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Local artist’s great-grandfather saw Titanic set sail

By
Toledo Free Press
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Titanic is depicted about to leave Cherbourg, France, in this painting by Ralph Henry titled "Floating City of Lights."

Local artist Ralph Henry has spent years chronicling the maiden and final voyage of the most famous ship in history. Working in colored pencil, Henry has drawn more than a dozen portraits of Titanic — depicted everywhere from the docks at Southampton, England, to its final resting place at the bottom of the sea.

His works have been displayed in various locations around the area since 2006, most notably in a regular exhibit at the Lucas County Fair. But as the great ship’s voyage came to a sudden end, so too will Henry’s work in tribute to it.

“I’ve drawn quite a few of them, and this will be the last one,” Henry said. He noted that this year’s portrait will be given away as part of the festivities at the Lucas County Fair. “I’m actually titling it, ‘Steal the Titanic.’

“Lucas County, I will say, since ’08 has been the best and most accommodating, as far as my artwork goes.

“They have really graciously enjoyed the Titanic and stuff. And this year, when I actually informed the board that this would be my last year, they were kind of disappointed. I went, ‘Look, since you guys have had it, this’ll be the fourth year of you running it, it’s the anniversary — let’s let it go after this.’”

Painting by Ralph Henry

Although Henry’s interest in art goes back to his childhood, his passion for all things Titanic goes much deeper — you could even say it is in his blood. His great-grandfather, a shipbuilder from Yugoslavia, was actually present the day Titanic sailed.

“I had to write a report in the fifth grade, and I was sitting at my grandma’s desk,” Henry, a native of Jackson, Mich., remembered. “And I was looking it up in a little encyclopedia I got from Kroger, and it had a little picture of Titanic, and just a teeny little article. And my grandfather just happened to walk by and said, ‘I can tell you a better story than that book will.’

“And he sat down and relayed how his father was there the day Titanic sailed. He met with the shipbuilders. My cousin has the documentation. … He met with [ship designer] Thomas Andrews the morning Titanic sailed to sign agreements with them to build their ships for Yugoslavia.”

His grandfather’s story helped inspire young Henry’s passion for things aquatic — in addition to Titanic, he has drawn portraits of numerous other noteworthy naval subjects (and disasters) such as the Bismarck and the SS Edmund Fitzgerald. In fact, it was the latter that reignited Henry’s passion for art after a break of nearly a decade.

“I stopped drawing in 1995, actually, for 10 years. In the ’90s, I was making a lot of artwork and giving them as gifts. I really didn’t do any ships, though, just odds and ends and everything,” Henry said.

“In 2005, a neighbor bet me that I could not draw the Edmund Fitzgerald. And I said, ‘Fine, I’ll do it.’ And when I gave him the picture, he’s like, ‘I can’t believe this.’ And I just started drawing them again.”

He soon returned to his childhood obsession, and began creating works dedicated to Titanic.

“I did three in 2006, and one of them won first place at the Wood County Fair. Unfortunately, I don’t have them — my ex does,” he said, noting that he was told via email the paintings had been burned.

In addition to the exhibits at local fairs, Henry’s work has been displayed in several local libraries, such as Way Public Library in Perrysburg and the Maumee branch of the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library, which is exhibiting his portraits of the Titanic this month in commemoration of the sinking’s 100th anniversary. He made clear that his muse is not limited to nautical subject matter, however.

“I draw just about anything — I’ve drawn John Lennon, the Last Supper, just basically anything  I can draw — I can try it. I’m not gonna promise nothing, but I’m going to try it. I believe every artist has their own style, their own techniques, and everybody does it differently.”

“I look at it like, I don’t like to compete with other artists. Even though that’s what you do in the fair,” he said.

And through all his work on the great ship, whether it be his more realistic pieces or his more recent works which depict it in neon, augmented by a black light — Henry said he takes great care to capture the essence of the luxury liner, down to the last detail.

“It’s kind of difficult to explain, because when I do a piece, no matter what it is — I get a photograph of it, and I study it, very carefully. I believe in detail. I look very closely at the detail, and how I want it to look. Titanic has a lot of detail.

“It’s almost like a puzzle you’re putting together.”

Local researcher raises questions about Titanic legends

By
Erik Gable
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David Brown of Port Clinton, a Great Lakes captain and Maritime Academy instructor, has written two books about Titanic. Toledo Free Press photo by Erik Gable

What really happened the night Titanic went down? That question has become a passion for Northwest Ohio resident David Brown, whose research has led him to believe many of the traditional accounts of the unsinkable ship’s fateful wreck are wrong.

Brown, who lives in Port Clinton and teaches boat building at the Maritime Academy of Toledo, is releasing his second book about the disaster, titled “Titanic Myths, Titanic Truths.”

A licensed captain who has sailed all five Great Lakes, Brown also operated the Maumee River Water Taxi with a friend for about a decade. His interest in Titanic was piqued when he saw something in filmmaker James Cameron’s treatment of the disaster that didn’t seem right.

“I got into Titanic when I saw the scene where it strikes the iceberg in Cameron’s original version of the movie,” he said. “Bluntly, it’s impossible for a ship to do what was depicted in the movie and in most books and in most of the TV documentaries.”

Brown’s first book on the unsinkable ship, “The Last Log of the Titanic,” was published in 2000. He said he considers that book “a very good effort for when it was written,” but it has become dated as Titanic scholarship has advanced.

“I’m very proud of that book, but time has passed,” he said.

David Brown

For his new book, Brown said, he sat down and tried to figure out what it would take for every single statement Titanic survivors made in their testimonies to be true.

“What I’ve come to realize is that the classic version of the accident is not even close to what happened, nor could it be,” he said.

