morning of November, Barbara Shuneman 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:43.480 and her daughters were naturally worried that something had gone wrong, 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:45.880 but they held out hope that the captain had just 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:49.520 pulled into a safe harbor to wait out the storm. 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:51.800 This was something that he was known to do and 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:57.199 would be uh logical. But sadly the schooner never arrived, 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:00.760 which made this Christmas season are really somber one. In 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:04.520 Chicago that year, on December five, the front page of 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:08.199 the Chicago Tribune read Christmas Ship lost on the Lake 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:13.240 with seventeen on board, and soon after that Christmas tree 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:17.600 started washing up on shore near two rivers. The saddest 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:20.240 part of the story is really the loss of life. 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:23.560 But that part just broke my heart when I learned it. 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:28.440 Uh So, we're going to take another brief moment before 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:31.439 we get back to some discussion about exactly what might 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:33.440 have happened to the to the ship and to the 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:38.520 aftermath of this whole wreck. So there are several theories 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:42.160 about exactly what led to the loss of the Ralph Simmons, 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:45.880 along with all of its crew and its passengers. One 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:49.000 theory is that the ship lost its wheel during this storm, 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:53.640 although the wheel has been brought up by divers. Another 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:56.240 is that the weight of all those Christmas trees is 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:59.040 just too much for the aging schooner to endure once 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:02.760 the storm got really bad, especially considering that in that 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:05.360 kind of storm, the ship and the trees on the 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:09.960 deck would have become increasingly covered in heavy ice. And uh, 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:12.640 if you live anywhere where icy weather is common, you 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:17.680 know how heavy a giant load of ice can be. Oh. Yes. 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:20.839 A third theory is that Schuneman's failure to have the 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:25.560 ship recalked before the nineteen twelve season was ultimately his undoing. 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:28.560 He'd had the ship recalked the year before, and he 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:31.240 probably didn't do it in nineteen twelve because he didn't 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:34.280 have the money in the aftermath of having been sued 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:38.640 over non payment of a debt. The fourth theory is 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:42.120 that a huge wave caught the ship's anchor and kind 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:46.880 of launched it over the bowsprit and that this momentum 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:49.560 pulled the bow of the ship under the water into 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:53.880 a dive it just couldn't recover from. Fisherman did find 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:57.120 a wallet wrapped in oil skin belonging to Captain Schunman 0:13:57.240 --> 0:14:01.360 in their nets in nine four. Its contents were still 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:05.200 intact and it was returned to his family. A diver 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:08.319 named Kent Bell Richards found the deck in nineteen seventy 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:10.960 one while he was looking for a completely different shipwreck, 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:14.160 which was the Vernon That was a much larger ship 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:17.199 that sank during a storm in eighteen eighty seven. This 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:20.120 is all kind of serendipitous. He found the wreck by 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:24.240 feeling it after his cobbled together dive like malfunctioned under 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:27.280 the water. The Ralph Simmons was in a hundred and 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:30.200 seventy two ft of water, about four and a half 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:32.880 miles from two rivers, and it was still full of 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:35.960 Christmas trees, Some of the ones below the decks still 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:41.480 had their needles intact. This was coincidentally not far from 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:43.880 where the Ralph Simmons nearly met its end in a 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:47.320 different storm in nineteen o five, when its masks were 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:50.360 thrown off in a gale. In July and August of 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:53.640 two thousand six, there was an underwater archaeological survey of 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:57.320 the ship. It was conducted by the Wisconsin Historical Society. 0:14:57.760 --> 0:15:00.440 They found that the anchor chain and the math we're 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:03.920 all lying forward of the bow. And so one possible 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:05.800 explanation for this would be that the bow of the 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:08.680 ship became too heavy and it took a nose dive. 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:11.640 And another is that the heavy items like the rigging 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:14.480 and the chains were all shoved forward as the ship 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:17.200 was sinking and then actually sank for some other reason. 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:19.960 So it's all basically lends to support to the idea 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:24.160 that it sank nose first. We don't have a lot 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:28.840 more clarity about why that happened. Divers have pulled up 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:31.840 a number of artifacts from the ship, including its nameplates, 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:35.080 and as we said before, the wheel. Today it's actually 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:41.080 a popular stop for recreational divers. In nineteen thirteen, Chicago 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:43.960 put up its first Christmas tree and daily plaza in 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:47.240 memory of the Ralph Simmons and the crew. More than 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:49.680 a hundred thousand people came out on Christmas Eve to 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:53.880 pay tribute. There's also a plaque in commemoration on the 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:57.880 Clark Street Bridge. In spite of this tragedy, Barbara and 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:01.160 her daughters continued to sell Christmas tree is, continuing to 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:04.120 ship them by schooner for a number of years, and 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:07.400 the practice of bringing Christmas trees into Chicago on schooners 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:11.720 actually stopped completely by nineteen twenty. Sometime in that window, 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:14.720 the Schotamans started sending the trees by train and then 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:17.640 selling them from a schooner in the port the shoot. 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:20.000 Him and daughters continued to sell trees from the family's 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:22.880 lot for a few years after Barbara died in nineteen 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:26.840 thirty three. In December of nineteen thirty four, they actually 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:29.440 set up a Christmas tree shop in Chicago that they 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:33.200 called Captain and Mrs Schunman's Daughters. That was the only 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:36.400 year that they did that. There continue to be ghost 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:40.400 stories about the Rows Simmons that people saw rats leaving 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:43.320 its hole before it sets sail in nineteen twelve, and 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:45.840 that it continues to sail the waters of Lake Michigan. 