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Short Stuff: Captain Santa · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: II and welcome to the Short Stuff. I should say,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Merry Christmas and welcome to the short Stuff everybody, because
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: this episode comes out on December twenty fifth, which, as
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: many people know, is Christmas Day.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: That's right, and it's a rare Christmas short stuff where
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: we also have to issue awarding for kids listening that
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: this story, while beautiful and lovely, takes a very dark
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: turn as yet another maritime disaster episode.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I guess I had second thoughts about this,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: but reading over it again, I'm like, no, this is
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: a good Christmas story.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this was so funny to me. I just have
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: to tell everyone. When Josh Sinnett, I thought he was
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: sending it as a joke of like, hey, here's a
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Christmas thing, because I had already given him a hard
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: time about all the maritime disaster episodes we do and
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: here was another one, and You're.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Like, do we do a lot of those?
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: I was like, are you kidding me? I still couldn't tell.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I forgot about that, Orang Madan and Mystery
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: of the Sarah Joe too for in like I think
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: two weeks in a row or something.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but hey, this one is about the death of
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Captain Santa.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so just ring some jingle bells for this maritime
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: disaster and it'll differentiate it from the others, right.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this one has a very cool story around it though,
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: because in Chicago around the turn of the Last Entry,
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: they did a very cool thing wherein if you needed
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: a Christmas tree, you could head down to the Chicago
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: River and you could go aboard a real sailing ship
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: loaded with Christmas lights and Christmas trees, like a little
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: temporary Christmas tree lot to pick out your tree.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And if you were down on your luck at
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: the time and you went to a particular schooner, the
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Rause Simmons, you would probably meet the captain. He was
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: nicknamed Captain Santa, and he would if he found out
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: that you were down on your luck, you would probably
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: give you one of the Christmas trees free of charge.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Pretty great.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So the reason that this was already a thing
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: this is the late nineteenth century. By this time, the
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Germans had been decorating Christmas trees for a very long time,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: but it wasn't until Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, who
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: was from Germany, introduced it to England and it spread
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: to America. So people wanted Christmas trees by this time
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: pretty badly, and it was hard to come by in Chicago.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Not a lot of forests in Chicago. So sailors who
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: sailed schooners or captains who sailed schooners, which are large
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: masted ships used for shipping cargo, would sail from northern
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Michigan from Wisconsin with literal boatloads of Christmas trees and
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: show up at the Clark Street docks in Chicago, string
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: up some lights on their boat and just say come
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: on to board and pick out your tree.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: That's right, It's pretty wonderful, Tradish. Captain Santa was born
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: one Ermann Schuneman, obviously German and somewhere probably around eighteen
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: sixty five, and he was second in line in the
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: family business. His brother August would also do this along
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Lake Michigan, sell trees from the schooner. But Captain Santa
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: was not a rich man. He only owned one eighth
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: share of the Ralph Simmons. He was heavily in debt
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: because he owned a saloon that put him about thirteen
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: hundred dollars in debt about forty two thousand today, So
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: he wasn't a rich guy, which made you know the
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: fact that he had some financial hardships even more heartwarming, heartworming,
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: heartwarming that this guy would still give away trees if
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: he couldn't afford one.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so with a failed saloon, he was like, well,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: I've got to get out there and be captaining the
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Ralph Simmons as much as possible. He had a wife
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: named Barbara. He had three daughters, two of whom were twins,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: which is usually how twins come. And so it's important
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: to say he was not the only ship that would
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: sail to Chicago. In addition to his brother, there were
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: plenty of other captains, but he differentiated himself from his generosity,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: from his jolliness, and the Chicago papers gave him the
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: nickname Captain Santa. And so by this time, this last
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: run that he would make, and yes, that's kind of
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: a cryptic way to put it. It was November, mid November,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: and this was around the last time of the year
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: where you could cross the Great Lakes. In particular, he
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: was crossing Lake Michigan. So he was making one last
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: run with the ral Simmons, so loaded with Christmas trees
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: that witnesses later said it looked like a floating forest.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: And it turns out, Chuck, that this was the last
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: trip that both Captain Schunemann and the ral Simmons would
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: ever make.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: Are we going to be right back after this?
