Topic starter
19/09/2006 11:47 pm
Several things mentioned in a couple of threads today about Ruth Ferris and Capt. Fred Way led me to posting this: Keith and I were privileged to visit both Ruth and Capt. Fred's homes. One thing they had in common was their ability to scare the living daylights out of their riders when they gave a car tour of their area. It seemed that everyone in Sewickley knew Capt. Way's car, and automatically gave it the right-of-way, which might have contributed to us being around today to retell this! One time when we were visiting 121 River Avenue and were out touring, it began to rain. So Capt. Fred said he guessed all we could do was go back to the house and look through some old photos down in his basement. Much to our despair, that's what we ended up doing, for several hours. We brought boxes upstairs and sat on the living room floor pouring over them. When we started, Capt. Way had declared: "If you find any you just can't part with, put them aside and we'll look them over later." Well, our problem was that most of them were 'keepers', but we didn't know how brazen we should be in setting some aside. At the end of the session, I think we each ended up with about a dozen, and I'm sure we could have asked for many more. As we left, we walked past the garage which held up antlers, and the LADY GRACE paddlewheel in the yard. A visit to Ruth's E Z ROCKER was just as scintillating, but Ruth's basement was as organized as 121 River was not. But both proprietors could find what they wanted in their own filing system. I was most impressed with the CAPE GIRARDEAU/GORDON C. GREENE chandelier which Ruth had as her overhead light in her bedroom. Who would have thought that a few years later both Keith and I would be able to acquire one of those too! Both of these wonderful people, though famous up and down the rivers, made us feel totally at ease in their homes, and I dare say have been the biggest inspirations for both Keith and me to enlarge our river collections and knowledge. This is not to say there haven't been others, most notably Doc and C.W. Stoll, but they are another posting in the future....
20/09/2006 4:58 pm
"On the Road" with Ruth and Capt. Fred!
Yes, we survived several "terror filled" safaris on Sewickley streets and St. Louis expressways, but I know we'd do it all over again if only we could bring those wonderful and dear people back! One October in the late 1970's I spent several days as a houseguest of Ruth and her sister, Frances. Staying at Ruth's house was like camping out at the National Archives and I hardly ever slept when I stayed there for looking at her marvelous river scrapbooks and photos until the wee hours! Anyway, one crisp morning Ruth packed a picnic lunch and away we went to beautiful, huge and historic Bellefontaine Cemetery where many famous St. Louisans are entombed. She had a well marked map of where James Buchanan Eads, Capt. Isaiah Sellers, Capt. Donald T. Wright (longtime owner/publisher of The Waterways Journal) and many other steamboat and river luminaries are resting. As I was taking a picture of a monument, Ruth, who was approaching 80 at the time, scared the wits out of me when she suddenly fell to her knees in a big pile of colorful autumn leaves. Thinking she had taken a tumble, I quickly ran to help her up. She laughed and said, "I'm OK! THIS is where Capt. Horace Bixby (who 'learned the river' to Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain) is buried", as she began scooping handfuls of leaves away from the very small stone which has only H.E. BIXBY engraved upon it. After enjoying our ham sandwiches, apples, cookies and cola, we paid a visit to the cemetery office. Ruth told the attendant (and showed some documentation) that there was an error in the date of death for one of the steamboat captains. The receptionist looked dubious and perplexed but picked up the phone and requested that the cemetery president come to the front desk. When he saw WHO was there and what the reason was he said to the lady, "If Miss Ferris says it's wrong then it's WRONG and you change it to whatever she says it should be!" He had been one of Ruth's fifth grade students at Community School! As we drove out of the cemetery (I recall Ruth screeching the tires on her snazzy little Ford Falcon, which had a small steamboat model mounted on the dashboard and she used a monkey fist key chain too!) Ruth sighed and said, "The BIG disappointment about our visit today is that NONE of those great river people could talk to us!"