SINCLAIR LEWIS WAS MY SAILOR

In the spring of 1904 a great sorrow came into my life. It almost knocked me off my feet.

At the time, I was pastor of the Wesley Methodist Church, Belleville, N.J. and asked and obtained a leave of absence to join the "British Merchant Marine" and took with me a young man from my church, Phillip Van Kirk, a law student who would graduate the following year. At the time he was secretary to the treasurer of Columbia University. We were assigned to the Steamship "Georgian" of the Dominion Line then at dock in Portland, Maine and would sail in a few days for Liverpool. We carried a large cargo of cattle, in fact the boat was overcrowded. My ships log reads we had one hundred and twenty tons of hay, fifty thousand pounds of grain and over six hundred thousand pounds of water.

Because of previous experiences on the sea and my honorable discharge from the service, I was assigned to the Port-side in full command. About 2 P.M. on the day of sailing I saw the "old man" (the captain) coming down the deck followed by a long legged gangling red-headed youth about eighteen years old. The captain never took more steps than necessary and when he saw me stopped and shouted; "Doc, put Red to Work"! The boy came forward; I said "what is your name?" He replied, "Harry Lewis". Walking over where we kept brooms and shovels I gave them to him and showed him what he was to do. It was about thirty feet from where I was at work. It was a mess, everything was piled up in confusion. Our job was to clean up, fasten things down, as we sailed that night. It was hard work and the time was short. After about two hours and never a word, Lewis stood up and stretched his long tired back, wiped the perspiration from his forehead turned toward me and said, "Who in the Devil are you any how"? Walking over to him I said; "that is an interesting question, I might ask the same of you. If you want to know, join me tonight on the upper deck in the hay, we will be off duty until 4 A.M."

Lewis was prompt, and cutting the wire on a bale of hay we made ourselves comfortable. After a moment, I said; "Red, tell me your story". Without hesitation, and in full confidence he began. "I am eighteen years old, a sophomore at Yale. I was born at Sauk Center, Minnesota. My father is a physician, He is an alumnus of Yale, and that is why I went there. It looks as if I have made a mistake, because I do not have a friend in the faculty or student body. Everytime I say anything or do anything they ride me. I am tired of it and I am through." He paused and we sat in silence awhile, then he talked a little more. After I had the whole story, I said; "Red, I have an older brother, he went to Yale, and when he tried to speak they hooted him down. Today he is making good. Some day they will use his books in the colleges as text books while others will be in the libraries, (it came in time),. My advice is to go back, you must go back."

Here was a boy who had come to the first great crisis of his life and he was running away and fate had brought him in contact with a man twelve years older than himself, who also had ran away. We both were like Jonah, whom God sent to Nineveh, Jonah rebelled and went to sea and became the first world's submarine passenger. Read the book of Jonah in the Old Testament. We got up to go to our bunks, it was late, and we stood facing each other. He took my hand and said "Doc, will you pray for me"? I said "now" and together we knelt in the hay while I prayed for both Red and myself. Without a word we went to our bunks.

I have mentioned that I had with me a young man from my church in Belleville. There was another, a boy about seventeen. He was also red-headed. He too had left school in Spartansburg, South Carolina. His name was Frank Zimmerman, and we four found ourselves in a desperate situation. The boat hands were the lowest of human

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beings, profane, dirty and vile. The cow hands who had come with the cattle from the far west were French Canadians, others were thieves and criminals and followed the sea to escape the law. Then there were the professional cow-hands and cattlemen who made such work their business, a few others who had been shanghaied.

I recall one man, when he came out of his drunken stupor, asked me if the boat was going or if it was in dock. When I told him we were on our way to Liverpool, He said "what in the Hell will the old woman say"? She gave him a piece of yarn and sent him down-town to match the color. He got drunk and was carried on board. It would be six weeks before he would return. The foreman on the starboard side was called Tommy. He was a graduate of Holy Cross University. Trouble and liquor had gotten him. For several days he tantalized me to provoke a fight and I avoided him. One night, I was lying in the hay when two men sat down back of me with a bale of hay between us. It was Tommy and his pal. Tommy told his story, (just as the sun was sinking in the Ocean and every wave looked like a piece of gold.) "If that Ocean was the fire of hell and I could get one glimpse of that woman's face, I would plunge in and try to swim to her" then I knew why Tommy had run away. The next day he stood leaning over the rail. I crossed over and put my arm around him and said "Tommy I was in the hay last night and heard your story, I did not mean to listen, but I could not help hearing, and I am sorry for you; you have my sympathy", I reached for his hand and he grasped it. A change came over his face and He was my friend afterwards. Behind the broken, hard, lonely lives of these men gathered from all parts of the world, alone on the sea, was a story. The story that had broken them and brought them to their present condition.

