Rock Springs Victory to Ethiopia #3 – Monkey business

The return trip of the S. S. Rock Springs Victory in April 1947 from Djibouti in Africa to New York City held a memorable experience for 18-year-old seagoing cowboy Charles Graham. I’ll let him tell the story:

The purser on our ship picked up a monkey down there in Djibouti. Comin’ home, he let the monkey run all over the ship, wherever he wanted to go.

Seagoing cowboy Dick Hoblin makes friends with purser’s monkey. Photo courtesy of Howard Lord.

So one afternoon the monkey was sitting on the rail as I was going to eat, and just outside the door of the mess hall, I picked up the monkey and held him over, like I was gonna throw him overboard, and he was screamin’ to high heaven. So I put him back. I went a couple of days thereafter to eat, and there was the monkey. I picked him up, and let me tell you, he got even with me! I put him on my shoulders, and you can imagine what he did – he let go all over my back and jumped off and ran. And if I could have caught that monkey then, he woulda went into the sea!

Purser’s monkey wakes up seagoing cowboy Stan Wakeman who was sleeping on deck. Photo courtesy of Bob Heimberger.

But anyway (he says with a chuckle), it had taken us approximately eighteen days to make the trip across one way. On arrival back to the States, we were docked in Hoboken, New Jersey, and we thought that we were all going to be able to get off the ship and go home. But low and behold, due to the fact that that purser had picked up that monkey, we were quarantined until the health department cleared that monkey to come in, which if I recall, was about three days. You can imagine what a lot of cowboys was thinkin’ about that monkey at the time! None of us could go home because of it.

But my trip was quite an experience. My trip with the Heifer Project was wonderful.

Rock Springs Victory to Ethiopia #2 – Greece, Suez Canal, and Djibouti

Another unique experience of the S. S. Rock Springs Victory seagoing cowboy crew of March 1947 was delivering Heifer Project animals to Ethiopia. They were one of only two UNRRA livestock crews to travel through the Suez Canal and the only one to deliver animals to the African continent. The other UNRRA ship, the S. S. Carroll Victory, after unloading their initial live cargo in Greece, was sent down to South Africa to pick up a load of horses and deliver them back to Greece – twice.

Like the S. S. Carroll Victory, the Rock Springs Victory stopped in Greece on their way where they unloaded part of UNRRA’s cargo of horses, mules, and cattle in Piraeus, Athen’s port city. Howard Lord’s first impression in Greece was of the hunger. “It just floored me,” he says. “Then here came a little train all decorated up like Christmas. It was their Independence Day in Greece! And I thought, well, they’re able to celebrate.”

Celebrating Greece’s Independence Day, March 25, 1947. Photo courtesy of Bob Heimberger.

Like all cowboys to Piraeus, they also took in the Greek antiquities around Athens.

Touring the Acropolis, March 1947. Photo courtesy of Howard Lord.

The next leg of the journey took them through Suez Canal, into the Red Sea, and on down the coast of eastern Africa to Djibouti, the capital city of what was then French Somaliland and the port for land-locked Ethiopia.

“We saw lots of wrecked ships and old destroyed tanks from World War II in the Suez Canal,” notes cowboy Stanley Wakeman. Among other things.

Beach huts along the Suez Canal, March 1947. Photo courtesy of Bob Heimberger.

As they sailed on, it got hotter and hotter, from “Very hot” in Wakeman’s journal on March 28 in the Suez Canal, to “105° in the shade” the next day in the Red Sea, to “VERY VERY HOT – 120º” on April 2 in Djibouti. An exaggeration, perhaps? Lord recalls it being “98 degrees all day – every day [in Djibouti]!”

A whole new world awaited there. Because of the lack of an adequate dock, the Rock Springs Victory had to anchor itself offshore and unload the animals and feed into barges, maybe 30 to 40 feet long and 12 feet wide.

Unloading cattle and feed off the S. S. Rock Springs Victory off the shore of Djibouti. April 1947. Photo courtesy of Howard Lord.

“They’d load the barge full of cattle,” Lord says, “and a young man with a pole would stick it against the bottom of the water and poled that barge into the dock, barely able to move it. Just one single guy with one pole. He’d have to move from side to side. It was really somethin’.”

A sole laborer poling a load of cattle into Djibouti. April 1947. Photo courtesy of Howard Lord.

On shore, the cowboys must have been as much a curiosity to the Africans as the Africans were to them. These cowboys saw sights no other crew had seen.

Cowboys roaming the area around Djibouti encounter some camels. April 1947. Photo courtesy of Howard Lord.

With no common language, the Americans took raisins with them to barter for souvenirs. That’s how cowboy Bob Heimberger acquired the metal cup the crew used for their Easter Sunday Communion on their return voyage.

Trading raisins to Djibouti residents for souvenirs, April 1947. Photo courtesy of Bob Heimberger.

For six members of the crew, the voyage was just beginning in Djibouti.

Seagoing cowboys heading on to assignments in Ethiopia, April 1947. Photo courtesy of Howard Lord.

Five had been selected by the Brethren Service Committee for a special assignment to accompany the cattle to Ethiopia, where they were to stay for a year at the request of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie to train the Ethiopians how to breed and care for the livestock and teach the use of modern farm machinery and agricultural methods. The sixth, a Methodist missionary, would travel on to his project in the Belgian Congo. The remainder of the cowboy crew headed back with their ship to New York City.

