Rededication of Seafarers' Memorial

By JON BAUER
American staff writer

JoAnne Stuben recalled good times and sorrowful times Monday afternoon during the rededication ceremony for the Seafarers' Memorial.

Stuben, who grew up on her father's boat, the Messenger, recalls tales such as the sockeye catch of 1958 when fishermen took advantage of a 28-consecutive-day harvest and filled their boats to the point where flailing fish spilled from the decks, slid down to the cabins and landed on crewmen's bunks.

"This is what the fishermen waited for," Stuben said. "Life was good."

But Stuben recalled tougher times for families who depended on what the sea could provide, and mourned when it took its payment in the lives of fishermen and others who worked on the sea.

Seven men lost their lives when a tug boat sank off Guemes Island in 1926. And the worst disaster ever to strike the Anacortes fleet was the loss of both the Altair and Americus crab boats in the Bering Sea in 1983, an accident that claimed the lives of 14.

For Stuben it was the loss of her own father, Tom Savidge, in an accident near Deception Pass in 1975 that prompted her and her mother, Marie Savidge, to dream up the idea for a memorial while sitting at their kitchen table.

The original memorial, built through community donations and the labor of supporters, was dedicated in 1976 at the foot of Cap Sante Boat Haven's B dock. Replacement and relocation of that dock last year required relocation of the Seafarers' Memorial, which in the last 22 years had begun to list and was in need of restoration.

The memorial, restored, placed on a new pedestal and given a prominent location at Seafarers' Memorial Park (formerly South Harbor Park), took center stage Monday afternoon as it was rededicated with an afternoon of speeches, the laying of a wreath, prayers and special music. More than 300 people attended the ceremony, held under dry, but steel-gray skies at the waterfront park.

Harbormaster Dale Fowler and Mrs. Stuben unveiled the refurbished monument that waited through most of the ceremony under a veil of dark blue cloth.

Pastor Duane Eastman, in his invocation, said it was fitting that the memorial for those lost at sea be rededicated on a day that usually is reserved for remembrance of those lost in war.

Rather than dying in a war in a fight for their country, the men and women on the Seafarers' Memorial sacrificed their lives for something equally as important.

"They gave their lives to provide for their families," Eastman said.

Congressman Jack Metcalf also spoke at the ceremony.

"I believe God has a special place in his heart for fishermen," he told those gathered, recalling from what ranks Jesus found his disciples and how he promised to make them "fishers of men."

The memorial carries the names of 120 men and two women who lost their lives while pulling a living from the sea, whether on fishing boats or work boats, whether their bodies were recovered or buried forever at sea.

The monument's new location places it within sight of Deborah Copenhaver's sculpture of the Lady of the Sea, which waits for those who work and play there to come home.

"How fitting," Stuben said, "for it to be here next to the Lady of the Sea." The Lady waits for their return, she said; the Seafarers' Memorial mourns for those who do not.

Stuben and others voiced their hope that it won't be necessary to add more names to the monument. But it stands ready should the need arise.

"I'm so delighted to have this memorial for all the families," she said.