The last of the recruits was the young boy from South Carolina, myself and another to be known as Sinclair Lewis. The first American to win the Nobel Prize and known to all the world. We three drifted together with Phillip Van Kirk. We were all different, I was a man thirty years old, had traveled and had a wide experience, Lewis was eighteen, a sophomore at Yale; Zimmerman, was seventeen and came from a school in the south, Van Kirk was twenty-one and was completing his law course.

We four formed the "Liars Club", not that we were liars, but that the tales we told were fictitious. Each night we met and one by one, we took our turn. Van Kirk was writing short stories and would read one. Zimmerman could sing like a nightingale and he sang. I usually told of some strange place visited, or described some far off city. The first meeting we had all finished except Lewis. He did not respond. He was lying on the deck with His hands behind his head and his legs pulled up so that his feet rested on the deck. When I spoke again he turned quickly and looked at me and said "oh yes" but I do not think he heard a word we had said. Closing his eyes he began a story that held us spellbound and every night he came up with a new one, such stories that he would elaborate later in life and set the world talking and make for himself a place in literature for all time.

Things were getting tense, I could feel it. Phillip had a round-by-round fight and came off tie. I had several scraps. Someone stole my blanket, and I put a note on the door of the forecastle that I would thrash the man who took it if it was not returned. Happily it was returned. The incident that came near having fatal results was the food. They ate like hogs, especially the French Canadians. They reached into the big pans which the cook brought with their dirty hands, and we had to be on hand when the food came or go hungry. One day I went out and stopped the cook in the gangway and got him to give me our share of plum duff. He either gave me too much or the men thought he did. In my log of the voyage I wrote "the Cook lied". We had gone off by ourselves to eat it. In a moment the deck was swarming with angry, swearing men, armed with pitchforks, hunting for us. Very fortunate for us we were seated near a large closet. It was unknown to the crew. It was a panel door of iron and locked by an iron bar on the inside. I pushed them in and closed

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the door where we remained for several hours until the men quieted down. It was an experience not soon forgotten. (In after years when I have had some stormy sessions with my official boards and I sat still and let them fume until they were exhausted, I wonder had they known my back ground and experience if they would not have tried other tactics?) (They had no pitchforks to enforce their arguments).

The crisis came a few nights later. The forecastle was in an uproar, men were singing, yelling, cursing and using the foulest language that ever came from human lips. I tried to quiet them. Some men wanted to sleep. They worked on different shifts. After a long time and patience was exhausted, I walked down along the bunks and said, "If you fellows don't stop I will break every one of your ---- necks". I closed the door and went out to make the final inspection for the night.

Lewis said I had no sooner closed the door when three men left their bunks and followed me. We four had given our word if any one was attacked the others should come to his aid. So Lewis got up and followed them. I had reached the deck and was walking toward the bow, I thought I heard foot steps, but was not sure. I stopped suddenly; I knew I was followed. Running toward the pilot house to the opposite side I waited and barely had time to brace my self, when the three came at me. I was a strong man, the most powerful man on the ship, I had been a Yost football player, and as the first man lunged at me I caught him fair on the chin and he went out cold. I dodged the blows of the second, punched him twice as he fell to the deck; with my foot I pushed him aside and went for the third who turned and ran. Just at that moment up in the mast, about fifteen feet above the deck in the rigging Lewis's red head appeared and a voice cried "Bravo Doc. what a fight!" I was angry, the fight had caused that, I said; "why in the ----- didn't you help me"? His answer was full vindication, "you didn't need any". Twenty six years after, on his way to receive the Noble Prize he remembered it. He wrote, "I remember still better that splendid evening when you thrashed a couple of foul mouthed cattlemen who insisted on singing and keeping us awake all night" and on another occasion, "Doc, that was the finest fight I ever saw in my life".

When we were several days from Liverpool tons of grain had to be hoisted from the hole and placed on deck so it could be unloaded in a hurry. We only were allowed twenty minutes at that dock. When the 100 pound bags came up two sailors threw them one by one on the backs of others who stood in line. I was in charge. The first bag landed on Jack the Australian, a short heavy built man; off he went. Lewis was next in line, the bag was on his back and he had not gone a half dozen steps when he fell forward and the bag was on his neck and shoulder. I was frightened, I thought his head hit the deck. Pulling the bag off I yelled; "Red are you hurt?" "No" He stood up, brushed the dirt off his clothes turned and looked at me and said; "Doc I can't do that". Everyone on board was present except those on duty running the ship. Every eye was on me to see what I would do. Here was a sailor saying he could not do his part. It was no easy job, a hundred lbs. on one's back and the ship rolling, only the strongest could keep his feet. I looked at Lewis, I knew he was telling me the truth, He was too tall and he lacked weight. "All right Red, you rest and take my next shift, I will take your place." The bag was thrown on my back, I staggered but kept going not one but for hours. There were 480 bags and only six men able to carry them.