Brown said he’s no conspiracy theorist. There are any number of people with elaborate theories about the sinking — including one author who argued the doomed vessel was actually Titanic’s sister ship, sunk as part of an insurance scam — but Brown doesn’t buy into those.

The surviving crew members likely told the version of the story that was in their own best interests, he said.

Brown said the evidence suggests Capt. Edward Smith had been maneuvering the ship south in small increments to avoid ice, which ultimately was what placed the fatal iceberg in Titanic’s path. The conventional story of the ship scraping the iceberg while trying to pull away, he said, is physically impossible — as plausible as it might seem to someone who’s used to driving a car, not steering a ship.

“It’s a physical impossibility for them to have scraped the starboard bow while turning left,” he said.

In fact, Brown said, by the time the officer in charge of the bridge realized the iceberg was upon them, the only reasonable option was to accept the ship would strike it. Rather than steering from the front like a car, he said, a ship pivots around a point, and trying to move away from the iceberg at that point would only have worsened the damage.

Brown said he suspects even in 1912, with the automobile age in its infancy, most people’s land-based experience would lead them to see failing to pull away from the iceberg as foolish. That, he said, may be why some survivors described events the way they did.

“It didn’t sound logical,” he said. “Why would you deliberately run into something? But sailors are taught to take a glancing blow.”

Brown also theorizes that one of the biggest errors after the strike was engineers trying to start a bilge pump and mistakenly opening the wrong valve, letting water come rushing into boiler room No. 5.

The cause of this fatal mistake? Brown hypothesizes that when one of the engineers was injured and his superiors tried to help him, the result was the command structure falling apart.

As with many accidents, he said, there was no single cause that led to the deaths of more than 1,500 people.

“When two cars collide, 90 percent of the time both drivers had opportunities to avoid that accident and didn’t take them,” he said.

If the same thing had happened to the same ship as little as a decade later, Brown said, it probably would have ended differently — because the ship’s crew would likely have included many war veterans with firsthand knowledge of damage control.

“If Titanic had struck an iceberg after World War I, the engineers would have saved it,” he said.

Many Northwest Ohio families broken by Titanic disaster

By
Caitlin McGlade
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Titanic sets sail on her ill-fated maiden voyage. AP file photo.

When the Atlantic Ocean swallowed all 46,328 tons of Titanic, a poor immigrant sat waiting thousands of miles away for her fiancé to join her at their new Toledo home.

She would never see him again.

Another local woman would soon have to identify her husband’s body — only to learn that he shared the last hours of his life with a mistress.

A woman who convinced her brother-in-law to visit her from England would discover she inadvertently coaxed him to his icy death.

And in Fremont, beet farms would forever lie waiting for the hands of workers from Belgium to unearth their produce.

The ship sank thousands of miles away but Northwest Ohio felt the waves.

Chaos through a porthole

The death and wreckage washed up in the nightmares of some Toledo residents for their entire lives. The sight left one woman, Flora Posan, almost too terrified to travel overseas again to visit her Hungarian parents.

Posan was born outside of Budapest, Hungary, and moved to Toledo with her husband and children for factory work. When her second husband died in an iron works accident, Posan, her sister and her three children boarded Carpathia to voyage to her homeland.

They never made it there. Instead, they ended up back in New York City with a ship full of heartbroken Titanic survivors and the ghosts of those who lay down to die on the Carpathia’s decks.

“The deck was a scene of chaos,” Posan told a relative during an interview conducted later in her life.

Posan’s grandson Jerry Bascuk lives in Maumee. He said she was a strong woman — she outlived three husbands, raised four children, endured the death of one and witnessed the human carnage of Titanic’s demise.

Posan and her family traveled in Carpathia’s steerage. She watched from the porthole of the deck at about 1 a.m. She saw lifeboats overturn, tossing 16 women and children into the water to drown.

Many of those pulled aboard Carpathia died on the deck, she said.

“The next morning I watched them bury some of them,” she said. “They put the bodies on planks, the priests came by and spoke over them and they dropped them in the water. I was young then and I watched them do it; I wouldn’t do it today.”

Posan was 25 years old at the time. Bascuk said he found during his research that Posan traveled to Hungary in 1914, but the incident with Titanic left her hesitant to commit to any further sailing. She stuck to her East Toledo home in the Birmingham neighborhood for the rest of her life. She raised chickens in her backyard and grew much of the family’s food in her garden. Bascuk, who lived with her during part of his childhood, remembers little rewards he’d receive for shoveling coal — the occasional 50-cent pieces waiting for him downstairs in the mornings.

Posan’s sister Barbara told Toledo News-Bee that she saw things that she’d never forget.

“We would like very much to see our father and mother again before they die,” she told a reporter through an interpreter. “They haven’t long to live. But my sister and I wouldn’t cross the ocean now for all the money in the world.”

Lost life, lost love

Others from Toledo would never get to make that choice.

Karl Harbeck, of Blissfield, Mich., has done a lot of digging to learn about his distant relative who died when Titanic sank. That relative, William Harbeck, had two children but they never had kids. Fortunately for Karl, researching him wasn’t too difficult because he was fairly famous.

Titanic (AP)

William made movies. He was once the deputy sheriff of Lucas County. He marketed the 1890s version of Viagra, he ran a laundry business and edited a newspaper in Colorado. The Toledo native had his hand in a little bit of everything at the turn of the century.

Born in the 1860s (his exact birth date is disputed because it was recorded differently by various sources), William was the son of Lucas County Sheriff John Harbeck. After stints as the deputy sheriff and a laundry business manager, William sold “Long Life Sexual Power Wafers” from his Downtown office on Superior Street during the 1890s. These $3 packages would help “weak and impotent men and women secure healthy, powerful and vigorous development,” according to a pamphlet Karl found on eBay.

