What's Your Favorite DQ Memory?

Yeah, but don't think I'd want it any other way!
I've been a steamboat fan since I was about 6 years old, watching "Riverboat" and I've no idea why a kid raised in a mountain train town in Far Northern California became so nutty over them--there certainly wasn't one nearby to influence me! I suppose part of the blame goes to S. Clemens too. . .

My favorite DQ memory involves Leonie. (Franz & Carmen, I think you know where this is going).

We were doing picnic in the Orleans Room and it was my turn to provide the music. We were having a wonderful time. The dining room staff were positively balletic in their movements around the room. They were so good, it looked choreographed.

All of a sudden, I noticed little Leonie happily running around the room excitedly, just having a ball for herself. My "oh oh" internal safety alarm went off. I stopped singing and got her attention. "Leonie?" She froze.

I smiled, "Would you like to learn a new English word?" She nodded.

I said, "Can you say liability?" Franz got the hint and collected her back to their table.

I'm told she still says it.

The big red paddlewheel

I remember mostly remember the large red paddle wheel. It was amazing to watch it turn, and make the small waves behind it. The calliope was another thing, it produced some of the most beautiful music I'd ever heard. When I went to the DQ hotel I got to blow the whistle, I actually stayed in room 108. RIGHT next to the infamous room 109, that supposedly locates a ghost. I didn't see any proof of that, but it was cool. I hope that my children will get the opportunity to ride the Delta Queen someday, after all it's a tremendous piece of American History.

*Those early DQ memories*
Steamboating colleagues:
Keith is right that there are so many memories of the DQ many share over the years. Living at old Coal Haven Landing, Cincinnati, I saw the DQ steaming up and down from nearly the get go of her career--and the GORDON C. GREENE before that. Yet most of the DQ's 'trips' were down river from the Public Landing here. I think I first stepped on the boat back about 1952 with my late father who was on business with the City of Cincinnati and the Public Landing facilities here. I was in awe of the massive GREENE LINE wharfboat dim inside with mysteries. The wood office steps to the left on the upper end leading up where business was handled. The weather was getting cold--possibly late fall--when we went board and immediately I felt the boat's interior steam heat. All was bright, fresh, clean with crew working around. In those days the boat usually didn't arrive and leave the same day. Custom was to lay the boat in town 24 to 36 hours for cleaning, repairs, stocking of foods and supplies, giving the crew some time off. Maids and porters were cleaning, dressing cabins for her next trip. On the shelf by the Purser's Desk a vase filled with red roses. I don't recall in those years hearing the current term "cruises" for the DQ. It was always "trips" or just "going out on the boat." Everybody knew what "the boat" meant. The Greene family hospitality and graciousness was legendary during all their years of stewardship of the company and boats.

Don't ask who her captain was then as I'm drawing a blank here now. Jim Reising may recall. Dad discussed the fire and safety services the City of Cincinnati had available. Dad was walked around with his clip board with me being sent down to the dining room, now the 'Orleans Room.' Then somebody said, "Son, would you like something to eat?" I shifted from foot to foot as kids do. I was taken back in the galley where a kind black man was on duty. He smiled while assembling one of the finest ham sandwiches with all the trimmings along with fresh milk. YUMMY! I remember the wonderful fragrance of the coffee brewing in those big steam units to the right. Boats and ships, by their nature, have that certain fragrance when you board: cleaning products, food being cooked, smoke and steam from the stack or funnels. And the DQ was no exception. Are there other memories? You bet. That was a long time ago.

R. Dale Flick
Shores of northern Lake Michigan

My favorite memory is a bit unusual - I was a passenger during the 1968 (?) race with the Belle when the two boats collided (bumped would be more appropriate) I was up on the Sun deck and filmed the "bump". At the same time my tape recorder (remember those?) was running and caught the narration of the event by a very excited young clerk named Gabe Chengery. I still have the film and the tape.

Funny time filming the wheel

On one of my trips, I was looking for the best angle to get the wheel and the sun glistening off it and the spray. Well, the best spot was the rear of the Texas deck, UNDER the railings, so I was laying down on the deck, holding the camera through the railing, and craning my neck sideways to check the viewfinder. Someone from the crew came by (must not have recognized me--as I was/am known to do strange stuff for a picture) and asked me, with real concern in his voice, "Are you OK sir?"
"I'm fine, I'm just getting a photo!"
". . . . .Oh? (disbelief & detachment in the response). . . " and after a pause he continued on his way.
Funny, no one asked me that question afterwards when I was doing some contortion to get a pic! No wonder we're called FRNs!

