Mom is home from the hairdresser, and after peering at the
crew picture on the Tacoma, has the following to say: To
Grandpa's left is Silas Wood -- Mom says that he and his wife
were great friends of Grandma's and Grandpa's and they
used to visit back and forth all the time. Moving down the
table, the next person is James Wirthlin who later managed
the Greeneline wharfboat in Cincinnati. Next to him is a
fellow that Mom can't identify. At the end of the table is Chris
Greene. Next to him is Harry Hughes, my grandfather's half
brother -- Mom doesn't know what he did on the boat, maybe
purser or clerk. Next to him is Lawrence Young, pilot, better
known to folks then (and now?) as Brushcreek -- he was also
pilot on the Tom and possibly other Greene boats. Next to
Brushcreek is Alex Shaw and next to him is Capt. Greene --
Mom tells me that I erred in my previous posting, she didn't
call him "Grandaddy Greene", she always knew him as
"Daddy Greene", which she says is what he asked Mom and
her sister Lillian to call him. Among those not pictured was
Charlie Hartline, the cook -- she also remembers him well.
He was the one who told Mom one day when her petticoat
was showing a bit below her dress that "her lace curtains
were showing". (Amazing what Mom remembers ...) In the
very back of the cabin in the picture, over the doors, is a big
signboard with "TACOMA" lettered on it, compliments of my
grandfather's fine hand.
Mom has another story. One time the boat was laid up on a
sandbar in low water. While she (as a very little girl, mind
you) was walking around on the sandbar, she became
acquainted with terrapins and couldn't pronounce it, so for
years she called turtles "tarjims". Another time, Grandma
couldn't find Mom on the boat and were fearful that Mom had
fallen overboard, so they stopped the boat and launched a
massive search. Turns out Mom was hiding from her older
sister Lillian in one of the staterooms, and she pronounced to
my panicked grandparents that she was "just hiding from
'Iddy'" (she couldn't pronounce Lillian either).
Grandma didn't stay at the hospital in Gallipolis, just was
taken there to see the doctors after she lost her mother,
father, and brother, all in the space of days in 1915.
Mom says that's enough. Happy memories for her. She says
she's so excited about all this that she "can't stand it".
Thanks for your patience for this posting. It has made a 90
year lady very very happy.
Love to all, Lil and Miss Helen
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