In the spirit of the season, here’s a podcast from the Irving Theatre in Indianapolis, Indiana on October 20, 2026. Tim Poynter, Cindy Adkins and Rhonda Hunter joined me for this “spirited” conversation.
Here’s the link to the podcast:
Author: Alan E. Hunter- Irvington
Alan E. Hunter’s column, “Bumps in the Night”, has run on the front page of the Weekly View / Eastside Voice / Eastside Herald newspaper in Irvington on the east side of Indianapolis since 2007. Al’s Pop culture-based articles have been the genesis of several national and local television and radio programs over the years spurring programs on subjects as varied as John Dillinger, Abraham Lincoln, Charles Manson, the ABA Indiana Pacers, and Burger Chef to the mysterious disappearance of ABA star John Brisker and all points in between.
Alan E. Hunter is the author of the books “The Petersen House, the Oldroyd Museum and the House Where Lincoln Died“, “Thursdays with Doc. Dr. Wayne C. Temple’s recollections on Springfield and Lincoln“, “Osborn H. Oldroyd: Keeper of the Lincoln Flame“, and has co-authored two books on the Historic Indiana National Road.
Al has researched, scripted, and led the Irvington Ghost Walks since 2002. Al’s tours are roughly 75% history and 25 % ghost stories and folklore. These non-profit tours raise much-needed funds for the Eastside Irvington community. In addition, Al has led similar tours in Greenfield and Cambridge City on the Historic National Road. Al is a former Vice-President and board member of the Indiana National Road Association. Al served as the historian and event coordinator for the Dropping Dimes Foundation which aids the former players of the ABA (American Basketball Association). Al also organized both the 30-year reunion of the ABA held at the Hoosier Dome in 1997 and the 50-year reunion of the ABA festivities at Bankers Life Fieldhouse on the campus of Butler University on Saturday, April 7, 2018.
Al has co-authored two books on haunted Irvington. In 2013, Al published a compilation of his “Bumps in the Night” articles selected from his column in the Weekly View newspaper. Al also wrote a book on “Haunted Indianapolis” and most recently, a book on the H.H. Holmes relic collection for the benefit of the Irvington Historic Society and the Bona Thompson Memorial Center. The relics detailed in the books were featured in the History Channel 8-part series “American Ripper.” Al and his wife Rhonda appeared in 3 of the segments alongside the Great-great-grandson Jeff Mudgett. Al was featured in the November 21, 2018, episode of Mysteries at the Museum with Don Wildman where he detailed a scalpel used by America’s first serial killer, H.H. Holmes, in Irvington. Al was also featured in the October 9, 2019, episode of Ghost Adventures with Zak Bagans in which he detailed the history of the H.H. Holmes house in Irvington.
Over the decade, Al has led talks and programs in Irvington that have collected food and personal care items for the Irvington homeless shelter, gathering well over a ton of food, clothing, and personal care goods for distribution. A former teacher and baseball coach at Westfield High School, Al graduated from Indiana University and has been married to his wife Rhonda since 1989. They have 2 children, Jasmine and Addison.
From Hell Gate to the Golden Gate in a Maxwell 30. The unlikely story of Alice Ramsey.
Publish date July 9, 2026.
https://weeklyview.net/2026/07/09/from-hell-gate-to-the-golden-gate-in-a-maxwell-30
It’s summertime in Indiana; the kids are out of school, the days are getting longer, the weather is heating up and Hoosier thoughts turn to . . . ROAD TRIP! Let me introduce you to the woman for whom the term road trip just may have been invented for. Alice Huyler Ramsey (November 11, 1886 – September 10, 1983) was the first woman to drive across the United States from coast-to-coast. On June 9, 1909, the 22-year-old housewife and mother from New Jersey began a 3,800-mile journey from Hell’s Gate in Manhattan to San Francisco in a green Maxwell 30 automobile. On her 59-day trek she was accompanied by her two older sisters-in-law and another female friend, none of whom could drive a car, meaning that Alice was the sole driver for the entire journey. Ramsey’s route roughly paralleled the route that, four years later, Indy 500 co-founder Carl Fisher would turn into the Lincoln Highway or modern day Route 30.
A century ago, it was thought that driving a car, like voting, required manly virtues, including “sound judgment” and “thoughtful decision-making.” More than a decade before women got the right to vote, Alice Ramsey proved to the world that a woman possessed the necessary virtues.
Alice Ramsey’s first love was horseback riding, and after showing a keen interest in the “new” automobiles she witnessed traversing the streets of Hackensack, her husband presented her with a shiny new 1908 Maxwell. After taking driving lessons at the local Maxwell dealership, Alice hit the roads of New Jersey, driving thousands of miles within the Garden State that summer. When the dealership heard about Ramsey’s driving, she was asked to enter an automotive endurance test in September 1908, a grueling 200-mile drive on unpaved roads. She handled the vehicle masterfully, received a perfect score, and drew great media attention as one of only two women drivers in the event.
