The lonely legend of a lost life preserver

On the morning of May 7, 1965 the S.S. Cedarville was wending its way through heavy fog toward the Straits of Mackinac with a load of ore and a full head of steam. The captain was determined to maintain a schedule that was imposed on him by his owners. He also knew his bonus depended on keeping on course despite the treacherous weather conditions. Many of the crew remained on alert for the sound of other ships in the Straits as they went about their duties and watched their ship slice through the fog. The ship?s log later revealed the captain?s orders to keep the engines at full throttle.

IT WOULD SOON prove to be a disastrous course as the Norwegian freighter Topdalsfjord suddenly emerged from the fog heading right for the port side of the Cedarville. In less than a minute, the two ships would have their rendezvous with destiny. One of the crew, Dave Erickson, described what happened next. He saw fellow porter Jerome Kierzek standing at the railing on the port side of the boat. Kierzek called out, ?Hey Dave, look at this.? The two men watched helplessly as the on-coming ship rammed the Cedarville near the Number Seven hatch.

?The collision didn?t make much noise but the Cedarville shuddered like she had hit a big wave. I told Jerome we should get our life jackets and head for the lifeboats,? Erickson said. Erickson saw a large hole below the water line and could hear water rushing into the cargo hold. When the crew lowered a large tarpaulin over the hole, Erickson said, ?The crash tarp was sucked into the ship like a Kleenex. I knew we were in trouble?

NEARLY EVERYONE on the S.S. Cedarville that fateful day came from Rogers City. Nine of the ten crewmen who lost their lives were from town as were all the survivors, except for two from Posen and one each from Millersburg and Ocqueoc. The local radio station WHAK received a call from its sister station in Cheboygan about the collision and immediately broke into its programming with the following announcement: ?The United States Coast Guard has reported that the Bradley Fleet steamer Cedarville has been involved in a collision in the Straits of Mackinac this morning. Preliminary reports are incomplete, but it appears the Cedarville is damaged and has issued a distress call.? Back on board the ship, Charlie Cook had signed on the Cedarville just prior to the voyage. He sailed the Great Lakes for a number of years and was looking for a few more trips to build a nest egg for retirement. Cook replaced Leonard Gabrysiak as third mate because of seniority, bumping Gabrysiak down to helmsman. Now the two men struggled to maintain their balance in the pilothouse with ship listing heavily.

COOK WAS TRYING desperately to unravel the straps of his life jacket when the captain shouted, ?It doesn?t look like we are going to make it.? Then the captain grabbed his own life jacket and abandoned ship. For an instant Gabrysiak and Cook both locked eyes on each other as a wall of water crashed in on them and the ship began to roll over. Gabrysiak grabbed a life ring and looked back at Cook still trying to fasten his life vest when the water engulfed him and he disappeared. A few moments later, an empty life jacket popped out of the water and floated away. He became tangled in the rigging and nearly drowned. He remembers praying to himself, ?Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee?? as he lost consciousness. Fortunately, Gabrysiak?s life jacket was securely fastened and soon pulled him up to the surface where he was rescued and revived by crewmen from the German freighter Weissenberg who responded to the distress call. Gabrysiak and German seaman Peter Hahn were reunited last month at ?The Survivors? program at the Rogers City Theatre put on by the local Great Lakes Lore Maritime Museum. WHEN NEWS of the Cedarville sinking reached Rogers City, a pall descended over the town. Less than seven years earlier, the Carl D. Bradley had gone done in a ferocious November gale, claiming all but two sailors lives and making 54 children orphans of the storm.

Ten men lost their lives on the Cedarville that foggy day in May. Charlie Cook?s body was not recovered from the wreckage until a year later. He was not wearing a life vest. Nearly three months to the day after the sinking of the Cedarville, Leonard Schaedig was walking along the Seagull Point Park shoreline with his three and a half year old son, Jeff, when he spotted something by the water. A bright orange clump of canvas lay crumpled on the beach. With the breakwaters of Port Calcite just over his shoulder, Schaedig lifted the object up to reveal the name Cedarville.

?It was like a bolt of electricity went through me. At first, I didn?t know what to think,? Schaedig recalled. ?With hundreds and hundreds of miles of shoreline along northern Lake Huron, how did this life jacket come to rest here in the home port of that doomed ship?? LIKE MANY PEOPLE in Rogers City, Schaedig was employed by Calcite. He worked in the tunnels at the quarry loading the ships. He knew every man on the Cedarville as well as their families. He told the people at work what he found and, without his knowledge, the company dispatched an official to his home to retrieve the life jacket. When Schaedig?s wife Barb answered the door, the official simply said, ?I am here for the jacket.? ?I knew Len would have called me if he wa

s aware of what they were up to, so I told them they couldn?t have it,? she said. From that point on, the family kept the life preserver in a safe place and didn?t tell anyone about it. ?After all, it?s not like it?s a trophy,? Leonard said and he is right. It?s an artifact, yes, but also it?s a deeply emotional connection with the sense of loss. The life preserver that could not preserve life came home to tell its story. Ironically, the U.S. Coast Guard notes on their website that the manufacture of this type of life preserver was discontinued on July 1, 1965 just two months after the sinking of the Cedarville.

THE LIFE JACKET that the Schaedig?s preserved for history is now on permanent display at the Great Lakes Lore Maritime Museum in Rogers City. Barb Schaedig visited the museum for the first time last year after she stopped in to buy a book about Frank Mays? 15 hour struggle to survive the sinking of the Bradley. ?I wanted to buy Frank?s book and while I was there I took some time to wander around the exhibits. Linda (Cook) Knopf, who works as a volunteer there told me about the Cedarville and how her dad was lost on the ship,? Schaedig said. ?One thing lead to another and Linda was saying the museum didn?t have anything from the ship, so I told her about the life jacket Leonard found years ago. I said I would check with him and see if he wanted to donate it to the museum,? she continued. ?Linda was so happy to get that life jacket for the museum. She likes to think it was guided home by the spirit of her dad and eventually right into her hands,? Schaedig said.

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