He asked me to make him a small loan. I had promised a paper back home an article, so I paid Red three dollars to write it and sign my name. It was a good article. At that time he had only 15 cents and no job. I made him a small loan more than I could spare, it was fifteen or twenty dollars. His plan was to make socialistic speaches? on the street corners of Liverpool and London and pass the hat for living expenses. He had his passage back to Portland including berth and food.

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Phillip and I left him in Liverpool and made our way over Europe returning to the states in the Fall. Resuming my duties as pastor of the Church at Belleville and Phillip his law studies. Later in the Fall Lewis came down to New York with the Yale football team. He cut the game and spent most of the afternoon with me at the Belle-ville Church. He was in high spirits and was getting along well. He was very anxi-ous about me. "Why did I not get a big church in the city? Did I have a girl, was I planning to marry"? To the last questions I said yes. He did not ask her name or where she lived. He had to get his train he said and off he went. At eight o'clock I went up to see my girl friend as every good boy friend should on Saturday night. I rang the bell and was greeted with the words "your friend Harry Lewis spent part of the afternoon with me" and to prove it she handed me my pen knife which he had taken from me down at the church in the early afternoon.

The small loan I made him in Europe he returned after, while at Yale. I lost contact with him and may never have identified him had it not been for the call he made on my girl friend that afternoon twenty-six years before.

I was in my office in Detroit in 1930 and "Time Magazine" had been placed near my desk, on the front page was the picture of Sinclair Lewis, Nobel Prize winner, I did not associate that man with the "Harry" or "Red" Lewis, my sailor boy, on the Georgian - 26 years before. All morning every half hour I would go and look at his picture. I think it was about 11 A.M. and I went to my wife's office, placing the paper before her, I said; "did you ever see that man before?" After looking for a long time she said "yes," that is Harry Lewis, the young man who called on me one Saturday afternoon before we were married". Sure enough it was Red, I sat down and wrote him and in a few days received the following reply.

Westport, Connecticut,
November 28, 1930

Dear Mr. Womer:

Indeed yes I am the same, although considerably thinner-haired, tall red headed person with whom you sailed on the cattleboat Georgian in 1904. I remember a hundred incidents of the trip - including the highly unministerial time when you threw a chunk of plum duff at me after I had, with much difficulty and no particular efficiency, had taken a bath at a water butt. I remember still better the splendid evening when you thrashed a couple of foul-mouthed cattlemen when they insisted on singing and keeping us all awake at night, and I have never forgotten your saving my life by lending me $3.00 in Liverpool at a time when I had only 15¢. It kept me from something like starvation.

I judge from your letter that you have never read my first novel, "Our Mr. Wrenn", which deals in part with instances from just such a cattleboat trip as we took. It was published back in 1914. I think you can still find copies, however, in the Grosset & Dunlap cheap reprint edition. Probably your bookstore can get it for you. I should be delighted to send you a copy of it but I am off tomorrow for Sweden, this time not a cattleboat.

I was delighted to see the little photograph of you and Philip Van Kirk and I think I had better return it to you as you must desire it.

Warmest greetings,

Yours sincerely,

SINCLAIR LEWIS

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Later he wrote me to bring my family and visit him at his New England home on
my way back to Detroit, I had a wonderful little dog and she was taken ill and died.
Our return was delayed, my vacation was past, and I could not go. A few years ago
he spent some time in Duluth, my schedule called for a visit there and we planned a
meeting, when I arrived at Detroit by boat a letter waited me saying, he was compelled
to leave Duluth the night before my boat was to dock.

Of Lewis's ability as a writer I have but little to say. The past, present and
the future generations will pass on that.

I was talking to a man who was a great scholar at the time Lewis received the
Nobel Prize. He said "that man's brains are so keen you could use them to carve cold
steel".

I was disappointed when he wrote Elmer Gentry. It was based on a real character
and I knew Elmer. I do not believe that he gave a true picture of the average
minister, far from it. I wanted him to write a book that portrayed the minister as
a tireless hard working, sincere, pastor and preacher of the Gospel and do for the
Ministry what he had done for the physician in Arrowsmith. Further I wanted him to
do something as Dickens did in his day, take some great social evil that should be
rectified, He said, "I am no reformer".

Sinclair Lewis my sailor boy is dead. Is he? No, the name of Lewis will live
in the memory of men long after most of his contemporaries have been forgotten.