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Sadie Dahlborg
Mr. Chase
English I
13 June 2014
A Deeper Investigation on an Untimely Death
THE STORY OF MY SEARCH
I remember I was only seven years old or so. I was searching my mothers room looking
for something entertaining when I spotted a simple, white jewelry box on her dresser. Eagerly, I
opened it, and the under a thick tangle of discarded necklaces and bracelets, one in particular
caught my eye. It was just a simple gold chain, but attached to it, hung a smooth cream-colored
oval, encircled in more metal. The image painted unto the oval struck me as oddly beautiful; a
great ship, sailing a untamed, blue ocean. Excited by my finding, I rushed over to my mother to
ask her about it. The cream-colored oval was made from whalebone. It was a necklace only a
fisherman would have purchased. She told me about how my grandfather had given the necklace
to my grandmother as a gift, a little while before he had died in a tragic boating accident. Since
that day, I have always been interested in the necklace, but more so, in the grandfather I had
never known. As time went on and I grew older, I became increasingly curious about how this
skilled fisherman died at sea.
Over the years, I had gained a little bit of information on my grandfather and the boating
accident that ended his life. My grandfather was Lars Emil Larsen. He died when my mother was
only six years old. About the accident, I already knew that some type of larger boat struck his
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own, making his sink, it happened somewhere near Nantucket, and that five other men were a
part of his crew- only two of the six surviving, and four dying. My grandfathers body was never
found. This was about all the information I had gleaned from my mother thus far. My knowledge
on the subject was very limited in specific facts, though. I did not know anything on either of the
two boats involved, what caused the accident, or what my grandfather was doing on that
particular boat.
To find specific facts, I had to go beyond my mothers basic knowledge of the accident.
What was my grandfathers boat like? How much bigger could the other ship have been to cause
so much damage? When and exactly where did the accident occur? Why was my grandfather on
the boat in the first place? Who were his other crew members? Which of them survived and
which ones did not? I made a list of my questions, all of them falling under a particular subtitle:
About my Grandfathers boat, About the Other Boat, About the Accident, and About my
Grandfather. From this list, I formed my research questions: What really happened the day my
grandfather died? What was my grandfathers role on his ship before the accident ever occurred?
What are some detailed facts on both boats involved? Finding the answers to these questions
would enable me to stop seeing my grandfather as so much of a mystery. Id have something
solid about him when I thought of him, not just a million questions racing through my mind.
I started my research by reading through old newspaper clippings on the accident that my
grandmother had given my mother long ago. While information was repetitive in the articles, I
found some great facts that gave me answers to most of my research questions. To find answers
to the little questions I had left, I asked my grandmother some things, like an interview. I asked
her mostly about my grandfather and his fisherman job, the topic the newspapers detailed very
little about. Throughout this project, I discovered almost everything I hoped to!
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THE RESULTS OF MY SEARCH
I was able to find three newspaper articles out of the pile given to me, which gave me
information I did not know and answered part of my research questions. The other newspaper
clippings my mother had were just snippets and provided the same information, just a lot less, of
the three. I have taken the subtopics I used to formulate questions (About my Grandfathers boat,
About the Other Boat, About the Accident, and About my Grandfather) to organize all the
information found using the newspaper articles. My grandmother was able to give me some
information, too, in the interview I did with her. She did not, however, remember a whole lot.
I discovered a great deal of facts about the boat my grandfather had been on when the
collision happened. It was a dragger ship called the Eugene H. Being 72-feet long and 83 gross
tons, the Eugene H was not a particularly large ship. The Eugene H was built in 1944 in
Thomaston, Maine. The reason the boat was out in the sea in the first place was because it was
due at Vineyard to unload fish on Sunday, the 18
th
of May (Stewardson
1
). A company of the
name Kristine Fishing Corp owned the Eugene H (Stewardson
3
).
I was also able to find some specifics on the boat that collided with the Eugene H. One
article was able to tell me that it weighed 10, 329 tons, a horrific amount more than my
grandfathers teeny dragger (Stewardson
1
). Another article though, gave me a whole lot more.