William’s film career took off in the late 1890s. He was one of the first motion picture photographers to catch the 1906 San Francisco earthquake on film. He worked as the official photographer of the Canadian Pacific Railroad. He worked for a company called Hale’s Tours that commissioned him to film cities and tourist attractions. The job took him to Yellowstone National Park, to Vancouver, Canada, and various other cultural hot spots. His career ultimately led him aboard Titanic, after he was hired to film the ship’s maiden voyage. He recorded events while en route and planned to depart from Titanic on a tugboat so he could film the ship’s arrival to the New York City harbor.

But the ship sank before that could happen. And all of his 110,000 feet of film went down with it. His body was found floating in a life vest.

William’s body was shipped to Halifax, Nova Scotia. When his wife Catherine arrived to identify the body, officials told her that records showed that his wife also died on the ship. She then learned that her husband had voyaged with a mistress — a French woman named Henriette Yvois. She was half his age. He booked her as his wife.

“One wonders what was going through her mind when she had his body picked up in New York and brought him back for burial and all of this came out,” Karl said.

Karl Harbeck at William Harbeck’s grave in Toledo.

Regardless, Catherine continued to maintain William’s other residence in Seattle to handle her husband’s film business, Karl said.

The Harbecks are buried at Woodlawn Cemetery. William’s faded gray headstone is slightly sinking into the ground, marked with the words “Victim of Titanic.”

On the lam or lost at sea?

Just 40 miles south, in Findlay, another family got word they’d lost a relative. The Yates family received a handwritten note indicating Jay Yates had perished on Titanic. He too was famous … but for different reasons. Yates was wanted for arrest in seven states.

Newspaper accounts described the man as a gambler, confidence man and fugitive from justice.

“Thank God, I know where he is now,” his mother told the Toledo News-Bee in April 1912. “I have not heard from him for two years. The last news I had from him he was in London. I spent nearly a fortune getting him out of trouble some years ago. Then he was charged with forgery.”

But perhaps she still did not know where he was. No one by his name, or his alias J.H. Rogers, was listed as a passenger on the ship. Some family members claimed to have thought they saw him after 1912 and many historians believe the note was a ruse.

But newspapers at the time reported that he went down with the ship.

An article from the Chicago Inter-Ocean reported that the man borrowed $1,900 by having another woman forge his wife’s name to a mortgage. Yates was also charged with stealing $2,700 in postal money orders, according to a 1998 Findlay Courier article.

When Titanic sank, newspapers reported that all that was left of him was a note, scribbled on a page torn from a diary and handed to one of the many women he supposedly helped board lifeboats.

“If saved, inform my sister, Mrs. J.F. Adams, of Findlay, O. Lost. — J.H. Rogers,” the note said.

According to the News-Bee, the woman who took his note mailed it to his sister in an envelope labeled “Survivor.” She wrote that she didn’t know Yates but that she thought he was a card player. Before her boat lowered to the water, she saw him jump into the ocean, she wrote.

She also noted that she thought he registered to the ship with a fake name.

Even if Yates was on board, some doubt he died in the Atlantic in 1912. The Findlay Courier article states that some family members believed, as of the 1990s, that Yates might have secured a lifeboat by disguising himself as a woman.

Destination NW Ohio

Northwest Ohio was the destination for many Titanic victims, according to Toledo News-Bee archives. There were the Vanderplanckes, a Belgian family seeking farm work and Henry Michael Mitchell, a 71-year-old retiree from Guernsey Islands, England, who intended to visit his sister-in-law in Toledo. And there was John Andonis of Hungary.

The Toledo News-Bee reported that a woman named Martha Kuskie moved to Toledo from Hungary in March 1912. She worked as a maid at the Madison Hotel. She and her fiancé had planned for him to join her in April so he bought a ticket to board Titanic to travel to the United States. Kuskie’s fiancé, a third-class passenger, was never found.

The Vanderplanckes were four of many Belgians taking Titanic to America. They perished, along with all but six of their fellow countrymen aboard, according to a 1998 article in Voyage, the journal of the Titanic International Society.

According to the article, the Belgians came primarily from two areas: Denderhoutem in East Flanders and Zwevezele in West Flanders. Many of them were recruited by travel agencies to work seasonal agricultural jobs. Much like migrant farmers today, they could save money and sail back home to share some of their earnings with their families.

A Fremont  company attracted Belgians for this reason. The Toledo News-Bee reported that the Continental Sugar Company expected at least 100 Belgians en route to work in the company’s beet fields died when Titanic sank. Many of these employees had spent winters in Belgium and summers in America.

This was the case of the Vanderplanckes. Julius Vanderplancke, 31, was employed by the company for four years. He returned to Belgium in 1911 to marry Emilia Vandermootele of Pittem, Belgium. The couple boarded Titanic with Julius’ 18-year-old sister Augusta and her 15-year-old brother Leo. Another Zwevezele resident named Victor Vandercruyssen joined them, according to “Ohio Tales of the Titanic” by Janet White and Mary Ann Whitley, a Northeast Ohioan who is a copy editor at The Plain Dealer.

The group traveled in third class and their bodies were never recovered.

Another trip ended in tragedy for Henry Michael Mitchell. The 71-year-old retiree was on his way to visit his sister-in-law Anna Jeffery, of 1605 Collingwood Ave. Mitchell had originally booked a trip on Philadelphia, which would have left harbor April 6. But a coal miner strike rendered the ship incapable of traveling, so Mitchell’s ticket was transferred to Titanic, according to Whitley and White’s book.

Jeffery, a widow, reportedly never forgave herself for convincing her brother-in-law to visit her, according to Whitley and White’s book.

