Trending
ROGERS CITY--The United States Coast Guard's Sundew arrived in Rogers City, Wednesday to honor the lives that were lost on the shipwreck of the SS Carl D. Bradley.
The Sundew is expecting to arrive back to its home in Duluth, Minnesota after taking a three-week long tour of the Great Lakes.
"This was a tremendous honor to have the Sundew here in Rogers City, the Coast Guard vessel that rescued two of our sailors," Rogers City Mayor Scott McLennan said.
Two sisters of men who passed on the Bradley rang a bell 33 times, once for each of the men who lost his life.
The Sundew played a major role in finding and bringing home the only two survivors of the Bradley, decades ago.
After retiring in 2004, the Duluth, Minnesota based coast guard cutter was restored to its old glory by Jeff Foster. The cutter has been running for 17 years after buying the boat in 2009 from the City of Duluth, Foster said.
After he and his crew were inspired to make it down to the Coast Guard Festival in Grand Haven, Foster said they decided to make a pit stop to Roger's City on their way home.
"When you talk about the Sundew, the Carl D. Bradley shipwreck always comes up and we felt that as long as we're going to be on Lake Huron, we should alert the folks in Roger's City," he said.
This is the first time since the sinking of the Bradley, that the Sundew has ported in Rogers City.
"The people of Rogers City are just an amazing, resilient group of folks," Foster said. "And I've learned so much just in the couple days we've been here."
On November 18, 1958, the self-unloading ship that delivered limestone for the Michigan Limestone and Chemical Company collapsed after a November storm brought 60 mile per hour winds and 25 to 35 foot waves to Lake Michigan, according to the Presque Isle Historical Museum.
Only two survivors of the 35-man crew made it out of the shipwreck, the other 33 were found to be either dead or missing.
The Bradley was on its way back from Buffington, Indiana to deliver limestone to the Universal Portland Cement Company.
After hearing a mayday call from the ship, the Sundew went out to search for the boat at 10:45 p.m. The crew on the Sundew found the only two survivors floating on a raft at 8 a.m.
McLennan said the city had less than 5,000 residents when the ship sank. According to the U.S. Census data from 2020, there are around 2,850 people who live in the city.
Many of those who attended still have direct relations with someone who passed on the boat. Long time resident Donna Hopp said she was six when she lost her brother-in-law, William T. Elliot, in the shipwreck. She said she remembers when caskets lined the gym floor of the St. Ignatius of Loyola Catholic School.
"My niece and nephew grew up without their dad, and it was a tragedy for our whole community," she said. "So, I'm so grateful that people remember because we want people to remember what happened.
She said seeing the caskets at the school left a longstanding impact on her.
"You can't even begin to imagine the impact that it left on all of us," she said.
The memorial was put on in partnership with the Presque Isle County Historical Museum and the Great Lakes Lore Maritime Museum.
"I know the caption, and he called me 12 days ago and said, 'hey Karen, guess what? We're going to bring the Sundew in,'" Karen Goddard, the executive director of the Presque Isle County Historical Museum, said. "It's a once in a lifetime event, it will probably never happen again, but I'm glad that I was able to bring it to the community and to share the Sundew with them."
Goddard said the next ceremony will be on November 18, which is the yearly tradition of honoring the wreck. Foster said there are no plans for the Sundew to come back to Rogers City as of now, but that might change.
"After this, I think if we ever get into Lake Huron, which I'm sure we probably will at some point, we'll absolutely come back to Rogers City," Foster said.