Emma, the Christmas Tree Ship, and Captain Santa
The story of the Christmas Tree Ship, the Rouse Simmons, has fascinated people since it foundered in Lake Michigan in November 1912 near Two Rivers, Wisconsin, and several books and countless articles have been written about the Rouse Simmons and its brave Captain Herman Schuenemann, his wife Barbara, and their daughters. Even though the Rouse Simmons was built in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and sank off the Wisconsin shore, it is just as much of a Michigan as a Wisconsin story. Prominent Michigan mariners and businessmen like Charles Hackley of Muskegon and Mannes J. Bonner of St. James, Michigan owned her and guided her destiny, and northern Michigan forests furnished most of the Christmas trees that the Schuenemanns sold at the Clark Street Dock in Chicago.
In fact, the Michigan cities of Grand Haven and Thompson were among those that served as the Christmas Tree Ship's home ports.
What if once upon the year 1912 there lived in Thompson, Michigan, a nine-year-old girl named Emma with a pesky brother named John and a small dog named Spotty. What if she and her family waited in vain to hear what happened to her father whose ships had disappeared in Lake Michigan. What if she met Captain Santa, (Captain Schuenemann) when he came to Thompson to cut and load Christmas trees in his ship. What if.....
The story is purely fiction, but it is not difficult to imagine Captain and Mrs. Schuenemann and their daughters in the midst of it...
emmaandjohn.pdf |