Dodge County, Wisconsin
Miscellaneous News Stories
Dodge County, Wisconsin
Miscellaneous News Stories
DAILY CITIZEN
BEAVER DAM, WISCONSIN
26 July 1935
FOX LAKE MAN ON SHIP WHEN CHIEF EXECUTIVE NEARLY LOST HIS LIFE
Mrs. W. E. Warren Recalls Storm of Which Her Husband Wrote in Diary
Fox Lake. - How a recent article "When Franklin D. Roosevelt Raced Death at Three" published in Liberty Magazine in the July 27th, 1935 issue revived memories of an experience her husband underwent, reveals a peculiar coincidence that happened fifty years ago and has just come to the knowledge of Mrs. W. E. Warren A Fox Lake resident.
Tells of Storm
Mrs. James Roosevelt, mother of Franklin D. Roosevelt, president, was recently interviewed by Julian Mason who wrote a graphic account of a sea adventure in which the president, a child of three faced death with his parents. The story as related by Mrs. Roosevelt, tells of a storm at sea encountered in April 1885, by the ship "Germanic" a White Star Liner, outward bound from Liverpool to New York, on which ship the Roosevelt family of three were passengers. The storm - a tidal wave - struck when the ship was give hundred miles out from Queenstown and was forced back to port for repairs. "The iron bulkhead of the reading room had been broken and also the bridge and superstructure .... and all the life boats had been swept away to sea" to quote from Mrs. Roosevelt's interview.
In Mrs. Warren's collection of antiques and curios, gathered from many parts of the world by her late husband, is a diary kept by Mr. Warren on a trip abroad for the purpose of importing Cleveland Bay horses for the Laurel Hill Horse Farm of Fox Lake of which George Warren and sons were proprietors. Mr. Warren was also a passenger on the "Germanic" and chronicled accounts of the storm in his diary - the same storm of which Mrs. Roosevelt wrote. The entry under date of April 5th, 1885 (Easter Sunday of that year) reads: "Awful storm, boats washed away, reading bridge, etc., carried off several people hurt. Got to put back to Queenstown. God only knows when I'll get home."
The entry of the following day gives further details - "Got on deck once more and spent an hour looking at the damage. We have had a narrow shave and may not be out of it yet. Cabins wet and everybody sick."
Horses Suffer
Mr. Warren reached New York on April 20th and later met with English groom, Ed. Mulcaster, who had accompanied the horses purchased in England on another boat. The horses had suffered greatly because of the storm the salt water having soaked their feed. One horse had been cast, breaking a leg, necessitating burial at sea. Mr. Warren was not at all proud of the emaciated horses, shipped from the East to Minnesota Junction and thence across country to the Warren stables. Incidentally it was from these same stables that a team was raised that later became the possession of William McKinley during his presidential administration.
Also in Mrs. Warren's collection, in addition to the diary, is a schedule of the ship's regulations and chart of her course, a newspaper clipping from the Liverpool Daily Albion of Wednesday, April 8, 1885, with an account of the storm, a porcelain bowl with the Dominion Crest, used on the freight boat on which the horses were transported, a hoof of the horse that was lost at sea, as well as photographs of several of the horses that survived that memorable storm.
[Submitted by Diana Morse]
