The riverboat captain is a storyteller. Captain Don Sanders shares the stories of his long association with the river — from discovery to a way of love and life. This a part of a long and continuing story.
By Capt. Don Sanders
Special to NKyTribune
A photograph of two begrimed, but attentive firemen shoveling coal into the fires beneath the boilers of a Mississippi River-style steamboat recently caught my attention. The picture came from my friend John Paul Wright, watchman, and former fireman of the steamboat BELLE OF LOUISVILLE.
First of all, I knew both the African American workmen portrayed at their jobs aboard the steamboat AVALON, which was the name of the Louisville boat when it was a “tramp” excursion boat from 1948 through 1961, before becoming the Belle of the Falls City.
The gentleman portrayed with his ever-present pipe between his teeth is Ollie Taylor. Behind him, with mostly only his head showing, is a youthful Ed Smith, a recent inductee into the National Rivers Hall of Fame. Ed and I worked together for several years aboard the AVALON and the DELTA QUEEN. If my memory serves correctly, I met Mr. Taylor when he occasionally visited the AVALON or the DELTA QUEEN. Time has a way of distorting memories.
After posting the photo of the two steamboat firemen hard at work on a couple of river-related social media pages, including my own, numerous questions arose about the men and the type of labor they performed.
One of the first questions asked was, “What year do you suppose this is?”
The AVALON was coal-fired, as portrayed in the photo, until the end of the 1953 Season, when Ernie Meyer, the owner of the AVALON and formerly an official with the ill-fated ISLAND QUEEN before it exploded and burned in Pittsburgh in September 1947, bought the boilers, pumps, and other equipment from the steamer GORDON C. GREENE.
Mr. Meyer had the AVALON lay alongside the GORDON at Owensboro, Kentucky, for the equipment transfer. Once done, oil, not coal, fueled the fires beneath the AVALON’s new boilers. So, Ollie and Ed had their picture snapped sometime before the 1954 excursion season.
Q. “How much coal might the AVALON be carrying in this photo?”
Although the AVALON carried a couple of tons, more or less, of coal during my tenure aboard the steamboat to fuel the auxiliary, or “donkey,” boiler after cleaning the main boilers every Monday on “Boiler Day,” I would have to guess at how much coal the excursion steamboat carried when she was a coal-burner.
With just two coal bins forward of the boilers, the primary concern was storage — especially on a passenger-carrying vessel, where the space for bulky coal takes away from areas that could otherwise accommodate passenger access, particularly on open decks. However, after the AVALON converted to oil-fired boilers, tanks recessed within the hull allowed the boat to carry its fuel out of sight and out of mind, except for those among the crew charged with monitoring fuel reserves.
Q. “These men were the people who did a dirty job. They showed up every day and did their job. They were proud men, real river people, and loved every minute of it. Could you show up and do that work every day?”
Me? Absolutely. I was one of those who did “show up and do that work every day.”
I was blessed to work with men like Ollie Taylor and Ed Smith as my co-workers, mentors, and friends who helped reinforce the concept that the “job always came first,” no matter how difficult, dirty, or dangerous it was.
After I began steamboating as a 17-year-old deckhand on the AVALON, I rose through the ranks to become the Captain of the Steamer DELTA QUEEN by the time I was 30 — and why an “extraordinary, ordinary man” like Ed Smith recently became an inductee into the National Rivers Hall of Fame.
Q. ‘Would you do anything differently if you could go back in time to those earlier days?”
If I could return to earlier times in my life with the hindsight I’ve gained after making mistakes in how I initially managed things, I would fine-tune some of the rough edges that occurred along the way. But, fortunately, during various episodes when I was away from the river, I also made inroads into other areas that remain intact and viable today, nearly half a century later.
A prime example is the recycling business, back home in Northern Kentucky, my wife Peggy and I started only days after our marriage with just a few meager dollars — by today’s standards — and the willingness to work with the fortitude and intensity learned from similar people like the two hard-working men featured in the photograph.
Otherwise, I’d leave the past alone and count my blessings.
Q. “What does this photo mean to you?’
This photograph is significant to me because I knew these steamboat men personally and chose to follow in their footsteps, and others like them, to become a steamboatman, too. When I look at Ed and Ollie in their coal-dust-soiled work clothes, I see two people who are content in their labors, doing what was essential to the operation of a steam-driven, Mississippi River-style, sternwheel vessel.
Their skills, honed over many years of experience, provided the life-giving vapor for a steamboat run by the fires they tended by hand. These men’s efforts were as essential to the operation of the steamboat as were those of the pilot, engineer, or even the Captain. Everyone on the crew knew their value and respected them for their worth. This they knew, and they wore the distinction proudly, though humbly.
Overall, studying the photograph of steamboat firemen Ollie Taylor and Ed Smith reminds me that I was indeed fortunate to have people like them in my life, people I respected and whose presence made my life a little better.
Captain Don Sanders is a river man. He has been a riverboat captain with the Delta Queen Steamboat Company and with Rising Star Casino. He learned to fly an airplane before he learned to drive a “machine” and became a captain in the USAF. He is an adventurer, a historian and a storyteller. Now, he is a columnist for the NKyTribune, sharing his stories of growing up in Covington and his stories of the river. Hang on for the ride — the river never looked so good.
Purchase Captain Don Sanders’ The River book
Capt. Don Sanders The River: River Rat to steamboatman, riding ‘magic river spell’ to 65-year adventure is now available for $29.95 plus handling and applicable taxes. This beautiful, hardback, published by the Northern Kentucky Tribune, is 264-pages of riveting storytelling, replete with hundreds of pictures from Capt. Don’s collection — and reflects his meticulous journaling, unmatched storytelling, and his appreciation for detail. This historically significant book is perfect for the collections of every devotee of the river.
You may purchase your book by mail from the Northern Kentucky Tribune — or you may find the book for sale at all Roebling Books locations and at the Behringer Crawford Museum and the St. Elizabeth Healthcare gift shops.
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