Halvorson boys drowning

Remembering Black Sunday in Duluth

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As waves threatened to overtop the pier walls and wind whipped the words from people’s mouths, an intimate ceremony was held earlier this week in Duluth’s Canal Park. The gathering marked 50 years since three brothers and a Coast Guardsman who was trying to find them were swept off the pier during a late April blow. (For more details, please read my earlier post.)

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Ron Prei (left) and Tom Mackay.

Tom Mackay, a friend of the Coast Guardsman, organized the Black Sunday event. It was simple – no microphones, no chairs – just a bunch of people who wanted to remember. We stood on the North Pier near the shore and the Marine Museum, where the plaque for Guardsman Culbertson rests. It’s not far from the gates put up after the drownings to discourage people from walking the piers during bad weather.

Mackay talked about why he feels it’s important to remember the events of that night long ago. He talked about his friend who died. He talked about the power of the lake. He painted a picture of young lives cut short.

Mackay laid four flowers next to the plaque as he does every year on April 30 – one for each death, and then invited Ron Prei, another Coast Guardsman who was part of the rescue attempt, to talk. The soft-spoken Prei’s words were lost to the wind, but in a WDIO-TV news interview, he described the harrowing conditions of that night and how he’ll never forget.

DSC04055The Halvorson brothers were my cousins – first cousins once removed, or something like that. I was too young when the tragedy happened to remember them, but I remember the effect it had on my family, and the Halvorson family. Later, when we would visit the Halvorson home for dinner, there was the sense of the missing brothers – a blackness that hung in the background and was not overtly acknowledged – at least not when I was around. A certain liveliness was missing. Those feelings were quickly overshadowed by the exuberance of the family’s four other children and the warmth of conversation.

It was good to be part of this public recognition for the boys, the man, and the force that is the lake.

Afterwards, the crowd dispersed, hunched against the cold wind. And we remembered.

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The Lake, it is Said, Never Gives up her Dead

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Black Sunday

The original newspaper article about “Black Sunday’ as it is known locally. Darn paper got the twin’s names mixed up.

Fifty years ago on this day, I remember by mother and sister crying. I was seated at the dining room table and they were in the living room across the way sobbing their hearts out. I was so young, I didn’t understand what was happening. I only knew this wasn’t usual behavior for them. It scared me.

Eventually they came over and tried to explain. They said three of our cousins had drowned in Lake Superior – 17-year-old Eric, and 16-year-old twins Art and Nate. A Coast Guardsman who was trying to save them also drowned. A wind storm had whipped up the waves on the lake and the boys had driven down to the pier in the evening after a church youth group gathering to watch the power of the lake.

Whose idea was it to try and make it to the lighthouse at the end of the pier? As my family tells it, a common game among teenagers at the time was to run on the pier wall, racing the waves from light post to light post until making it to the end. Then you had to make it back. It was a local rite of passage.

According to witnesses, two of the brothers made it to the lighthouse. The third brother, close behind, lost his footing and was swept off the pier. The other two turned back to save him, but soon they were lost from sight in the frigid water.

I guess it doesn’t matter whose idea it was to race the waves. The brothers can’t tell us, and their bodies were never found.

In response to a call for volunteers to search for the boys that night, three Coast Guardsmen tethered themselves together with rope and made their way to the end of the pier. Finding nothing but wind and furious waves, they were making their way back when one of them, Edgar Culbertson, was washed over the side by a wave. The other two could not save him. I assume he was still attached to the rope and by the time they got to shore, Culbertson was drowned.

In commemoration of my cousins and the men who tried to rescue them, a ceremony was held today at the pier. Since I am the only member of my family left in town, I attended to represent. I’ll write more about that in my next post.