The Mail Must Go
Romance Of The Sea Set Course
Of Life Of Capt. Robert von Scheele
Missing from the waterfront is
the long-time familiar figure of
Captain Bob von Soheele as he
went about the business of carry
ing mail around the island and
neighboring villages successively
on the Ruf Rider, the Charlotte
B, the Phyllis S. and at last the
Shuyak. With perhaps no more
than two shortterm interruptions
this went on from 1926 until his
one, and last, sickness took his
life in June 1960, the last several
years being spent in private boat
ing of one kind or other. His very
last tjdp was on a salvage job for
Alvirie, when he came in, after an
arduous tussle with two storms and
short help towing from Sitkinak
Island the metal barge which has
since been repaired and fitted up
for the present vertical lift at Al
vine’s Marine Ways.
The Romance of the Sea could
well entitle a stirring story of Bob’s
days in the mail service, and well
he loved his chosen work in the
ebb and flow of the ocean’s tides
and often—-unforseen changes in
the weather. Having tried at one
time to make a change and buying
a house in Seattle to start a boat
business there, he made it through
the winter all right, but when
spring came and the cannery boats
readied for Alaskan waters, he
daily found himself mingling in
these preparations as though he
were himsedf to go, and nightly at
home he grew silent and more si
lent until we knew of a certainty
this would never do. He took pas
sage for Kodiak and soon applied,
for, and got, the job of mail-carrier
between Kodiak and Afognak with
stopoff at Uzinkie, at first once
a month, then twice a month.
The Ella M. was his initial pur
chase from hard-earned fishing
money—six, and seven, to nine
cents for red salmon in those years
’25, ’26, ’27; up to 12%c in ’36. This
little boat, newly conditioned for
his first contract, came to an early
end. Mail-day approaching (July,
’26), painted, the engine now run
ning, a young helper aboard, an
easterly breeze freshening, he
would surprise his bride of months
and would run it from Back Bay
around ithe two points to the north
end of the village of Afognak
where they lived. A glittering,
bright day matched his spirits.
Upon anchoring proudly abreast
the house on sandy bottom and
landing to find his wife putting on
supper, he ate hurriedly, seeing
this was not a passing breeze—
the fresh east wind was fast gain
ing gale proportions. In the smart
chop he rowed out and once on
board did his best to get it quickly
around another near-by point to
shelter. But drifting now, and
faster and faster, the engine not
turning over, the two finally had
all they could do to jump to safety
on to a cliff on the crest of a high
wave, all his work and earnings
left to go at the mercy of that
storm; all that remained of the
hapless Ella M. by falling tide was
kindling wood and a useless motor
in a tide-pool. At twenty-six, a
grave accident, with loss of neither
life nor limb, was soon a darkling
memory, the first crushing pain of
loss softened by the rallying fam
ily and the wisdom of a kind father.
It was then that his brother Tom
took over their father’s Herbert,
running on batteries. He worked
it over to sport a modern pilot
house, put in an N and S gas engine
and re-named it the Ruf Rider. En
gine changed subsequently several
times, this was the dashing, daring
mail-carrier for many years. Was
it not the trusty, beautiful hull a
grand-uncle had built of fine sea
soned fir, with keel and ribs of the
tough spruce of the islands, which
had withstood numberless forced
beaohings both at the village in
sudden northeasters and at Back
Bay in northwesters in freezing
cold and thundering surf on the
easy sandbeaches there? Easter
lies, westerlies, northeasters, sou’
westers— the Ruf Rider ran before
them all. And the years developed
a fine weather-eye for Robert.
The time came when the other
villages and the canneries needed
regular mail service. The Ruf
Rider could do it, but it wasn’t big
enough. Bob, as he came to be
called, or Angun—Old Man—by his
many friends in the villages,
bought the Charlotte B. easily
twice the size of the good old Ruf
Rider. A very comfortable boat,
besides being entirely adequate as
a carrier, the Charlotte B. gave fine
service for the three or four years
he had it until it struck a reef in
Geese Channel in a fog by a mis
calculation on the part of the man
at the wheel when Bob had turned
in for a wink before bringing her
in among the lights and rocks near
Kodiak, a strong wind and the tide
bearing it off course while steer
ing by the compass. Hitting at high
water, with a minus run-out fallow
ing, a howling storm the next day
swung her over from side to side
in the swells so that the valiant
Charlotte was left a total wreck,
passengers, mail and freight all
safely off immediately after strik
ing.
Weathered in a full week, owner,
crew and passengers, with mail and
freight, continued to their several
destinations before Robert went
about to charter the Phyllis S. from
0. L. Grimes at Uzinkie. A cannery
tender of moderate size, this boat
made the next trip in scheduled
time, but the very next trip, on a
calm December afternoon, the
Christmas mail and a deck-load of
Christmas trees newly cut at Chad
rick for the Island families, nine
passengers enjoying the most
pleasant of winter-going, a half
hour’s run to Port Bailey from
Harry Howe’s mill on Raspberry
Island, a U. S. destroyer, by some
unbelievable freak coincidence,
plowed right through the little
boat, cutting her clean in half.
The first anyone on board the
Phyllis S. knew of the large vessel
was upon impact, when it went into
full reverse No one had happened
to look backward, Tom at the wheel
disdainfully pronouncing with sea
manly embellishment that at sea
the man behind slows down for
anything passing ahead. The stern
end was afloat, as was also the bow
end, with a little girl and her grand
mother who had been sleeping in a
forecastle bunk. Bob had been eat
ing his supper below and in a flash
was up on deck with a child in
each arm while the mother reached
another up out of the skylight from
which she herself was then hauled
out with some difficulty.