Maybe the funniest thing that ever happened was when Mom Tookers' wig blew off and went in the river. She went running for her cabin. Meanwhile some crew and passengers doing the "calliope mile" saw it floating and assumed someone was under it and started throwing life jackets overboard and running for help. To appreciate, you just had to be there!

Mariam Edgar;31919 wrote: Maybe the funniest thing that ever happened was when Mom Tookers' wig blew off and went in the river. She went running for her cabin. Meanwhile some crew and passengers doing the "calliope mile" saw it floating and assumed someone was under it and started throwing life jackets overboard and running for help. To appreciate, you just had to be there!

Oh I can imagine. And it is indeed funny. 🙂

We first me Leonie, Franz and Carmen too, on their very first trip on the DQ. One of the other trips we rode together few years later, I don't remember exactly which one, there was a "OH NO" moment !! We were talking on the Texas deck one afternoon when suddenly Leonie, being shorter than the railing decided to look over the top, her belly on the railing, teetering, her feet dangling in mid-air when Carmen grabbed her. I never did learn that German word Carmen uttered. Yes, we were cruising at the time!!

Paul Penta;31913 wrote: My favorite DQ memory involves Leonie. (Franz & Carmen, I think you know where this is going).

We were doing picnic in the Orleans Room and it was my turn to provide the music. We were having a wonderful time. The dining room staff were positively balletic in their movements around the room. They were so good, it looked choreographed.

All of a sudden, I noticed little Leonie happily running around the room excitedly, just having a ball for herself. My "oh oh" internal safety alarm went off. I stopped singing and got her attention. "Leonie?" She froze.

I smiled, "Would you like to learn a new English word?" She nodded.

I said, "Can you say liability?" Franz got the hint and collected her back to their table.

I'm told she still says it.

Some of my favorite memories were those everyday moments I caught on film. In the early Seventies I was a college student and worked on the boat during my Summertime breaks. I liked taking 35mm pictures, slides actually, and I made it a point to take at least one picture every day. Some of the crewmembers thought I was kinda nerdy for carrying around a camera while I was off duty, but I wouldn't trade those slides for anything. I caught the everyday mundane stuff like a neat sunset, a tripod time exposure of the Upper Ohio from the pilothouse at night, the waiters taking a break on the bow of the boat after lunch, a deckhand making a braided rope bumper, --stuff like that. Every time I project those slides on to a big screen, I'm taken right back to that time and I can sometimes remember other events of that day that I didn't get a shot of. I wish I was like Keith Norrington and also did a daily journal, but I'll always be happy that I took those slides!

Denny Hamilton

Denny, please post some of those slides. I KNOW a lot of us would love to see them.
-Jim Herron

Jim, thanks for your interest in my slides. I haven't been shy about posting some of them in my entries on this site, so check them out. What I really need to do to give these slides justice is to get a good digital scanner. By the way, I have been trying to reach you for several weeks, but your website ( herronrail.com ) gives me an error code. Please call me at 262-574-1348. Thanks!
-Denny-

You right about dat! I still laugh when I think about it. Mom was probably not amused.

*Some 'darker' DQ Memories*
Steamboating colleagues:
I've enjoyed the fascinating "What's your fvorite DQ memory?" initiated by Jim Reising. But there were also other 'darker' memories of the DQ along with those filled with fun and humor. The DQ's new season often kicked off by her Mardi Gras trip from Cincinnati. Depending on the calendar, she often left in the near grips of winter cold, dark, icy. There was always the worry by the GREENE LINE office/managment of possible floods or other river conditions. "Can we clear the bridges if the river jumps up?" The opening of the new season questionable with the bottom line on the GL finance books. The first trip to Mardi Gras and bookings heraled the health of the coming year. The company was not always flush with huge reserves of cash in hand with profits hard won. Questions often heard were. "How are the boilers holding up?" "Are bookings coming in?" "Will the air-conditioning hold up this hot summer?" Along with concerns for health of the engines, pumps etc. in the engineering department. One major engineering need, new regulation could quickly flatten the bank account. Other times members of the crew, hotel staff would have serious issues or just leave the boat with positions needing to be filled. The maid and porter staff depended heavily on their tips working long, demanding hours; living in cramped quarters never tolerated by crews on blue water ocean ships or the newer, bigger diesel towboats. At one time I wondered if there wasn't one person in Cincinnati who hadn't worked on the DQ?

