Tugmen: an incomplete list

Monday, February 22, 2021

I’m still about lists, apparently. Maybe it’s another stall tactic? Even if that is so, it is usually fun - except when the list is lacking. Either way, I am sticking to the approach of reaching out to people so that I can potentially receive some useful guidance and/or support that will help me to fill in some of the gaps in the blue binder. Part of Jan Stacy’s third chapter was placed in between some of the photos of Chapter Three. Notes were included, stating plans to interview tugmen and I want to follow through on that. But as I previously feared (and still do), finding the men that were photographed, alive and well, may prove difficult to impossible.

But I need to try. So below is an incomplete list that I compiled from what was typed on various pages in the binder. There are more men in the images than there are names below. I am not sure that I will be able identify all of them but I need to begin somewhere. Whether my own research proves effective or not, by the end of the week, I will have worked up the nerve to email TimBatSea. It is my hope that he may know one or more of these men — or at least know someone who might know someone who knows them, you know : ]. Even if these tugmen are no longer alive, I am hopeful that I will nevertheless be able to find people - relatives and/or friends - who can tell at least some stories.

• Captain Albert Ellis

• Gary ?

• Chief Engineer Elias Haaland

• Deckhand Bob Rooney

• Cook Joe ?

• Captain Bill Caughlin