ROGERS CITY — Rogers City resident Betty (Schefke) Kowalski recalled Tuesday, Nov. 18, 1958 as a sunny and relatively warm day.

She completed washing her laundry and hung it outside to dry.

She was 21 years of age.

On that day, her brother, Bernard, age 19, was aboard the Carl D. Bradley on Lake Michigan, then heading for a winter layup in Manitowoc, Wisconsin.

In the early evening, a friend contacted her about hearing of the Bradley’s sinking. Kowalski gathered up her children and joined her parents on Lake Street.

“The entire family was on their knees, praying for my brother and the crew,” she said.

In the days to follow, her two brothers traveled to Charlevoix to identify her brother’s body.

In her immediate neighborhood, six Bradley crewmembers perished.

She commented that her daughter, Suzanne Luetzow, wrote a Bradley tribute poem, which, in years past, was read at memorial ceremonies.

William (Bill) Elliott Jr. was only a year-and-a-half old when his father, William Sr. was a Bradley engineer/repairman.

He noted that was his father’s first sailing on the Bradley. His plan was to stay onboard the freighter during its winter layup. His wife, Sandra, would join him in Wisconsin, where he had nearby family.

Elliott did not recall nor hear much about his father and the Bradley until in his junior year at Michigan State University, when he read the book, “Great Lakes Shipwrecks and Survivals.” Later that year, he returned home, where he asked his mother for more insight on the tragedy.

She took him to their attic and showed him press clippings and photos of his late father, accompanied by her personal stories.

Ronald Krawczak, former owner of Rogers City’s White Pine Gardens, was then 11 years old.

He had five sisters. His father, Joseph, was a Bradley wheelman. He recalls a neighbor coming to his house, telling his mother and siblings about the Bradley’s plight. During the evening and night, the family listened to WHAK AM radio for details. The station was normally a sunup to sundown broadcaster. Krawczak still has this floor model RCA Victor radio.

He recalled his mother receiving a postcard from her husband, noting rivets being picked up in the Bradley’s hull.

Paul Tulgetske was 3 years old when his father, Earl Patrick Jr. was a wheelman onboard the Bradley. His sister, Karen (Tulgetske) Jenkins, was 6 years old. They have two other sisters, Susan Warner and Leslie Taaffee.

Tulgetske commented that he often reflects on what his life would be like if his father did not perish onboard the Bradley.

Jenkins added that, during the course of the evening, her mother’s brother, who then resided in California, saw a television account on the Bradley. He immediately called his sister. She was unaware of the freighter and crew’s precarious situation. By 9 p.m. that evening, a neighbor came to their home with confirming information.

She vividly recalls seeing the crew’s caskets displayed at the Rogers City High School auditorium.

Michael Horn, of the Great Lakes Lore Maritime Museum, states that Saturday at the Rogers City Theater, 257 N. Third St., Rogers City) a 65th anniversary memorial tribute for the Bradley’s crew will be conducted. The tribute begins at 1 p.m. Featured will be notable Great Lakes and Bradley historians, along with a slide show.

Recovered from the Bradley, the original ship’s bell will be rung 33 times for the most significant contemporary loss of lives on the Great Lakes — more lives lost than the Edmund Fitzgerald.