Sadness and tragedy often struck the boat on trips with sickness, death of crew members or their families. Passengers often notified of emergencies with families at home or serious business issues causing passengers to leave the boat terminating their trip. I sadly recall receiving the message of a family member who died while I was on a trip. Devastaing with Peg Baker, Hostess, taking me in hand for support back in the crew dining room where I had never dared venture uninvited. "Stay aboard and don't come home," my family said by phone at a way stop. I stayed aboard with "that big wheel turning" as Johnny Cash strummed and sang. Some frail passengers knew this trip would be their last. There were bound to be snits, scuffles, personality clashes of crew needing to be cooled off--or just off the boat.

Mrs. Letha Greene in the office had more than her share of concerns and worries. I often think back now how she could lay her head down at night without the DELTA QUEEN being her last thought. Read her 'Long Live the DELTA QUEEN' and you sense that. She could have written a lot more but kept many stories just in her mind. Boy! could she have written more. As Jane Greene later opined, "It seemed for a time like mother was always in the hospital." And then another shoe dropped when Mr. Goebel of the steamship SOUTH AMERICAN on the Great Lakes phoned Mrs. Greene with the news RE: the then new Safety at Sea Laws for vessels of all or partial wood construction. And it hit like a bomb shell.

Sudden death of a passenger happened aboard more than once. In one case, the deceased wife left the boat to have her husband cremated only to board again with his ashes in an urn to continue the trip. That's optimism. Passengers often had an entirely different view of steamboat travel from their perceptions. Beautiful, wonderful to many--but with often a darker side. Well, what do I know?

R. Dale Flick
Summer: Shores of northern Lake Michigan

Great posting, Dale. Human nature is a wonderful thing; we often forget the sad times and just remember the good. Yet, on the whole, I would say the old "Delty Queen" has brought far more good memories than bad.

I was on the DQ for a couple of short trips in the summer of 1970. My dad was in charge of the Farm Bureau refinery dock at Mt. Vernon, Ind., and Greene Line called him to say that they had lost their fuel supplier for the summer, and needed his help. Fittings were made, and the DQ made frequent stops at Mt. Vernon, to get fueled up that summer.

I found out later that the company had offered my dad a cruise for the whole family, but that he had politely turned it down, not wanting to be accused of being corrupt. He said that he aided the boat because of my love for the river. So, if that's true, I helped save her that summer.

The trips were from Mt. Vernon (Mile 829.7) to Dress Plaza in Evansville. July 10th and August 22nd, as I recall. Harry Louden was steering for the first of those trips. I was a guest of Bob Baldwin, VP of Operations. He and I dined in the Orleans Room, having the place to ourselves before landing at Evansville. What a thrill for a teen!

Fondest DQ Memory

As a child, we had houseboats and cruisers and spent many the afternoon cruising up and down the Ohio with the DQ, even locking thru Markland Dam at one time. So I had seen it as a native Cincinnatian girl and loved the girl.
My girl friend and I were working at TGIFridays on a Friday and the DQ was in town on a turn around, and I said, Im going down there to see if they are hiring .
I was a cook at Fridays at the time,and just yearing for something different, and in the early 80's they were still hiring dockside as needed. Drove down to the public landing, the smell of diesel gel in my nose, and chatted with Henry Mitchell for a bit.
He said yes as a matter of fact I need a pantry gal and a maid, and I thought, hmm. No cleaning toilets for me, yes I'd love the pantry position. He said be back at 5. Drove back home , told my parents, I'm leaving to go work on the Delta Queen, see you in 6 weeks, packed my clothes, gave my parents my car keys. Cried like a big baby as the boat headed down stream , and the calliope played, and headed out on the biggest adventure, of my life.
Turned up on the cover of the Evansville Newspaper, met some wonderful people.
Met some not so wonderful people, but I am so glad I had that experience.
Kim Applegate
San Francisco, Ca

