On being seasick

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines seasickness as “motion sickness experienced on the water.” Some say it’s “all in the head.” Many a seagoing cowboy would disagree. Here are two accounts:

Cowboy Merle Crouse, from our last post, painted this colorful description of what it was like to be a seagoing cowboy in his short address at Heifer International’s 70th anniversary kickoff in Little Rock, Arkansas, in March 2014. He opened with this paragraph:

If you like to feed dusty hay to confused cows who are sliding around on a layer of fresh manure that has greased a floor that is rocking 4 ways at once from 40 foot North Atlantic waves while you are so seasick that you don’t have anything left in your stomach to throw up and you almost wish you were dead and you almost wish you had stayed home on the farm instead of volunteering to be completely miserable, then, welcome to the experience of being a seagoing cowboy.

Seagoing cowboys en route to Italy in 1946 try to get their sea legs. Photo by Elmer Bowers.

John Brelsford served as a seagoing cowboy on the S. S. Rock Springs Victory delivering cattle to Ethiopia in March 1947. He says, “I can’t write about this crossing without trying to describe seasickness.” He continues:

Ten minutes after we left the pier, I began to be sick. I didn’t know what was the matter then, but by the middle of the next day I knew well enough. I get a headache that seems to settle in the back of my neck, have a very upset stomach, and feel cold all over. The night we sailed, I went to bed right away to try and get warm and get over my headache. The next morning I didn’t feel like eating and my headache was worse. I ate an orange to see how food would stay down. It stayed pretty well, so I went to breakfast. After I had been there a little while, the whole place seemed to make me sick, so I grabbed a half grapefruit and beat it. I don’t suppose that it was five minutes later that I decided to see if the orange and grapefruit tasted as good as I thought they did, so I brought them back up. . . . Well, I tried to go about my business of feeding and watering a third of the 84 head of heifers that we had on our end of the top deck, but every once in awhile I’d give up and stick my head over the side of the ship or over a bucket. . . . It was surprising what it would take to set you going. Sometimes, it was looking up and seeing somebody else going through the motions. Sometimes, it was the look on the face of a cow. Sometimes it was listening to someone tell how just as they got through eating they leaned over and deposited their dinner in some lucky fellows lap and then settled back down and ate another plateful. Sometimes it was just looking at the paleness or yellowness and the pained expression on the faces of the fellows around most anywhere. To say the least, I was worn out by night just from bending over the ship and working my diaphragm muscles so much. I had decided never to eat again when Carl Geisler talked me into testing a pork chop that he was eating out in the fresh air. He strongly suggested that I do the same thing, so I finally consented and went into the galley and ordered a plate to go out. I went back out and stuck my head in every few minutes until my plate was ready. It had a couple of pork chops and three slices of bread. I very carefully discarded all the fat and bones and wrapped up the small pieces of meat in the bread and rather slowly ate them. After the first bite hit my stomach, I felt better. I have been eating ever since. . . .

There were all sorts of different ideas as to the causes and remedies. . . . I’m sure that if doctors and sailors haven’t been able to figure out either the cause or the cure in all the years that men have been sailing the seven seas, there isn’t much use of first time sailors trying to figure it out. But figure we would. For three or so days that was all anybody talked about. All I’m sure of is that we all got sick and that we all got over it in spite of the cause or treatment.

Two of John Brelsford’s shipmates hanging over the rail. Photo by Howard Lord.

Read more about cowboys and seasickness here.

The real Cowboy John from THE SEAGOING COWBOY picture book

John Nunemaker shares a photo with me of his horse Queen as a colt. March 2016.

I have always been captivated by John Nunemaker’s story of finding his family’s work horse Queen on his ship when he reported to the S.S. Queen’s Victory in September 1946. John’s father had sold Queen that January, and there she was, on her way to Poland just like John. His story found its way into my picture book, The Seagoing Cowboy, that was released the end of March.

Queen as a colt on the Carl Nunemaker farm, Goshen, Indiana. Photo courtesy of John Nunemaker.

 

 

The real Queen (Queenie in the book) was a four-year-old bay when she was sold at the Goshen (IN) Community Sale to an Eastern horse buyer. John recognized Queen because her right shoulder had been injured while clearing ground, resulting in permanent loss in the right shoulder muscle. “No doubt about it,” he says, “Queen knew John N. and John Nunemaker knew Queen.” He was able to take care of her all the way to Poland.

John identified with the story in the book and sent me a delightful letter of comments and additions to his story. He traveled to port from Elkhart, Indiana, by train with a friend, Robert Stichter, and recalls the excitement and adventure he felt at age 18 as he carried his duffel up the gang plank. He notes the four shots he got before going on board were his first shots ever.

John Nunemaker’s Merchant Marine card making him an official cattle tender for UNRRA. Photo courtesy of John Nunemaker.

John was one of the cowboys who succumbed to seasickness, “puking my last meal over the rail,” he says, “with the wind from bow of ship blowing the puke back into my face.” He recalls riding out a storm in the three-tier bunks in the cowboys’ quarters at the back of the ship. “The propeller, right below us, came out of the water over a wave, and the whole ship shuddered and vibrated until the propeller got in the water again.”