At this point the ship’s com
mander gave the order? for the two
or three mine-sweepers in the vi
cinity, steaming alongside to give
a hand, ito hold off when, as was
their intention, they could have
towed both parts ashore, the bow
end now nose upward out of the
water. Hooking onto this and do
ing a bad job of lifting it aboard
the destroyer, /the order was given
ito cut into the part in an effort to
extricate the two trapped there.
Causing the buoying air thus to
escape, all things movable jamming
Through
into the bowsprit, the part quickly
filled, and sank with its load to
its ocean grave. The dory, righted
from its flipping over, by the one
man thrown overboard, was again
the means of escape from the sea
for all but the unfortunate two,
some picked upright from the one
end, and the rest clinging, Bob
dry-shod, from the still floating
bow end, until they were helped
aboard the ship in greatest con
fusion. Much telegraphing, as far
as Washington, D. C., finally per
mitted landing of the survivors at
Port Bailey.
Again no mail was lost, some
sacks even having floated up out
of the forecastle during the night.
Sometime the next day, returning
to Kodiak on a boat from Port
Bailey, the still floating part of
the Phyllis S. was picked up as it
came on the return tide, as well as
some scattered sacks of mail re
leased from their watery ride, emp
tied of its load of mail and freight
and beached just around the south
end of Whale Island as you come
into Whale Pass out of Kupreanof
Straights. Here the wet mail was
laid out and dried also, and here
today you can still see what re
mains of the Phyllis S.
A changed man after this ordeal,
Robert paced /the floor his eve
nings at home; his hair soon turned
gray. He chartered some small boat
to finish out his contract that year.
It was only with patience and un
derstanding, and by pleading at
last, that his wife persuaded him
to again talk with Mr. Grimes about
a loam for another boat.
Wearily he went through the mo
tions of securing one. A sturdy
purse-seiner, the Shuyak, diesel
powered, wias for sale at the Nellie
Juan cannery in Prince William
Sound, just the size he could use.
AJ1 arrangements made, he brought
her up to Kodiak, and from June
1945, that year, until the Kodiak
Airways contracted to fly the mail
around the island in 1955, the
Shuyak was a welcome sight at all
the several stops around the islands
of this group.
Many are the grateful memories
of favors done, as in shopping for
most anything as necessity, or
means, allowed; of the always
cheery shout of the children at
first glimpse, or sound if its motor,
“Mailboat!” The clambering aboard
for the exciting handouts, always
was a special joy to him. Among
the many passengers he carried for
a nominal fare, many for a hand
at the wheel or such-like, an eld
erly gentleman from a lower states
city, in appreciation of the kind of
trip he’d been given, sent a paint
ing he’d done of the Shuyak while
here and finished at home—a cher
ished possession ever after. Duck
and elk-hunting were his favorite
diversions, and the always flaw
lessly dressed game brought home
were pure delight to see. A group
of local friends along on a special
duck hunt not long since, had Pau]
Bond make a large painting of the
Shuyak and gave it to him as thanks
for their good time together.
As he had battled with the ele
menjts on the sea, so he had to bat
tle in leaving this earthly scene,
greeting at last, with serene smiles,
what his spirit saw, far removed
from any consciousness of the dear
est ties of love with which he was
surrounded. When he knew his end
was very near he told his wife to
bury him there where he was in
Seattle, hoping for help from cures
he’d too long postponed seeking.
But this seemed cold and cruel in
the knowledge of his heart’s pref
erence for his home, and he was
lovingly laid to rest under the deep,
green moss in Kodiiak’s new ceme
tery in a beautiful wood. Now this
that another Robert, familiar to
so many of us from the time we
could first enjoy listening to a
poem—Robert Louis Stevenson—
wrote for his own epitaph, seems
to be very appropriate also for
our own Bob:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from
sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
From an ad in the Kodiak Mir
ror 1940 issue:
Temporary Location at Kraft’s
Dock.
“Wes” says:
“Drop in folks, and look around
. . . I have loads of real bargains
. . . Can furnish your house from
attic to cellar.”
Rhodes Furniture Store
August 29, 1940
Mr. F. F. Williamson, cadastral
engineer for the Dept, of the Inter
ior, is now surveying the town sites
of Kodiak and, with great diffi
culty, laying out streets whose min
imum widths are 30 feet. It is cus
tomary for towns to reserve 50 feet
for this purpose, but due to ir
regularity of individual lots and
parcels of land staked here, this
standard width is an impossibility.
However, property owners on Ben
son Avenue have each donated an
additional 10 feet of land from
their holdings and a 40-foot street
is the result. (Ed: note: The sur
veys are STILL being made.)
The lineal distance of the Kodiak
townsite survey will be nearly two
miles, and enclose about 100 acres,
with an additional 470 acres to be
thrown open when the old experi
mental station has been sub-di
vided.
An interesting fact made known
is, holders of property in town, will
not own their property until they
have paid the fees of the township
trustee for deeds covering same.
Prior occupancy will determine
nearly all property ownerships.
Wes Rhoades, genial proprietor
of Rhoades Furniture store, has
taken possession of the building
formerly owned by Harry Becker.
He will build, a display room for
his stock of home furnishings.
Fast service—A letter mailed in
New York City reached Fairbanks
in exactly 4% days. It was picked
up in Seattle by the Alaska Clipper.
WE WON’T IDENTIFY the comely miss appearing in the beau
tiful parka pictured above. A fur coat is a popular mode of apparel
in Alaska, whether it is a mink coat or a parka. But we think the girl
is pretty, too.
THIS IS THE WAY they had to do it in the early war years, when rationing was the order of the
day. Customers are lined up at O. Kraft & Son whe 1 milady had to work the angles in order to get a pair
of nylon hose. Husbands, brothers, boy friends and friends were recruited as there was only one pair to
a customer.