The guilt of Belfast

“Ohio Tales of the Titanic” includes information about the 55 Titanic passengers who were headed to Ohio. Twenty-eight of them died. Whitley and her co-author toiled for years, scouring census records and local history departments at libraries, conducting interviews and scanning any other documents that led to clues about passengers. Whitley described the last six months as nonstop. They finished just in time to release their findings before the 100-year anniversary.

Her dedication to the subject is rooted in her family history. Her grandfather Edward Whitley and his brother-in-law helped build the ship that sunk. Edward died when Whitley was young so she did not talk to him about his experience in Belfast, Northern Ireland, building Titanic. But she said her father, who was a young boy when the family moved to America, recounted his childhood overseas. The disaster left Belfast, where much of the ship was assembled, horror-struck.

“I think they almost felt ashamed in a way and felt that they were blamed that this ship that they built had caused this big loss of life,” she said.

Some 1,500 employees worked long hours to construct Titanic. Whitley’s grandfather, who was a machinist and worked on the ship’s engine, did not board the ship. One of his friends, Archie Frost, wasn’t so lucky. Frost was part of the troubleshooting team on board. He and the rest of the team didn’t make it, she said.

That guilt loomed for years, an unspoken sorrow harbored by so many who lived in Belfast. One of Whitley’s relatives told her his grandfather was evidence of this.

“(He) only cried about two things — World War II and Titanic.”

Titanic survivor lived in Adrian, Mich., 50 years after sinking

By
Dock David Treece
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Sister Patrick Joseph Kelly, Titanic Survivor. Photo courtesy Adrian Daily Telegram

By DWIGHT LEONARD
(Adrian, Mich.) Daily Telegram

Titanic went down 100 years ago in the North Atlantic, but the events of that night were very familiar to one former Adrian resident.

Sister Patrick Joseph Kelly, an Adrian Dominican sister for 46 years until her death in 1969, was one of the relatively few people to survive the sinking of Titanic in 1912. Her journey began in County Mayo, Ireland, where she was born Anna Katherine Kelly, according to a paper written by her great-nephew John Kelly. At the age of 20 she decided to come to America where her sister and several cousins were living at the time.

On April 11, 1912, she boarded the RMS Titanic. Kelly made the voyage as a third-class passenger with a group of 14 others emigrating from County Mayo. Among this group were several members of Kelly’s family. At 11:40 p.m. April 14 the ship struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic and began to take on water.

An article from the Irish Independent reported in May of 1912 that people from the lower decks were kept from coming to the upper decks where they might have had a chance to board the lifeboats. The article goes on to say that Kelly was escorted through the crowd by a steward she met on board.

She was able to escape the sinking ship by getting into Lifeboat 16 just before it left. A seat opened in the boat when a young wife refused to leave her husband, choosing instead to stay on the sinking ocean liner.

More than 1,500 passengers died when Titanic went down. Less than one-third of those onboard survived, just more than 700 people. Of the 14 members of Kelly’s group, only three survived that night.

After being rescued by the Carpathia, Kelly was hospitalized in New York City then sent to Chicago with Ann McGowan, another survivor from the group.

Kelly remained in Chicago until 1921. She did not speak at all about her experiences despite encouragement to do so from her family.

Kelly even voted in a precinct other than the one in which she lived so that those who might be looking to talk to her about the experience would not be able to find her.

While in Chicago she became acquainted with the Adrian Dominican Sisters and in 1921 joined the convent in Adrian, taking on the name Sister Patrick Joseph Kelly.

Kelly spent time teaching in three schools in Chicago and two others elsewhere in Illinois. She also taught for a short while at four different schools in Michigan and one in Iowa.

In June 1969 she retired from teaching. She spent her retirement at the mother house in Adrian until her death in December of that year.

Lenawee connections

Another Lenawee County connection was announced in the Daily Telegram on April 17, 1912, when Hudson residents Harriet and Charles Halsted, siblings of passenger Catherine Crosby, feared their brother-in-law was lost after his name did not appear on preliminary lists of the saved:

“Grave fears are entertained here as to the fate of Edward G. Crosby, of Milwaukee, who with his wife and daughter were among the list of those rescued, but no mention is found of Mr. Crosby, and his relatives and friends here are very anxious for further news.”

Edward Crosby’s death was confirmed two days later.

Adrian resident Samuel B. Renington, who had sailed the North Atlantic several times, was the subject of an April 20, 1912, article in the Daily Telegram. He spoke about his observations and understanding of the presence of icebergs in the area where the sinking took place.

The county’s smaller, weekly newspapers, from the Addison Courier to the Tecumseh Herald and Tecumseh News, received full-page, pre-made templates between April 19 and 26 describing the disaster.

An advertisement published in the April 19 edition of that year’s Daily Telegram — and backed by insurance agents from Adrian, Addison, Morenci, Onsted and Tecumseh — was one of the first local ads to capitalize on the sinking:

“In Lenawee County, there are thousands of homes that are constantly in danger of meeting with as great a loss as those who lost their husbands and fathers on the Titanic. If the support of the family is taken away by death, that family not only suffers from grief, but too often from actual privation. We cannot expect a Carpathia to come along and rescue us, but a Life Assurance policy in the Northern Assurance Company of Michigan, will act as a life preserver for those who are left to care for themselves.”

(Adrian) Daily Telegram reporter Dan Cherry contributed to this report.

Ohioan among passengers retracing Titanic’s route

By
Toledo Free Press
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Todd Howell, a Titanic collector from the Columbus area, poses next to a replica of Titanic's grand staircase. Howell was among the passengers on a 100th anniversary cruise that was to retrace the intended route of Titanic. Photo courtesy Todd Howell.