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah? I think so.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: All right, Part two coming up. Okay, we're back. We're somber.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: The Christmas joy has now been replaced by yet another
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: maritime disaster because after they set sail on November twenty second,
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: nineteen twelve, heavily loaded with three to five thousand Christmas
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: trees a floating forest. As you said, things went bad.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: They knew things could go bad because August, that older
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: brother that we talked about, he actually already had died
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: in a boat a shiploaded with Christmas trees, not too
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: long before, I beg was about fourteen years earlier November
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: eighteen ninety eight. Devastated the family, obviously, but Erman marched on.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: The schooner was spotted by a life saving station at Kiwanee, Wisconsin,
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: had its flag at half mass, which means I need help.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Their motor boat was the only vessel that could make
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: it in the storm, but it was on the lake
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: already doing something out of touch so by the time
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: they got in touch with the station at Two Rivers
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: and got their motorboat out, it was too late. That
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: boat was gone.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was only twenty minutes that had passed. But
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: by the time that motor boat from Two Rivers made
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: it out there, they were like, we couldn't see it.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: I mean it was dark and this was in the afternoon,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: but it was so dark and the snow was so
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: heavy and the mist was so thick that they were like,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: it's not there. So they don't know exactly where it
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: went down. They didn't know where it went down for
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: a very long time, about half century. But the thing
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: is is, despite the fact that it had vanished, no
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: one saw it go down. So like in maritime thinking,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: it was not necessarily lost. It could have made it
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: out of sight into a safe harbor and waited that
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: mid November storm out And that's what Barbara and her
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: daughters were thinking. They were concerned when the Ralph Simmons
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: did not show up in Chicago as planned, like on
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: its normal schedule. That's the word I'm looking for. Yeah,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: it's a Christmas miracle. I just pulled that word out
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: of thin air. But they also realized, like, it's possible
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: they were just sheltering in a harbor for a little while.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Let's give it a few days before we're really worried.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That came over the next weeks and months when
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Christmas tree started washing up on the Wisconsin shoreline. It
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: turns out that they were. Their fears were confirmed. The
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Ralph Simmons was never seen again. Up to twenty three
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: people perished there. It seems like there were some lumberjacks
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: who hitched a ride in addition to the Captain Santa
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: and the crew, and they you know, people would find
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: things here and there. In nineteen twenty four, this is
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: pretty remarkable. They actually found Captain Santa's wallet wrapped in
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: waterproof oil skin.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there was no doubting it. It had his business card. Yeah,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: it also had like clippings of some of the newspaper
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: accounts on him as Captain Santa. It was definitely his wallet.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: And I mean found in a fishing net is not
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: the way you want to find your lost husband's wallet. No,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: So the Ross Simmons was definitely lost. But Barbara herself
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: carried on this family tradition of delivering Christmas trees in
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Chicago for several more years, as a matter of fact,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: using schooners. Eventually they moved over to trains, which is
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: far more sensible, But the loss of the Ralse Simmons
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: was basically the signal. Like, Okay, the age of schooners
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: sailing across the Great Lakes using cargo and in particular
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: showing up at the Clark Street docks with Christmas trees
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: is probably over.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, But the cool thing about his family continuing even
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: when they brought him in by train, they would take
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: them to a docked schooner and sell them from that,
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: and even after that they sold trees from a lot,
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: So they were just a legit Christmas tree business family
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: by that point. But like you said, that kind of
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: was the beginning of the end for the whole practice.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: There are some interesting little sort of ghost stories and rumors,
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: I guess you might call them that, like you can
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: still smell evergreen in that area, and that the trees
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: may have maybe still be in good shape, like preserved
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: at the bottom of Lake Michigan.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Did you see the photo of it. Yeah, that was
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: a currently the real deal, like that some of the
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: they're so well preserved in the silt that some of
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: them still have their needles attached.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: That's incredible. I don't I can't get my needles to
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: last through New Year's Yeah.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: So a diver in Lake Michigan. I think Lake Michigan
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: is now the Vogka Clear Lake thanks to the zebra
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: muscle invasion. Yeah, but at the time in nineteen seventy
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: one when it was discovered, a diver felt it out
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: by hand and somehow figured out that this was the
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Rouse Simmons that he had found in like one hundred
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: and seventy two feet of water. And then over time,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: I think in two thousand and six, some underwater archaeologists
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: to the first survey and there's a picture I think
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Atlas Obscura has a really great article on this, and
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: there's an overhead shot of the Rause Simmons sitting upright
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: on the bottom of Lake Michigan and you can see
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: some of the Christmas tree timbers still scattered around it. Yeah.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Amazing. And I believe where the evergreen scent is present
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: is near Barbara's gravesite right at Acacia Park Cemetery in Chicago.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: One thing that struck me as very sad. I mean,
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: obviously the twenty three souls aboard, including Captain Sanna. Is
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: very tragic. But I also feel bad about five thousand
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: live trees that just went to waste.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is very sad. It's a lot about that. Wow.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: If this wasn't a barmber Christmas episode, it sure is
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: now it's a but but it might be. It might
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: not be a scary ghost story, but it is the
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: tale of the glory of Christmas is long long ago.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: If you ask me and so to kind of tie
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: the whole thing up in a nice Christmas bow. Captain
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Sanna was so beloved the Chicago papers went nuts when
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: the Ralph Simmons was lost. There was a legend, which
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: was apparently true, of a poor little girl who was
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: waiting at the Clark Street docks for Captain Sanna himself
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: to get her Christmas tree and was left waiting forever essentially.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: But he's still so beloved around this area that every
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: year in early December, the US Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: commemorates the Simmons journey across Lake Michigan and brings a
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: load of Christmas trees to Chicago's disadvantage. Kids.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: That's great, happy ending.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: It is a happy end. You nailed it. It's a
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Christmas ending.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it has a dark center. It's called a happy
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: Christmas sandwich.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. I want to give
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: a big shout out and thanks to Glen V. Longacre,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: who wrote a great two thousand and six article in
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: the National Archives now defunct Prologue magazine, in addition to
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Alice Obscurity.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: That's right, And is this coming out? When would this
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: be like a couple of days before New Year's.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: No, this comes out on Christmas. It is Christmas right now.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Chuck. Oh well, Merry Christmas.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Merry Christmas, Chuck, Merry Christmas to everybody who's listening, and
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: happy Holidays. Short Stuff is out.
• 12:54
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• 12:57
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• 13:01
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• 13:09
  Speaker 1: M