John says he went barefoot on the ship across the Atlantic. One afternoon, he was sleeping in his middle bunk thirty inches off the floor with his feet over the edge of the bunk. “Other cowboys wanted to see me wake up,” he says. “They had book matches they lit and put flame on my calloused sole.” They went through two books of matches, one at a time, and didn’t wake him until they laughed loudly. John says, “I could walk through a Canada thistle patch barefooted on our farm and not flinch.”

“We sure got excited when we saw Lands End in England from the ship,” John says. In Poland, he watched the unloading of the horses and says while they were still in the “flying stall” on dock they were branded by the left front leg with the name “UNRRA.”

Instead of children following them, John recalls the “adults begging us to help them out of Poland.” He notes, “The destruction (from bombs) we saw was terrible. We saw very few men (all killed), with women with wheelbarrows cleaning up the debris.”

“Queen and 20-plus horses were driven, untied, through the city streets of Danzig from the port to the farms and barns of Poland. We told our horses ‘Woha’ to stop. The Poles said ‘Grrrrer’ to stop. Of course, the horses of the ship did not know what ‘Grrrrer’ meant.”

Of his trip, John says, like the cowboy in the book, he would never forget the people of Poland and the terrible things war can do. “I was looking out for adventure (which I had) but wound up serving my fellow man and God, upholding my conviction and telling people that war is wrong.”

John Nunemaker adds his autograph to The Seagoing Cowboy at Better World Books, April 1, 2016. Photo credit: Abbie Miller.

Seasickness: The Malady of the Seagoing Cowboys

Many a seagoing cowboy told me in an interview, “I was so seasick that at first I was afraid I was going to die, then I was so sick I was afraid I wouldn’t die.” I’ve since discovered this is a paraphrased Mark Twain quote, which the cowboys may have known or not known; but nevertheless, it was a very personal experience for many of the cowboys.

Two cowboys take an involuntary work break on the S.S. Norwalk Victory en route to Trieste, Italy in February 1946. Photo credit: Elmer Bowers.

The Cleveland Clinic website tells us, “[Seasickness] happens when your brain receives conflicting messages about motion and your body’s position in space.” For preventing seasickness on a ship, they say, “When making reservations, choose a cabin in the middle of the ship and near the waterline. When on board, go up on deck and focus on the horizon.” As if!

A cowboy “feeds the fish” at the rail of the S.S. Earlham Victory on the way to Trieste, Italy, in January 1947. Photo credit: John Hostetler.

The poor seagoing cowboys didn’t have such options. Their quarters were usually in the cabin under the gun deck at the back of their ship, where they would feel the ups and downs of the ship to the Nth degree. And many of the work stations were in lower holds.

Owen Schlabach pretty well sums up the cowboys’ experience in his account of his trip on the SS Mount Whitney to Poland in November 1946:

The ocean was nice and calm the first few days, then it started to get rough and shook the boat. Many of the boys got so seasick they could not do their work anymore, leaving only Bob Flick and me [to] care for ninety horses. Some were so sick they looked blue-greenish around the eyes, and got really thin because they could not eat. One time I saw one of the ministers sitting on top deck in a corner looking so sick I thought he was dead. After watching him for a while, I saw to my relief that he was still breathing a little. No one died on this trip, but some were so sick they wished they could.

In Newport News I met a man who was in the Army who said if I listened to him, I wouldn’t get sick. This sounded like music to me. I told him I would be glad to listen. He said on the ship we would have free choice of soda crackers, and if we would keep our stomachs full and wouldn’t drink anything, we should not get sick. It worked, and none of us five got sick.

Other cowboys had different remedies. Melvin Bradshaw, cowboy to Poland in May 1946 aboard the SS Carroll Victory, wrote:

I had never traveled before on the ocean and was a real landlubber. The beginning of the trip was rather mild but the stench in the lower decks from horses and their excretion made for rather poor sailing conditions for one inexperienced in sea travel. I found that the more marked movements of the ship up and down were not as bad as the swaying motion from side to side. When I felt that I was going to get sick I would lie on my back and look up through the opening in the upper decks. If I could lie still and see the sky my stomach would settle down.

Fred Teach, aboard the SS American Importer to Germany in 1953, noted in his journal, “I had a slight attack of indigestion today, ate cucumbers and peanuts. Feel fine now.” Nelson Heatwole said of his trip to Poland on the SS John Barton Payne in May 1946, “For 2 days I suffered from seasickness but managed to keep up my strength and do my work with the help of crackers, lemons and liquids and some assistance of other cowboys.”

Cowboy Carl Geisler offered this musing, printed in a March 1946 Civilian Public Service Bulletin. He later served as foreman on the SS Rock Springs Victory to Ethiopia in March 1947.

WAYS TO PREVENT SEASICKNESS

(“Cowboys” take note)

1. Don’t eat before you leave.
2. Eat lots before you leave.
3. Get your sea legs early.
4. Stay mid-ship as much as possible.
5. Drink lemon juice–then it will taste the same both ways.
6. Eat as much as you can before you leave–it will probably be the last time.
7. Sea sickness is definitely not “just in your head.”
8. Don’t use the rail–there is usually an up-draft on all sides of the ship.
9. When you feel hair in your throat, swallow.

(In case the above methods do not prevent an attack, the best way of stopping it is to go lean up against a shade tree.)*

*Paraphrased quote of British comedian and writer Spike Milligan.