At 2:20 a.m. April 15, Ohioan Todd Howell will be standing directly over the spot where, exactly a century earlier, Titanic foundered before slipping beneath the water’s surface, killing more than 1,500 of those aboard.

“Being over the wreck site could be somewhat eerie,” Howell said. “You think of the North Atlantic as being very rough and choppy, but they described that night as the seas being very calm. If the seas are calm, wow, that’s going to be a little eerie. I just expect it to be a solemn remembrance and am looking forward to completing the trip.”

The Columbus-area artifact collector and amateur historian is one of 1,309 passengers — the same number of passengers booked on Titanic — from more than two dozen countries participating in a 12-night memorial cruise retracing Titanic’s journey from Southampton, England, to New York City.

The trip was already fully booked several years ago when Howell, who works as chief financial officer at Seneca Medical Inc., in Tiffin, inquired. He was placed on a waiting list and jumped at the chance when a spot opened up.

“I’m viewing this as a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Howell said. “I’m not sure which part I’m not looking forward to. Just being there firsthand — not reading about it, but experiencing it and talking to these family members and historians. It will be a very unique experience.”

Todd Howell

Among those on board will be relatives of Titanic victims and survivors as well as authors, historians and other experts who will speak as part of an on-board lecture series.

One of the lecturers will be author Philip Littlejohn, the only relative of a Titanic survivor to have dived to the wreck site. Littlejohn’s grandfather, first-class steward Alexander James Littlejohn, survived, rowing the lifeboat that carried 9-week-old Millvina Dean, Titanic’s youngest survivor.

Passengers will also include a woman who wants to drop a flower at the spot her great-grandfather died, a woman whose great-grandfather had tickets for Titanic but did not board, a woman whose relative died while his wife survived in a lifeboat and a man whose grandfather helped build Titanic, according to the website of British travel agency Miles Morgan Travel, which organized the cruise.

The memorial cruise departed from Southampton on April 8, making a stop the following day at Cobh, Ireland (formerly known as Queenstown), where Titanic picked up more passengers, before proceeding to the disaster site, where the ship will host a memorial service for the victims.

After the service, the cruise will detour from Titanic’s original route to visit Halifax, Nova Scotia, where many Titanic victims are buried.

Howell’s wife and son will meet him in New York City, the trip’s final stop and the intended destination of Titanic, on April 19.

Miles Morgan Travel also organized an anniversary voyage, which departed from New York on April 10 and will meet the memorial cruise ship, the Balmoral, at the disaster site before stopping at Halifax and returning to New York.

Miles Morgan, founder and managing director of the travel agency, said the memorial cruise is the first trip to retrace Titanic’s route and the trips have been five years in the making.

A five-piece band playing period music and a menu featuring meals served on Titanic are among the details Balmoral passengers will experience. The ship, leased by Miles Morgan for the memorial cruise, is owned by Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines, whose parent company, Harland and Wolff, built Titanic in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

“Every step of the way we have sought to make it authentic to the era and a sympathetic memorial to the passengers and crew who lost their lives,” Morgan said in a statement.

Howell’s interest in Titanic was first sparked by the 1997 James Cameron movie.

“Historians have poked holes in what Cameron’s movie depicted, but he spent $200 million to bring as much realism to the event as possible,” Howell said. “You can read about it, but here’s someone who attempted to bring the panic and the hysteria to the movie screen. This is what people were experiencing. This was the horror. I thought he just did a wonderful job.”

Howell has been collecting Titanic artifacts for about 15 years. Among the more than 500 artifacts in his collection are an issue of the April 16, 1912, New York Times that printed news of the disaster, a piece of cane from a Titanic deck chair, a piece of carpet yarn from a Titanic stateroom, a smoking room floor tile from Titanic and a copy of the 1912 U.S. Senate Reports and Hearings on the Titanic disaster.

For more information, visit titanicmemorialcruise.co.uk or Howell’s website at thermstitanic.com. O

Henry Ford exhibit brings Titanic experience to life

By
Jeff
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A replica of Titanic's Grand Staircase.

Titanic buffs, history buffs and movie buffs alike may want to make time for a trip across the state line to visit the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn.

“Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition,” on display through Sept. 30, features more than 300 Titanic artifacts, 250 of which have never been displayed in Michigan. There are also several re-creations, including a first-class stateroom, first-class hallway, third-class cabin, an iceberg and the grand staircase, said Tom Varitek, senior manager of program operations.

The exhibit takes visitors chronologically through the history of Titanic, from its construction to its ill-fated voyage to the discovery of its wreck and artifact recovery efforts.

All the artifacts on display were collected from the debris field at the wreck site; none were taken from the ship itself, which is treated as a memorial, Varitek said.

Display items include a lump of coal, a collection of men’s travel items and a suitcase full of preserved papers.

“The exhibit uses everyday artifacts to create context of extraordinary historic events. The lump of coal is a touchstone to the boiler operators who, even though they knew the ship was going down, stayed at their stations and kept shoveling coal, which kept the lights on,” Varitek said. “You can imagine the terror if the lights would have gone off on top of everything else. Who can say how many lives they saved with people still able to see exits and stairs.”

Grand Staircase replica

The travel items include a shaving kit and instructions on how to work a new camera.

“That really brings the story home to me because those are things I would bring on a trip,” Varitek said.

The papers in the suitcase were preserved because the tanning oil in the leather kept out microorganisms, Varitek said.

“It’s amazing that after seven, eight, nine decades that paper didn’t disintegrate,” he said. “You can still read the writing on letters and postcards even though it’s been on the ocean floor.”

At the start of the exhibit, each guest is handed a boarding pass with the name of an actual Titanic passenger or crew member. At the end of the exhibit, visitors learn the fate of their person.

