Life Aboard the Edmund Fitzgerald Described in Letters from Cadet

DETROIT, MI – It wasn’t just the hat that earned Edmund Fitzgerald crew member David Weiss his nickname “Cowboy.” It was his friend and Great Lakes Maritime Academy classmate David James, who had just watched Frank Zappa’s 1971 movie “200 Motels” featuring the character Lonesome Cowboy Burt. When James saw Weiss standing outside a classroom dressed in black and wearing a cowboy hat, the nickname came easily.”He looked a little different,” James said. Weiss was less “bummy” than the rest of their classmates, who dressed to emulate the sailors they were training to join. The day they met, James gave Weiss his nickname “Cowboy Burt.”

DuMouchelles auction house in downtown Detroit is selling letters written by a man killed in the Edmund Fitzgerald sinking in Lake Superior on Nov. 10, 1975. The letters were written by David Weiss while he was on the Fitzgerald.

The friendship between Weiss and James is chronicled in a series of letters they exchanged while out on the inland seas in 1975, when Weiss was on the Edmund Fitzgerald and James on the Walter A. Sterling. The last was sent Oct. 30, about two weeks before Weiss went down with the Edmund Fitzgerald during a storm in Lake Superior. Twenty-eight crewmates perished along with him. The letters Weiss sent James that year are up for auction at DuMouchelles auction house in downtown Detroit along with photos, a postcard and other memorabilia, such as a letter Weiss’s mom wrote to James after Weiss’s death. The items are up for bid beginning Nov. 13 with a starting bid of $3,750. James approached the auction house early this year with an interest in selling the letters and memorabilia, Dumouchelles President and Auctioneer Joe Walker said. James was afraid the letters would be tossed when he passed away and wants them to go to someone who sees their value, Walker said. James has had the letters stored in a frame for about 30 years. James will be at DuMouchelles, 409 E. Jefferson Ave. in Detroit, from 6-6:30 p.m. on Nov. 10 to speak about the letters, his friendship with Weiss and the Great Lakes maritime industry with Joel Stone, sailor and former senior curator at the Detroit Historical Soceity’s Dossin Great Lakes Museum. An auction preview will take place from 5-7 p.m. The event is free to attend but people must register at rsvp@dumoart.com before 4 p.m.

DuMouchelles last year auctioned an Edmund Fitzgerald life ring that had been found by a man walking a Lake Superior beach shortly after the Fitzgerald sank in 1975.

James admits the letters he and Weiss exchanged are less than Shakespearean in an interview with Walker uploaded online. Weiss describes the difficulties of life as a young cadet dealing with older crew members who have “astounding” attitudes and his dreams for the commercial shipping off-season. “I need a lady, a bottle of wine and some tranquility,” Weiss wrote to James. “Beyond that, my mental health is par. I really don’t believe you could have it any worse, so I assume all has to be copacetic.”

Weiss was outspoken and determined to finish the season. He had “a lot of spirit,” James told Walker, the auctioneer.

James, while working on the Sterling, experienced the same November storm that caused the Fitzgerald to sink on Nov. 10, 1975. The Sterling was in western Lake Superior on its way to Silver Bay, Minnesota and was more protected from the storm because it was closer to shore. It had passed the Fitzgerald that day but their crews didn’t communicate. The storm was “a good one,” James told Walker, the auctioneer.

“It was a regular night except it was very, very rough,” he said. “Like I said, if it was rough for us since we were going into it, for them, I can’t imagine what it would become the farther east they got.”

James said he didn’t learn about the Fitzgerald’s sinking for about two days. The news stopped him in his tracks. He abandoned his dinner tray and walked up to the ship’s pilot house to see U.S. Coast Guard helicopters flying above, searching for debris. James isn’t grieving, exactly. He feels sentimental for his lost friend. “We never had an argument,” he told Walker. “It was all positive; there’s nothing I lament, there’s no feeling of remorse. There’s no grief here. There’s just happiness that I knew him.”

Carol Thompson – The Detroit News
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