DQ memory

My Parents Hank and Jean worked as musicians on both the DQ and the MQ. I also worked on the MQ as a maid, salad girl and waitress in the officer's mess. One of my favorite memories is when I was in high school in 1977. My dad was working on the DQ in Vic Tooker's band. My mom was home at the time, and we would go down to the boat in Cincinnati and ride it to Markland Dam so we could spend more time visiting with Hank and other friends from the boat. My mom's friend would drive her car to Markland dam to meet us where we got off the DQ in the lock. They would slide a board over to the deck on the side and we "walked the plank" to get off the boat trying not to look down to the water between the boat and the wall of the lock. It was scary but fun and worth the extra time we spent visiting on the boat.

I knew both of them very well - we worked together for years. I have wondered about them more than once. Please send my regards and an update about them.

Chances are that I was aboard on some of your lockhopping adventures, Susan Needham Kiefer! 1977 was the year I rode 28 straight days, took 6 off and rode another 9...

Fourth of July

I never felt more patriotic when we'd end the 5 PM Texas Lounge singalong with numbers 4, 5, and 6 in on the songsheet: Dixie, You're a Grand Old Flag and God Bless America, as we were cruising along the beautiful landscapes of this country on a boat which was America's boat... And then there was Vic Tooker's old line: Celebrate the Fourth with a fifth! (In that case every day was the Fourth to him!)

Do they have a 4th of July in England???

scroll down

more scrolling

Yes, it's just after their 3rd of July and just before their 5th of July.

OK, NOW you need to celebrate with a 5th! 🙂

Sigh! Jimmy, I feel like the elephant and the flea crossing the bridge..."Boy,we sure shook that bridge din't we?" Said the flea! I never worked on the Queen and never cruised on her. However, I have known her from afar since 1947 or 1948, when crossing the Suspension Bridge on the Green Line (not Greene Line) trolleys, there she'd be, lying alongside the wharfboat at the public landing. Later I boarded her as she slept the winter in Ragtown...offered a job on her at $8.00 a week (striker engineer) and found! Still later, seeing her get under way with that sonorous whistle announcing to the world her intentions, as my fiance and I watched as she took a load of happy passengers on their merry way. For years and years we tried to book a Derby trip...the only one we could afford (because it was short)...but, never made it. Then to see her last trip here in October of 2008 from the vantage of my own little steamer, MISSIE. Hear her blow that big mournful whistle for the last time in Cincinnati. And, yeah, I've stayed on her as a hotel, had the run of her engine room to repair the whistle line on my own little steamer, stayed overnight as I bought my latest steamer this past March...and spent a good few years monitoring comments from passengers and crew (poets one and all) who truly loved her...right here in steamboats.org. That's where I got to know her best...thanks to Franz and to you Jimmy, who started this and many another delightful thread. Cap'n Walnut.

Tom Schiffer;31987 wrote: Then to see her last trip here in October of 2008 from the vantage of my own little steamer, MISSIE. Hear her blow that big mournful whistle for the last time in Cincinnati. And, yeah, I've stayed on her as a hotel, had the run of her engine room to repair the whistle line on my own little steamer, stayed overnight as I bought my latest steamer this past March...

Did I just hear you right; was that, "as I bought my latest steamer this past March"? If so, I think it's now Commodore Walnut! 😉

Yeah, Frank. The fool is never satisfied to let well-enough alone. I purchased a small wood hull, removed the steam plant and am placing it in a Mountain Girl hull plus rebuilding the drive train on MISS BLUE. Things are progressing, albeit slowly with my brother John's help. It may be of interest that the wood hull came from California and the wife of the recent past owner was/is Jesse Hughes' niece. The naked wood hull went in trade toward the Mountain Girl hull. There is a lot of designing to be done since I'm thinking about an on-board condenser rather then the vulnerable, outside, keel condenser. With it is an 18" Powell whistle that will get dogs howling and bring kids running from the next zip code! Like the other two, the boiler is water tube, wood/coal fired, and this one is ALL copper...if you've got some good mash to run off... . It all worked before I took it apart but for a couple of check valves that leaked back in the feedwater manual pump line. Commadore? I hardly think so. Somebody else needs to own one of my three! Or, make that two and three quarters! Cap'n Walnut.