“Does any one know where the love of God goes, when the waves turn the minutes to hours?” ~ Gordon Lightfoot
The gales of November came early this year, turning Lake Superior into an angry ocean, with breakers reaching two stories high and causing damage up and down the coastline. They also came early on October 9, 1927, when the mighty lake claimed my grandfather and two of his friends, who were trying to launch a small fishing boat while at a family picnic at a friend’s cottage. Although the wind probably wasn’t quite as strong as the November gales, the waves were making the launch difficult, and an especially large one swamped the boat, tipping it over. Hampered by heavy wool clothing and coupled with a strong undertow, the men didn’t stand a chance. According to the newspaper articles and the Coast Guard’s log book, they drowned in front of their families and in four feet of water. The descendents of these long-ago friends gathered at this small cottage, named Camp Wasa after the owner’s home in Finland. Strangely enough, it remains in the same family after all these years, and I am thankful for the kindness of this family who shared it with us for a special afternoon. Even stranger is the fact that the cottage remains in unrestored condition, right down to the furniture, the outhouse, and the log book which contains a hand-written account of the tragedy. As I toured the small camp, I imagined my grandfather drinking coffee at the table and my grandmother with my two-year-old mother on her hip, putting the finishing touches on a picnic lunch. I touched a lot of objects that afternoon, for some reason needing to feel the same things that perhaps he touched all those years ago. Nine children were left fatherless that day, and although my mother had few, if any, memories of her father, she never quite forgave him for getting in that boat. Ninety years later, we remembered them, at exactly the same time and in the same place. I wondered why they even attempted to go fishing that day. As someone rang a bell rang three times and a bagpiper played “Going Home”, I watched the waves crash upon shore and pulled my jacket tightly around me, feeling chilled to the bone. Even though the weather was sunny, the wind was probably every bit as cold as it was that day. Lake Superior takes a bit of the land back every year, so the sandy beach was probably a lot larger then. I pictured those nine carefree children playing in the sand under their mothers’ watchful eyes, neither children nor mothers imagining what was ahead. The elderly owner, looking out over the water and then at his deck and stairs, wondered aloud if they would be standing after November. Even Camp Wasa might be taken someday, he said, half to himself. He knows Superior and her gales, and we heard later that the storms of a week ago took the deck, stairs, and roof of the cottage. We tossed flowers into the waves that day, some of us bundled up, some of us barefoot in the cold sand. Those waves of ninety years ago turned the minutes to hours to years to generations, and yet, in the grand scheme of things, it was just in the blink of an eye. I would like to think that those three young men were with us that October day, perhaps sad at what they missed, but happy that we remembered them.
In memory of William Holm, Lennert Villberg, and Alfred Westerlund
The Minnesota Farm Woman 