Next post: Monkey business on the Rock Springs Victory

Rock Springs Victory to Ethiopia #1 – “Shear” madness

The cowboys on the S. S. Rock Springs Victory, tending a shipment of animals for Ethiopia in March 1947, had many unique experiences. One of those bearing note this Easter weekend I’ve already posted, about their Easter Sunday communion service on the Red Sea. Today, I’ll share a story from my interview of July 2006 with cowboy Howard Lord, 22-year-old farmer from Iowa who later went into the ministry. I had asked Howard what he remembered about life on the ship.

“I remember so vividly,” he says and laughs. “Because we had 30 head of wool sheep, and 30 head of Karakul. They’re a sheep that they kill and skin. And they have alpaca-type fur, real kinky fur. It’s not wooly, it’s kinky.

“The first day out, [our supervisor] said, ‘We gotta shear these sheep. It’ll be summer when they get to Ethiopia.’ They started asking, ‘Who shears sheep?’ Course nobody!

“We had two foremen, Norman Barthell and Carl Geisler. They were both older than I, so they said, ‘We have to shear these sheep.’ So they started. Then they said, ‘We, we have to be on our jobs as foremen for these cattle we have on the ship. Lord, you grew up on a farm.’ ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘You shear sheep.’ I said, ‘No. I’ve seen ’em sheared, but I’ve never sheared them.’ ‘Well, would you care to try?’ I hesitated and said, ‘I’ll try it. And they handed me a pair of hand clippers. Hand clippers!

“So I crawled in the sheep pen and I got the big old ram. ‘No, no, no,’ they said, ‘you can’t do that!’ And I said, ‘Well, I’ve gotta be able to sheer him sometime. I just as well try it now.’ So I sheared him – in spite of a few nicks here and there. Well, a lot of nicks here and there.” We laugh.

Howard Lord with a sheared wool sheep. Photo courtesy of Howard Lord.

“They finally talked the young kid from Ohio, Bob Heimberger, into helping me. He did very well. We got [the wool sheep] sheared by the time we got to [our first stop in] Greece. And then they said, ‘We gotta shear the Karakuls.’ And I said, ‘You don’t shear Karakuls. They skin Karakuls! They use the hides.’ ‘Well, you have to shear them. They’ll never stand it in Ethiopia.’

Howard Lord with a sheared Karakul. A high percentage of Karakul sheep are born black. Photo courtesy of Howard Lord.

“As soon as you take the shears to the Karakul, you could hear the sand grit. So we would sharpen the shears three, or four, or five times every time we sheared a sheep. And they were small sheep. They were just full of grit. It was that kind of kinky skin….We got them sheared by the time we got to Ethiopia.”

Shear madness? Perhaps not. Research shows that an adult Karakul‘s wool, as well as its younger wooly hide, was highly prized. A courser wool, it was “felted or spun into fabric for garments, footwear, carpets, and yurts, among other uses.”

Next post: more tales from the Rock Springs Victory trip to Ethiopia

Extra Post: Easter Sunday service on a cattle boat

When you talk with members of the crew of the SS Rock Springs Victory who tended a load of Heifer Project cattle sent to Ethiopia in early 1947, there is one highlight they are sure to tell you about. They had traveled first to Greece to unload UNRRA horses, then through the Suez Canal to Djibouti in Africa where their cattle were unloaded. Now they were on their way home. Bob Heimberger noted in his daily log:

Easter

April 6, Sunday

Had church at 8:15. 22 for communion. On the Red Sea.

But the story doesn’t stop there. Bob has written of this experience:

While in town [while docked in Djibouti] I purchased a little aluminum cup for a souvenir as this appeared to be a common household item the natives used.

Easter Sunday morning . . . it was decided to have Easter Communion on the deck of the ship. In preparation for the Communion they were searching for a Communion Cup or Challis for the wine. The cup I had purchased was used. We and some ship crew members participated in Easter Sunday morning Communion on the Red Sea. I do not know how many different religious faiths that participated. One person had his first Communion. It was a very Ecumenical service. I am fortunate enough to still have this historic Cup in my possession.

The Cup has been half way around the world and served people from Coast to Coast in the United States and people in Canada. The Cup has been used by the seagoing cowboys at each of our [Rock Springs Victory] reunions. It has also been used in our local Grace U.C.C. Church for special occasions. I doubt that any other Challis or Cup can claim such a far reaching Ecumenical history.

The Rock Springs Victory crew meets on the fantail for one of their Sunday morning services. Photo courtesy of Howard Lord

Bob’s cup traveled to the Beyond Hunger event celebrating Heifer International’s 70th anniversary in Milford, Indiana, last September. It’s inscribed: “In 1947 she served sunrise communion on the Red Sea. HPI.”

The communion cup used on the Rock Springs Victory sits on the table next to Howard Lord as he shares his experiences with children at the Beyond Hunger Northern Indiana event. Photo courtesy of Heifer International

Rock Springs Victory shipmates Howard Lord, Richard Hoblin, and Bob Heimberger reunite at the Beyond Hunger Northern Indiana event, September 2014. Photo courtesy of Heifer International

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A blessed Easter to all!