Tell Their Stories

During the last few months I was doing some research that led me to look at some shipwreck stories. As I was reading these, I suddenly remembered a story my Dad had told me about his great-uncle dying in a shipwreck. I knew the surname of the family, but not the first name of the uncle. I started researching ships on the Internet, I remembered he had traveled around South America or Cape Horn. Also, growing up my Dad had shown me some old books he had that belonged to this man.

It was like looking for a needle in a haystack, but I kept on looking for ship itineraries that would have been when he was about twenty-one years. I was ready to give up, but decided to click on one more ship, and there it was, the steamship Independence that had run aground and caught fire on the second leg of the voyage from New York to San Francisco. I think many of the passengers were looking for fortune in the gold-rush. The ship hit the rocks, then eventually the rushing water drove the flames out of the boiler setting the ship on fire. So, there was death by fire, by drowning, and by jumping into the surf and being swept out to sea.

I found a newspaper article of the time, that listed the missing and presumed dead, and among those was the surname I was looking for. After all this, I was able to locate the books belonging to my father and opening one of the volumes I found his name signed there inside the cover, first initial and last name, which matched the passenger list. You can imagine my excitement as I found this lost family member.

I believe our ancestors want to be found and remembered. One-hundred fifty people perished in this tragedy and each had a story to tell.