The other boat was called the Grand Justice. It was owned by the Grand Navigation Corp. The
Grand Justice was a large freighter, being 494 feet long. Built in 1967, the Grand Justice was
younger than the Eugene H. Its home port was in Monrovia, Liberia, all the way in Africa
(Stewardson
3
).
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There were plenty of facts on the actual accident. The collision happened at 10:15am, 63
miles southeast of Nantucket, near Georges Bank. The Eugene H was rammed into on her
starboard (right side), and this happened while towing the fishing net. The Coastal Guard was
informed of the collision at 12:43pm. The Grand Justice crew seemed like they had no idea what
to do in the situation, or they simply did not care. Heavy fog clouding the visions of the Grand
Justice crew members was a definite cause of the collision (Stewardson
3
). Bernard Mosher, a
crew member on the Eugene H, first noticed the approaching Grand Justice from 12 to 15 knots
away. He, Francis Tripp, and Edward P. Gleason tried to make an escape together. Mosher did
not see my grandfather or crew members, Maynard McCartney and Ronald J. Foley at all during
this time or after (Stewardson
2)
. Of the six crew members aboard the Eugene H, two survived
and four died. Bernard Mosher and Francis Tripp were the survivors. Edward P. Gleason died,
and the Coast Guard found his body. The bodies of the remaining three my grandfather, Lars
Larsen, and Maynard McCartney and Ronald J. Foley- were never found (Stewardson
3
).
The newspaper articles had the least information on about my grandfather and his role on
the boat. I was able to gather that my grandfather was the skipper, the captain of the Eugene H.
An article also informed me that my grandfather had been in the pilot house at the time of the
collision (Stewardson
2
). This was all the articles had on Lars Larsen. I think they had so little
because his body was never found, and so he could not contribute anything to the paper.
After I found everything I could from the newspaper articles, I called my grandmother to
conduct an interview with her. My grandmother, while not being able to clearly remember any
other facts on the accident, she did know a few things on my grandfather and his job. The
Eugene H was the first boat my grandfather, Lars Larsen, had been the skipper (captain) of. On
previous boats, he had been a first mate. My grandfather hadnt even been a skipper for very
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long. He had only been assigned to the Eugene H for a couple of months, and he had only taken a
very few trips on it. My grandmother, in addition to the information on my grandfather, also
remembered something technically unrelated to the boating accident, but interesting about one of
the survivors, Bernard Mosher. Ironically, he died about a year later, in a whole other boating
accident (Rose).
REFLECTIONS ON MY SEARCH
My research was very successful, and it wasnt stressful at all. I was able to find more
information than I intended to. All I had to do to obtain this information was read through some
interesting newspaper articles that my grandmother had saved and given to my mother years ago,
and I asked my grandmother some questions. I learned facts on my grandfathers boat, which I
now know was the Eugene H, facts on the boat that collided with his (the Grand Justice), a great
amount of specific information on the actual collision when and where it was, who survived and
who did not, etc.-, and about my grandfather and what he did as a fisherman. Learning these
things enabled me to answer my research questions, my thesis.
This researching experience helped me know more about my grandfather, when I knew
almost nothing about him previous to this project. He is not the mystery I thought he was
anymore, and knowing this relieves me greatly. In the future, I plan on visiting a plaque for my
grandfather and the other members of his crew who died in the accident, with my grandmother. It
is located in the Seamen Chapel, a church in New Bedford. I hope this will help bring me a little
closer to the grandfather I never knew.


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Works Cited
Rose, Grace. Telephone interview. 5 June 2014.
Stewardson
1
, Jack. "Dragger is rammed; two saved, four lost." The Standard Times [New
Bedford] 17 May 1975: 1. Print.
Stewardson
2
, Jack. "Dragger survivor hits freighter crew." The Standard Times [New Bedford]
21 May 1975: 1-2. Print.
Stewardson
3
, Jack. "Dragger survivor says ship crew didn't seem to care." The Standard Times
[New Bedford] 18 May 1975: 1. Print.