“If people can associate themselves with a historic event, it becomes a little more real,” Varitek said. “What the museum tries to do is create a touchstone for a historic event, so hopefully at the end it will become a little more real as a tribute to the people and the lives lost and history in general.”

The re-created portions of the ship and iceberg also help bring the story to life, Varitek said.

“We’re really happy to have the staircase. It’s the only traveling grand staircase that’s out there,” he said. “If you’ve seen the movie, it’s the famous ‘Meet me at the clock’ moment for Jack and Rose.”

Visitors can relive that famous on-screen moment in 3-D on the museum’s IMAX movie screen as James Cameron’s “Titanic: 3-D” will be showing through July 19 and again from Sept. 4-30 on the 62-foot-by-85-foot wide screen, the largest movie screen in Michigan. The IMAX theater will also screen filmmaker Stephen Low’s “Titanica,” featuring archival photos of the ship’s construction and footage of its wreckage on the ocean floor combined with recollections of Titanic survivor Eva Hart.

Even 100 years after it sank, people are still fascinated by Titanic, Varitek said.

“Part of it, I think, comes from the rumor that Titanic was unsinkable; at a time when the world was really changing, with the automobile and the airplane, it seemed like nothing could stop new technology, so a tremendous failure of technology really caught people’s attention at the time,” Varitek said.

“People are intrigued by moments where they can say, ‘If only we could have done this or that differently,’ and the fact this was the maiden voyage with some celebrities on board doesn’t hurt. Plus the movies — Hollywood has done such a good job of telling the story, it’s kept it fresh in everyone’s minds.”

Non-member exhibit ticket prices include admission to the museum and are $27 for adults (13-61), $22.50 for youth (5-12) and $25 for seniors (62 and older). Children 4 and younger are free. Admission for members is $10. The museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. with extended hours until 9 p.m. on Tuesdays and for the IMAX theater.

Because the Titanic exhibit is timed, visitors are encouraged to make reservations to ensure a time slot is available when they plan to visit, Varitek said.

Other Titanic-related programming planned at the museum includes:

O “Titanic Remembered: 100th Anniversary Event,” a sold-out commemorative event set for 7 p.m. April 14, featuring hors d’oeuvres, a champagne welcome, dinner, dessert and exclusive access to the exhibit.

O Titanic Tuesdays, a speaker and author series set for the second Tuesday of each month. The lectures are free with admission to the museum. The series kicked off April 10 with author and historian Edward Tenner presenting “Thinking about the Unsinkable” about the unintended consequences of innovation. The series will continue May 8 with Low discussing his film “Titanica.”

For a full listing of events, visit the website www.hfmgv.org/events/titanicTuesdays.aspx.

For more information or to reserve tickets, call (313) 982-6001 or visit www.thehenryford.org/titanic.

Children’s book illustrator depicts Titanic’s voyage

By
Jeff McGinnis
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One might think that a children’s book on one of the greatest nautical disasters of all time is a somewhat awkward idea. But kids are often much more savvy and intelligent on such matters than adults give them credit for.

Artist Gijsbert van Frankenhuyzen — “Mr. Nick” as his young readers call him — has drawn illustrations for more than 25 books on a wide variety of subjects both fanciful and historical.

His latest, “T is for Titanic: A Titanic Alphabet,” examines the story of the legendary ocean liner in a way that curious young minds can relate to.

In an interview with Toledo Free Press, van Frankenhuyzen said he loves meeting with children to discuss the book, and that they frequently surprise him with the depth of their knowledge.

“For example, I told them, ‘Did you know that one of the smokestacks on the ship was not a real smokestack?’ And one little guy goes, ‘Yeah, but it still was used for ventilating the kitchen!’ And this is a second-grader. They know so much more than we think.”

A native of the Netherlands, van Frankenhuyzen gravitated toward art at a young age. “I was always painting and drawing, and I went to art school, but I could only go to art school if I learned a profession. I could not become a painter, my dad said, because I had to make a living. So, I went to art school and I studied graphic design.”

After a brief period working as a designer at an advertising firm in the Netherlands, he relocated to Michigan where he worked for the next 17 years, until the magazine he was employed at shut down.

“I took that time as a time to start painting for myself. And it worked — I was doing fine, I was doing work for museums, a little book illustration here and there — it kept me busy,” van Frankenhuyzen said.

“Then, in 1997, Sleeping Bear Press called me and wanted to know if I wanted to do their fi rst children’s book. And I said, ‘You bet!’ That’s really what I always wanted to be, was an illustrator. It was just something that’s really tough to get into. And here was the publisher, calling me! So that was great.”

Sleeping Bear Press, at the time, worked exclusively in books for older readers — their foray into children’s work was supposed to be a one-time deal. But the book, “The Legend of Sleeping Bear,” was a phenomenal success, putting both Sleeping Bear and van Frankenhuyzen on the map.

He’s worked with the publisher ever since, illustrating a wide variety of works.

“The Titanic book was book number 28,” van Frankenhuyzen said with pride. “When I started doing books, I wasn’t quite sure if I had to adjust my paintings for kids to make them kid-friendly. But I didn’t — I paint them the same way I paint my own stuff,” he noted. “I kept it all exactly the same, except I brightened my colors.”

That’s not to say that the artist’s work hasn’t evolved during his time working on the books.

“I pay more attention now to the little things than I did at the beginning of the books. And with an alphabet book, you kind of have to. Especially with this Titanic book. There’s a lot of stuff in there that I couldn’t mess around with. That’s the way it looked, and that’s what I had to paint.”

He joined the “T is for Titanic” project unexpectedly one day, while visiting his publisher’s office.

