News Photo by Darby Hinkley Roger P. Hulett, vice president of the Great Lakes Lore Maritime Museum in Rogers City, and author of “A Lot More To Do: The Remarkable Life of Frank Mays,” stands by the bell recovered in 2007 from the S.S. Carl D. Bradley, on display at the museum.

He knew if they made it till daylight, they would survive. Sixty years later, the last remaining survivor of the S.S. Carl D. Bradley has more than just survived. Frank Mays, now 86, has been making a world-traveling adventure of his life, spared on that fateful night as 33 of his shipmates perished. He and First Mate Elmer Fleming were the lone survivors of the shipwreck, but Fleming has since passed away.

Mays will visit his birthplace, Rogers City, on Sunday for the 60th Anniversary of the S.S. Carl D. Bradley, at 1 p.m. at Rogers City Theater, 257 N. 3rd St. The free event will include Mays, John Janzen — a diver who retrieved the ship’s bell in 2007 — and Ann Belanger presenting her Emmy-winning documentary “November Requiem,” about the shipwreck, which happened in Lake Michigan on Nov. 18, 1958. The Great Lakes Lore Maritime Museum in Rogers City is hosting the event, one of three memorial bell-tolling services in November.

Mays vividly remembers the night of the shipwreck.

“Something like that, I’ll never forget,” he said in a phone interview on Thursday. “It’s burned in my mind, with all the details.”

He was one of four men on the life raft in the freezing cold, where they waited for 15 hours.

Mays wrote the 2003 book “If We Make It ’til Daylight: The Story of Frank Mays,” as told to Pat and Jim Stayer and Tim Juhl.

“All I can do is lie on the raft and endure,” Mays says in the book. “The cold November wind cuts through my wet clothing like a knife. … Our hands grow numb as we grip the small slats of wood that make up the deck. Time has lost all meaning. The night is black as coal, and we get little warning before the monster waves hit us. I’ve never felt so cold and helpless.”

“I told them ‘If we make it till daylight, we will be found,'” Mays said on Thursday. “And two of the four of us made it till daylight. … The other two men on the life raft were not dressed as warmly as Elmer and I were, because we were on watch and we were fully dressed.”

He said the other two men had finished their shifts and were in their bunks when the ship cracked in two when gale-force winds thrust it atop one of the many 24- to 30-foot waves, with some rogue waves at 40 feet.

“After it went down, U.S. Steel said it never broke in two,” Mays explained, adding that they told him he was delirious and not remembering things right. He assured them he could not forget exactly what he saw, because he was there, and he knows what happened. He was 26 at the time, a week away from his 27th birthday. Most of the men who died in the shipwreck were from Rogers City, and most were around the same age as Mays at that time.

Mays said he got a job onshore for a while, but the company made it clear they were not going to make it easy for him to stay employed there.

“They told me in 1959, ‘If you want to work for U.S. Steel, you’ve got to go back on the boats’,” Mays said.

He was not interested in doing that, and he knew they said that to get him to leave, so he did. He found work with various companies, including Medusa first in Charlevoix, then in York, Pa., before moving down to Florida in 1982, where he lives today.

“I built a home down here, retired and here I am,” he said from his Dade City, Fla., home.

For Mays, retirement is not a time to slow down. It’s a time to live this great adventure called life. He estimates he has traveled to at least 80 different countries around the world, and he has visited every continent except for Antarctica. He even joined the Peace Corps at age 68, because “he needed something to do.”

“I’ve been to Moldova, China, Thailand three times, Sri Lanka, Myanmar … all over Europe,” Mays said. “You name it, I’ve been there. I just can’t see myself sitting there watching TV all the time.”

Mays just visited Cuba in September.

He said his son and daughter know he’s going to enjoy his life traveling, and they support his endeavors.

“I told my kids, when I go, you can have my material things, but the money’s mine,” he said with a laugh.

His son Eric Mays lives in York, Pa., and his daughter Laine Mays lives in Tampa, Fla. He has three grandkids.

His wife of 35 years, Veronica “Toodie” Mays, passed away in 1998. The couple loved traveling the world together.

This year, Roger P. Hulett wrote the book, “A Lot More To Do: The Remarkable Life of Frank Mays,” which tells more about all the adventures Mays has taken over the years.

“My book is about the energies and how he lives his life,” Hulett said. “He ziplined in Cost Rica when he was in his mid-70s.”

Hulett added that Mays has also ridden a camel and gone whitewater rafting in his later years.

“His curiosity is that of a scientist, a socialogist, a mechanic, a discoverer, a researcher, a teacher, and a survivor, but without any doubt, truly an adventurer,” Hulett says in his book.

The memory of nearly losing his life, and grieving the loss of 33 mates is forever etched in Mays’ mind. He continues to enjoy the miracle of life he has been given, but has and will continue to play an active role in remembering and honoring the men lost 60 years ago.

“In 2007 the divers went down and they removed the bell from the ship,” Mays said. “I was the first one to ring the bell,” after its retrieval.

The first of this year’s three November bell-tolling services was held at the GLLMM on Nov. 10 for the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald, and another is scheduled on for 1 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 24, for the S.S. Daniel J. Morrell, which sank in Lake Huron 52 years ago on Nov. 29, 1966.

For more information, contact the GLLMM at 989-734-0706.

“This is the only museum on the Great Lakes whose sole purpose, the mission, is to honor the people that served on the Great Lakes,” Hulett said.

Another showing of “November Requiem” will be held at 7 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 23, as part of the Sanctuary Cinema Series at Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center, 500 W. Fletcher St., Alpena. For more information about that event, call 989-884-6200.