Twenty-nine families, many of them northwest Ohioans and one of them my own, lost a loved one this week.
He wasn’t their father. He wasn’t their son or cousin. But he was definitely their brother.
Gordon Lightfoot, the legendary Canadian-born singer and songwriter, and the man whose song will not let us forget the 29 sailors who died in the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, left us at age 84.
It is a loss I take personally because one of the men who went down with the ship was my uncle, my father’s brother, and because I spent one shipping season as a member of the Fitzgerald crew, 12 years before the tragedy.
It has been a mission of mine to keep alive the memories of the men who died in a terrible storm on Lake Superior on Nov. 10, 1975. I have delivered my presentation of remembrance dozens of times over the years to service clubs, book clubs, retiree groups, basically anyone who will have me.
But, no matter how many times I get up in front of Rotary or Kiwanis, no matter how many people I reach with my message, the message that resonates globally is Mr. Lightfoot’s powerful and mournful ballad, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
It is a song told by a master storyteller at the top of his craft, a man with a deep appreciation for the Great Lakes and a strong respect for the men who sailed on them. He was profoundly moved by what happened to the Fitzgerald, and he was determined to do something about it.
The story goes that Mr. Lightfoot had been working on an Irish folk melody in his head when the Fitz tragedy occurred. All he needed were the lyrics. Focused perhaps like never before in his career, the words evidently came quickly. He recorded the song just a month after the sinking. Recording at night, he had the lights in his studio turned down so he could record in near darkness. He wanted to feel his own song’s emotional power, and he wanted to feel it in the same darkness the crew experienced as the great ship went down.
Many years later, to underscore Mr. Lightfoot’s empathy with the crew and their families, he became concerned about one of the original lines in his song. The line said:
“At 7 p.m., a main hatchway caved in.
“The cook said fellas, it’s been good to know ya.”
Mr. Lightfoot came to regret the line because it implied crew error. Could they have forgotten to tighten the hatch covers, slowly flooding the cargo hold and costing the ship buoyancy? The crew of the Fitz was the best of the best in Oglebay Norton’s Columbia fleet, and failure to “dog down” in November’s often violent weather seems beyond comprehension.
So decades after the sinking, he took the line out and replaced it. The rewritten line now reads:
“At 7 p.m., it grew dark. It was then, the cook said fellas, it’s been good to know ya.”
No longer did the song leave open the possibility that the crew themselves had sacrificed the ship and all aboard to the icy waters of Lake Superior.
Sailors on the lake freighters generally work four hours on duty and eight hours off. I know exactly where my Uncle Grant would have been at 7 o’clock during his 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. shift. He would have been in the engine room, trying to work while riding out the worst of the storm. The awful moment when the howling wind and crashing waves claimed the ship is impossible for me to unsee in my imagination. I knew that engine room too well.
Consider how much “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” has meant to the continuing legacy of the Big Fitz, and not just in the United States and Canada. The New Jason Islands are a small group of islands off the coast of South America. Part of the Falkland Islands, the New Jason Islands several years ago issued currency memorializing the Fitzgerald. Other denominations in the series paid tribute to the Titanic and the Hindenburg, so clearly the mystery surrounding the sinking still resonates around the world.
Not long after the loss of the Fitzgerald, I received a package from a class of fourth-graders in McAlister, Okla. So touched were they by the events of November 10, they crafted handmade sympathy cards expressing their sorrow. Those fourth graders would now be in their 50s, but I still have their cards.
Back in November of 2000, my brothers and I attended the 25th annual memorial ceremony that was held every year for the men of the Fitz at the Mariners Church in downtown Detroit, the “Maritime Sailors Cathedral” mentioned in the song. I finally got to thank Mr. Lightfoot for all he had done to honor those we lost. Several years ago the pastor at the church, the Rev. Richard Ingalls, passed away, and the church decided that the ceremony would honor not just the men of the Fitzgerald but all those who have lost their lives on the Great Lakes. That is as it should be.
But the legend and legacy of the Fitzgerald and her crew will never fade because another legend, Gordon Lightfoot, delivered the ultimate eulogy. Rest in peace, brother.
Thomas Walton is the retired Editor and Vice President of The Blade. His column appears every other Sunday. His radio commentary, “Life As We Know It,” can be heard on WGTE public radio every Monday at 5:44 p.m. during “All Things Considered.” His book, “Life As We Know It, Some Assembly Required,” is available at amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and Kindle.
Contact him at:
twalton@theblade.com.
First Published May 7, 2023, 4:00 a.m.