“I was at Sleeping Bear Press, delivering a book that I just finished. And as I walked in, one of the editors, the main woman, she was on the phone and she kind of waved at me coming in,” van Frankenhuyzen said. “And all of a sudden, she calls from her office, and she says, with her hand on her phone, she pulled it away from her ear and she says, ‘Nick, if we’re doing a book on the Titanic, would you be willing to do it?’ And I said, ‘Oh, sure, why not?’ And she puts the phone back to her head and says, ‘He’s in! He’ll do it!’”

The staff of the Titanic Museum in Branson, Mo., had seen his work. When they approached Sleeping Bear Press with the idea to do a children’s book on the ship, they specifically asked for him. Van Frankenhuyzen was a little nervous at first about dealing with them, especially since they weren’t giving him any guidance on his portraits.

“When the whole book was done, she saw the proofs — the woman from the Titanic museum — I finally did get an email from her. And it just said, ‘Nick,’ and in all capital letters: ‘I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THE PAINTINGS!’ And that was it! They were very pleased.”

There is no rest for van Frankenhuyzen in the days to come. After all the exhausting research devoted to a subject on the ocean floor, his next project is going in the opposite direction — he’s illustrating a book about deserts.

“The deserts, there was not much hands-on, because I told Sleeping Bear, ‘Why don’t you send me to the Gobi or the Sahara for a while?’ And they, of course, wouldn’t do it. And they said, ‘Just Google it!’”

Pounds: Wear Blue to Work April 11

By
Tom Pounds
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There are some causes that should not exist. Child abuse is one of those issues that, with education and evolution, should be relegated to the scrapheap of human history, with bubonic plague and scurvy.

But in 2011, Lucas County Children Services (LCCS) received 4,148 referrals of suspected child abuse involving 6,046 children and discovered 587 area children were abused or neglected. The agency’s hotline for reporting child abuse receives about 750 calls per month and 300-400 are investigated.

April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month. This year’s theme is “child abuse is preventable.” LCCS has worked with local media to spearhead a number of events, including a March 29 Blues Against Child Abuse concert, which drew nearly 150 people to Dégagé  Jazz Café in Maumee to hear Voodoo Libido and contribute to the cause.

LCCS has more events planned throughout April, including Wear Blue to Work Day on April 11. As reported by Toledo Free Press Staff Writer Brigitta Burks, workers are encouraged to wear blue to the office, photograph a group of co-workers wearing the color and post it online via social media.

“We’re trying to get everybody aware and develop that sense of camaraderie,” LCCS Public Information Officer Julie Malkin said. “We want to have fun, get people involved and aware and take advantage of social media.”

Buttons promoting the day are available by calling (419) 213-3254.

LCCS and other agencies will present information at the  “We Care About Our Kids: Community Forum on Child Sexual Abuse” at 6:30 p.m April 18 at the University of Toledo Scott Park Campus. Admission is free.

A ceremony honoring local children who died as a result of street violence, abuse or neglect will take place at 11:30 a.m. April 25 at the LCCS offices, 705 Adams St., Toledo. Since April 2011, no children have died in Lucas County from abuse or neglect, but Timothy Blair, 14, Deadrick Rocker, 17, and Montelle Taylor, 17, died as a result of violence.

To help promote Wear Blue to Work Day, LCCS and Toledo Free Press invited dozens of community leaders to the Main Toledo-Lucas County Public Library for this week’s cover photo. Jim Walrod of the Image Group provided the blue T-shirts for people from every walk of local media, government, public services and nonprofit life. We profusely thank each and every individual who gave his or her time for the photo, taken by Toledo Free Press Photo Editor Joseph Herr.

Wearing a blue shirt to work is a minor gesture for such a crucial issue. We hope to see you in blue April 11.

To report a case of suspected abuse, call (419) 213-CARE.

Thomas F. Pounds is president and publisher of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star. Contact him at [email protected].

Miller: Distracted driving

By
Michael Miller
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On my morning drive April 4, I ran a red light, grazed a deer, blew through a stop sign, clipped a pedestrian at a crosswalk, sideswiped a car and was ticketed for several traffic violations.

It was all my fault; I was chatting with a passenger, texting on my phone and checking messages while I was driving.

Fortunately, all of that happened during a session in a Distracted Driving Simulator in the lobby of Owens Corning. But it was a harsh reminder of a common sense principle we all ignore: You cannot safely drive if your attention is divided.

The simulator is a three-monitor setup with a steering wheel, gas pedal and brake on the floor. I drove through the realistic video for about seven minutes, trying to watch all the mirrors and environmental challenges, while a passenger voice gave directions and an on-screen cellphone flashed messages and asked for answers.

The simulator, an Ohio Department of Transportation project, has been touring Ohio, with stops this week at SSOE, the University of Toledo and Oregon’s municipal complex. It ought to be in every high school and workplace, to remind people that when they are driving, they are in control of a lethal torpedo that is one of the most effective instruments of murder ever invented.

 

According to Matt Schroder, senior leader of corporate communications, Owens Corning has gone beyond simply offering the simulator by recently making it official policy for employees to leave the cellphone alone when driving: “Drivers are prohibited from utilizing a cellphone (hand-held or hands-free) to conduct company business while the vehicle is in operation or while driving on company property.

  • Includes texting, checking emails, accepting incoming calls or placing a call unless the vehicle is completely stopped and properly parked in a safe location.
  • Including handheld, hands-free or an in-vehicle installed system.”

The statistics are brutal. According to the State Highway Patrol of Ohio, “Driving while texting or talking on the phone is considered more dangerous than driving at .08 blood alcohol content. Nearly 80 percent of crashes and 65 percent of close calls involve a driver’s lack of attention within three seconds before the event.”