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:48.600 People also claim that they can smell the scent of 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:53.880 evergreens at Barbara Schumann's Chicago grave site and today, which 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:55.680 is I think one of the reasons that people ask 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:59.200 us to do this episode so often the US Coast 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:02.480 Guard cutter Mackinaw carries a load of more than a 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:06.880 thousand Christmas trees to Chicago every year for distribution among 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:11.200 Chicago's poor in commemoration of the Rows Simmons. So it's 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:15.800 become this Chicago tradition that has gone on for a while. Uh, 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:18.400 and I think some of I know for sure this 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:20.199 is not a thing. I know for sure that some 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:22.560 of the people who requested it sort of wanted to 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:27.679 know the story behind this tradition without already knowing that 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:31.240 it involved the a shipwreck with the loss of all 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:36.040 aboard writing Christmas time. So now we know. You know, 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:42.480 they're seemingly fun in a hurry. Yeah, it's We've had 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:45.359 a series lately where in some cases we knew it 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:47.159 was going to be sad before we started, but we 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:49.640 didn't realize how sad, or in the case of this one, 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:52.000 did not really know that it was going to be sad, 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:55.359 and then it turned out sad. Uh. Do you have 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:59.080 unsad listener mail? Perhaps? Do you have listener mail? I 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:01.840 don't remember which when I picked today and whether it 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:04.760 is sad or not, but but it is about shipwrecks 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:08.639 because it comes from our episode about this submarine S five, 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:13.000 which several people have written to let me know that 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:18.280 a submarine is a boat and target the ship that 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:20.320 it targets the ship, so you don't call a submarine 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:21.879 a ship, which I think we did in the episode, 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:25.920 because I didn't know that me either. This is from Thomas, 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:28.679 and Thomas says I enjoyed the S five episode and 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:31.360 all the others too. Dying in the water is probably 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:35.480 my second biggest fear of death two. But first isn't 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:38.560 drifting into outer space, which is what I said. Mine was. 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:41.840 It's dying in a fire and would probably feel about 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:44.320 the same. I'm sure you've gotten all kinds of feedback 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:47.600 with various other great acts of calm under fire prompted 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:50.879 by the captain's hell by compass comment. My favorite is 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:53.640 from Captain Al Haynes as he was cleared to land 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:56.680 United Flight two three two in Sioux City, Iowa, July. 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:01.560 As with the sub commander's comment, one just needs a 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:05.439 little context to appreciate the gravity of the situation, maybe 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:07.480 in a black hole being too recent to be part 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:10.240 of quote history and too far back for you to 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:14.600 remember so here is the high level. The DC ten 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:17.560 heavy set out of Denver and had two hundred and 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:20.439 ninety six souls on board. It was just beginning to 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:23.639 be sequenced for its arrival in Chicago. It was over 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:28.080 Iowa a catastrophic failure rendered one of three engines and 0:19:28.240 --> 0:19:33.160 all control surfaces inoperative. There is no car analogy, because 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:35.760 the car lives in two D land, not three D 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:38.960 and can just stop. The closest you might come is 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:42.560 thinking about a car's steering locking up and the accelerator 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:45.600 being stuck wide open, and you're leaning one way or 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:48.840 the other to try to influence the direction. That is 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:51.719 not an exaggeration. I heard the captain speak in an 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:54.639 aviation seminar. He said that when they reached the base 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:57.359 on the radio to ask for help and describe the situation, 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:00.399 the base reassured them that they didn't under stand what 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:03.119 was wrong, because if the situation was as they said, 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:08.240 the plane would have long since crashed. Compound the situation 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:11.199 with the next forty minutes of pressure mounting as they 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:15.160 bobbed through the skies of Iowa. Able to modestly control 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:19.159 left hand turns with engine differential, the three guys in 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:24.439 the cockpit carrying the other two people's lives in their hands. 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:29.160 You can see the desperation of the situation. So finally, 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:31.719 near the end of the ordeal with Sioux City Insight, 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:35.440 the air traffic controller clears them to land quote on 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:40.040 any runway and Captain Haines response, you want to be 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:47.120 particular and make it a runway. Huh. Some transcriptions add 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:49.680 notation that there was a chuckle in his voice. Anyway, 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:53.480 that's my favorite cool under fire quote. By the way, 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:55.919 his leadership in the event saved over a hundred and 0:20:55.960 --> 0:21:00.840 eighty lives. Thank you so much for sending this story, Thomas. 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:03.520 Although I was old enough during this event that in 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:07.239 theory I could have remembered it, I do not remember it, 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:10.639 probably because for many years I had a phobia of 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:18.120 air travel and I studiously avoided all news about any 0:21:18.200 --> 0:21:22.480 kind of air disaster. Um that which I think. I 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:26.159 think He's sent a separate email that included uh, footage 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:29.040 of the crash itself, And even though I am now 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:32.239 able to fly and it's I'm usually pretty okay, I 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:37.960 was like, no, I'm not looking at that. I love 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:39.919 that quotes there, So thank you so much, Thomas for 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:42.639 sending it. 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