REMEMBERING 85 YEARS AGO

The car carrying six young men went through the ice of Deaths Door Sunday,
 March 10, 1935.  It was Tuesday when the car was finally grappled
 on one of the front wheels and pulled to the surface.  Three of the
victims remained in the back seat.  Bodies of the other three, found outside
the car, had been brought to the surface earlier.  (Island Archives photo)
 

Detroit Harbor, Washington Island -

Although it's been 85 years since the death of six young men who drowned while crossing the Door over the ice, the memory still carries a considerable sting for this family, as I suspect it might for other families who lost a loved one on March 10, 1935.

These were the circumstances that led to the incident:  A basketball game was played in Ellison Bay on Saturday, March 9, with six young men from the Island forming a team.  That evening the team car and several other cars with fans drove to Sturgeon Bay to spend the night before returning to the Island Sunday.  Although the group had agreed to gather in Gills Rock at mid-day, prior to crossing the ice, the car with the team arrived in Gill Rock earlier that Sunday morning (based upon observations and pieced-together accounts) and proceeded home.  A fog or a haze hung low over the Door, not unusual in certain winter conditions.  Despite what might have impeded visibility, the car with the six men started home.

Later that afternoon it was presumed the ball players had returned safely to the Island, but their absence was soon apparent.  By nightfall, those concerned realized what had happened. The six men who lost their lives were:

    Ralph Wade - 28
    John "Bub" Cornell - 22
    Leroy Einarsson - 21
    Norman Nelson - 19
    Raymond Richter - 21
    Roy Stover - 19

[SUGGESTED: ADDITIONAL INFORMATION is available in my blog posted March 9, 2015]

While looking for information related to the recent Mariner Sunday at Trinity, I found several pages about this 1935 incident in Clara Jessen's book, "I Remember," a book based upon her recorded history of March 1987, and later published in 2003. Clara wrote (starting p. 36, with a few edits):

Early Days of Marriage

Our first home was ready for us.  We lived in the house on the corner where the Albaqtross is now.  We rented it from Bill Engelson for $5 a month and John was to repaper it. He had bought a new rug and a new couch and with the furniture that was there it was a lovely, homey place.   The living room was quite comfortable with our hard coal burner.  We had kerosene lamps, but I know we used a lot of candles that first winter.  Thje kitchen was always real cold.  I think if you'd washed the floor on a old day, the water would have turned to ice.

I taught school all day and John was home. (John sailed on the Great Lakes)  He did the cooking, the dishwashing, cutting wood for the kitchen stove.  He had lots of company because the house was on the most traveled intersection on the Island.  I never knew when I came home from school who our dinner guests would be, but there was usually someone there.  John was a person who loved people and loved company.

I recall he always picked me up at school promptly at 5 o'clock and I was ready.  But one afternoon Varian (married to John "Bub" Cornell) and Mary (Cornell, sister of Bub) stopped in shortly after four and said, "Come on, Clara.  Let's go for a ride before John picks you up."  I don't remember where we went; it was just three of us stopping here and there, visiting, having a good time. 

John had to have his tonsils out and he could have this done for free at the Marine Hospital (in Chicago).  So after we had been married about six weeks he went to Chicago planning to be there three for four days at the most.  However, after he got his tonsils out infection set in and they kept him there for four long weeks.  

I had never stayed alone up to this point and I didn't want to stay alone.  I remember Florence Jess, who was single then, stayed with me a good many nights. So did Merle Johnson who was one of the other teachers at the school.  The last week Varian and Bub offered to stay with me.  They lived two miles down the road near the ferry dock and the traveling was rough and their home was cold.  They just moved in with me until John got back.  He got back on a Friday afternoon and Varian had a good dinner ready for us. We were real happy as the four of us sat down to dinner that evening.

In telling about his trip, John confessed that he did not enjoy traveling across Death's Door on the ice.  He admitted that he was nervous and he was real happy to hear that Bub and some of the others had come to meet him.  I remember Bub teasing him and laughing and saying, "Oh, you know that ice is perfectly safe. Those roads are marked. How silly you are to be afraid."  That was Friday.

The next day Bub and five other boys drove across on the ice to play a basketball game with one of the county teams. And two other cars full of Island fans went with them.  Varian didn't go because she was going to have some scout activities on Sunday and felt she had obligations to stay on the Island.  Sunday morning on our way to church John and I saw Varian on the road. We stopped and talked and she told us about the terrible dream she'd had the night before - that Bub had gone through the ice.  We laughed about it and said, "Aren't dreams awful?" and went to church.

Shortly after lunch we went to Tom's Hall to supervise or watch the Girl Scout practice. Varian, I think, was scout leader.  When I mentioned we had seen some of the people who'd gone the night before she lit up and said, "Oh, was it Bub's car?"  I didn't know which car it was.  I didn't know she had already started to worry.

It wasn't Bub's car. When that car wasn't home by evening and the other two cars were, everybody knew that something was terribly wrong. Those boys had taken a shortcut and gone through the ice:  six young islanders between 18 and 25 years old.  I went to school the next morning and realized that many of my students, at least four of them, had lost brothers in that tragedy. Everyone had lost friends.  We tried to have classes but every once in a while someone would be sobbing out loud.  I walked across the street to the clerk of the school board and said, "Mrs. Andersen, I can't teach and the kids can't study.  I'm going to close school down." And there was no school that week.

*      *      *

Islanders continued to travel over the ice, to the peninsula and back, but with a great deal more caution, it can be assumed.  There was no choice in the matter, as there was no ferry winter transportation until 1946, when the first steel hull ferry, Griffin, was placed in service.  Even then, there were no Sunday trips for many years. And the going with the 65-foot ferry often encountered ice conditions too much for the minimal horsepower.  But, it was safer than crossing the ice in a vehicle, that is, on days when ice conditions were considered suitable for crossing by vehicle.

Today, mindful of the loss of life years ago, we must still respect ice conditions in the Door passages, despite having an excellent piece of equipment in the Arni J. Richter.  Although they are fewer, there are still times when moving ice fields or blizzard conditions can place ferry operations on edge, at the limits of what may be considered prudent.  Better navigational instruments, greater horsepower, and excellent basic design each give ferry captains an edge on such occasions.