A fact sheet handed out by SSOE, which has a similar policy prohibiting talking and texting on a cellphone to conduct company business while driving, contained these statistics:

  • Driver distraction is a contributor in 93 percent of rear-end collisions.
  • Driving while using a cell phone reduces brain activity associated with driving by 37 percent.
  • 18-to-20-year-olds are four times as likely to be involved in a distracted driving accident than drivers more than 35 years old.

The National Safety Council has also weighed in:

  • Communities that enact bans on hand-held devices but continue to allow hands-free devices see no reduction in the number of crashes after bans take effect.
  • Each year, more than 1.1 million crashes (25 percent of all crashes) are attributed to cellphone use, accounting for 500,000 injures and 5,000 deaths. This works out to more than 3,000 crashes, 1,300 injuries, and 13 deaths every day.
  • A new study of company vehicle fleet crash rates reveals the top safety performers are companies with policies enacting a total ban on cell phone use (handheld and hands-free) that enforce such policies.

Of course, it’s not just cell phones. People eat and drink in their cars, engage in personal grooming and distract themselves with navigation systems, videos, radios, CD and MP3 players and all kinds of curious behavior. When I lived in South Florida and drove I-95 every day (home to the rudest drivers I’ve ever encountered, although some of the people on Brint Road in Sylvania  and Secor Road in Toledo are pretty bad), I saw people engaged in reckless behavior that ranged from openly drinking from beer cans to makin’ babies, two activities which are reckless enough on stable, dry land.

I am a much better driver when my wife and kids are in the car than I am when I am driving solo. I am definitely guilty of talking on the cellphone and occasionally texting as I make my way to and from work.

It’s a hard habit to break, but after plowing through the streets of the distracted driving simulator like Homer Simpson fighting Peter Griffin for the steering wheel, I have a greater understanding of the dangers I am ignoring.

I signed the pledge to put the cellphone down when I drive, but the incentive of my family is all I need. Whether using the phone while driving gets me killed with or without them in the car, I’d be just as dead, and there is simply nothing on that BlackBerry that can’t wait.

I used to tell people that, like the bad guy in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” who grabs the burning medallion and sears its design into his hand, I have the BlackBerry “B” imprinted in my palm from holding it so much.

After failing the distracted driving simulator, I plan on working to make sure that “B” begins to fade from my grasp.

Michael S. Miller is editor in chief of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star. 

Baumhower: Replacing Stan Stachak

By
Toledo Free Press
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On April 4, 13abc WTVG announced that longtime Chief Meteorologist Stan Stachak will be taking his Live Doppler 13,000 forecasts and jet streaming into retirement. Stachak, who has been the face of Toledo TV weather for 30-plus years, will step down from his full-time responsibilities April 23. 13abc President and General Manager John Christianson has selected Jay Berschback as Stachak’s successor.

13abc News Director Brian Trauring released the following comment:  “Stachak is a professional who cares deeply about the safety of viewers during severe weather situations.  The goal is to continue to build on the proud tradition of coverage that Stan has built at the station.”

Stachak has been part of the fabric of many Toledoans’ lives. As a child of the ’80s, Stachak’s face and easygoing demeanor always brought comfort to me while watching the news.  Stachak was always the fifth person at my family’s dinner table; I cannot tell you how many times I was shushed for his voice. His predictions brought both joy and disappointment to many Northwest Ohioans.

Former WTVG anchor and current WTOL 11 anchor Jerry Anderson shared his thoughts via email: “Stan and I started the same year [1980] at WTVG. I worked side-by-side with him until 1993. He was always a pro … I spent the first half of the ’80s being Ron Burgundy (remember the hair/’stache?). But what people may not get about Stan is just how funny he can be in a very cerebral way … a dry wit that can just crack you up … smart humor stuff. And then it’s all wrapped up in a great human being … a family man with a huge heart. In short, Stan is pure class (uh oh, I’m back to Burgundy). It was a privilege working next to him for so many years … I wish him only the best in retirement.”

Rob Powers, former 13abc sports anchor who is now at ABC’s No. 1 station, WABC  in New York, said via email, “It sure takes a special talent to not only survive, but thrive in this business, and to do it in one place for so long? Unheard of! I had so much fun working with Stan; such a pro. I feel fortunate to have worked with him, and WTVG’s viewers have been fortunate to have him on the job. Calm, levelheaded and so knowledgeable on the air … fun, light-hearted and such a good guy off the air. Take a well-deserved break, Stan … you sure as heck earned it!”

13abc anchor Lee Conklin said, “He is one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met. I will always appreciate his professionalism,  sense of calm when the weather gets crazy and sense of humor, too. I was actually hired over here 21 years ago to do weekend weather,  while I was doing news and sports at WSPD. Despite the fact I was not a meteorologist, and had never done television,  Stan was patient with me while I learned the ropes (it couldn’t have been easy). I do remember calling him in the middle of the night from time to time when the weather computers went haywire. I imagine that ticked him off,  but he never showed it. He has truly earned his retirement. I’m happy for him that it’s taking place on his own terms.”

Vary rarely in medium-size markets do TV personalities stay longer than 10 years, especially those as talented as Stachak. The Toledo TV market is normally a proving ground for bigger and better things, but Stachak stayed.  Stachak dabbled and filled in at CNN in the 1990s, and I am sure he has turned down bigger offers with more money. He chose to stay here, to raise his family here, and for those choices, Toledoans will hold him in their hearts and minds.

Although there will always be a TV weather person sharing forecasts, trying to  make normal people understand the art and science of predicting weather, Toledo may never see another Stan Stachak.  It takes a special human being to turn down more money and bigger opportunities for more than 30 years to remain dedicated to one town — we call that a “Toledoan.”

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