After this, Maxwell sales manager Cadwallader Washburn Kelsey asked Mrs. Ramsey to undertake what became the biggest publicity stunt of the year, a cross-country drive from New York City to San Francisco, in a new Maxwell. Kelsey called the 21-year-old Vassar graduate (class of 1907) “the greatest natural woman driver I’ve ever seen.” He asked Ramsey if she would like to drive the company’s new 30-horsepower, four-cylinder Maxwell cross-country to prove that the car could make it and that a female motorist could do it. This open-air touring car seated four with a top speed of 40 mph.
In a time before interstate freeways, when many of the busiest back-country roads were not yet paved or even graveled, transcontinental drives were rare and respected accomplishments. The transcontinental speed record had recently been reduced from 63 days to a mere 15 days, but no female driver had yet accomplished the feat. The Maxwell company paid all expenses, and informed its dealerships of her itinerary, instructing them to have parts and mechanics on call in case of mechanical breakdowns. She was accompanied by a Maxwell press team in a separate car trailing behind.
In the late spring of 1909, Alice left her new baby with a nursemaid and set out on a rainy day in June from New York City, north to Poughkeepsie, and then made her way west through Buffalo, Cleveland, Gary and Chicago. Alice and her passengers/navigators used maps from AAA to chart their journey — no small feat considering that only 152 of the 3,600 miles the group traveled were paved. Over the course of the drive, Ramsey changed 11 tires, routinely cleaned the spark plugs, repaired a broken brake pedal and once had to sleep in the car after it got stuck in mud.
In 1909, only 155,000 of 80 million Americans owned cars. Most of the vehicles were in the East and Midwest; the land of good roads, comfortable lodgings, conveniently located service stations and plentiful eating places. Consequently, the expedition’s first half was relatively easy, with the only impediments to the journey’s progress being the incessant promotional meet-and-greets staged by Maxwell that seemingly stopped in every little town and burg to give locals the chance to gawk at and talk to the pioneering women. Her drive was more of a spectacle than a speed competition. Of course, it didn’t hurt that Alice was easy on the eyes.
The adventurous Ramsey seemed disinterested in this part of the excursion and mostly fidgeted her way through the circus-like stopovers and interviews as she itched to get back out on the open road. On Day 2, for instance, she noted, “We drove north past the handsome estates at Hyde Park and of John Jacob Astor near Rhinebeck, N.Y. . . . and continued with little in the way of diversion.” In fact, she bypassed the press corps waiting for her at the historic 1766 Rhinebeck Hotel, a place where George Washington actually did sleep.
All was peaches and cream over the flat lands and reasonably passable roads of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois until the group crossed over the Mighty Mississippi. Things changed dramatically once the group arrived in Iowa. Heavy rains and floods washed out roads and bridges in Iowa as Ramsey resisted suggestions to ship her Maxwell to Omaha by train. Alice recalled, “We were doing quite well until we entered Mechanicsville. . . . A sudden torrent descended upon us. We made quickly for the first shelter we could find . . . a livery stable. There were several buggies standing around, horses still hitched to them. To say the animals were astonished to be joined by a horseless carriage from which came the noise of a pulsating engine is putting it mildly!”
After two stagnant hours, the soggy party decided to brave the storm and ran to a nearby restaurant where Ramsey sat down at a vintage piano to entertain some “country lads” as she “tossed off a couple light numbers.” (This, by the way, in one of the few buildings Ramsey visited that is still standing: It’s now Bubba’s Sports Bar & Grill, 211 1st St. in Mechanicsville, in eastern Iowa.) That wet spring of 1909 turned Iowa and Nebraska into a muddy morass, and the usually hard packed dirt cart paths turned to sticky, rutted muck. Tires went flat and the Maxwell became mired so often that the engine regularly overheated. It didn’t faze the indomitable Alice Ramsey though — she loved it. “This was the route which later became the Lincoln Highway — I almost feel as if I was the ‘Mother’ of it!” she wrote. “And believe me, the labor pangs prior to its birth were terrific!”
Wyoming, Utah and Nevada were more forgiving; the roads were rough to nonexistent, but the weather was better and the land was mostly flat. Fording rivers was an imposing challenge that led to broken axles in the 4-foot-deep gullies and creek beds. Calling upon her skills as a mechanic as well as a driver (she was founder and president of the Women’s Motoring Club of New Jersey at age 21), Ramsey coaxed her battered vehicle across desert and over mountains. Still, the crew had time to enjoy the scenery. Seeing the Devil’s Slide natural rock monument southeast of Ogden, Utah, Ramsey turned tourist: “Quite a sight! So all-by-itself, and so stupendous.”
On August 10, 1909 Alice and her weary group of intrepid travelers arrived in San Francisco, nearly two months after they started. The quartet arrived in the City by the Bay to much fanfare and hoopla, but most importantly, they were all safe and sound. Most notably for her sponsors, sales of Maxwell autos more than doubled overnight. In case you’re wondering, the Maxwell company let Ramsey keep the car.
Alice was named the “Woman Motorist of the Century” by AAA in 1960. In later years, she lived quietly in Covina, California, where in 1961 she wrote and published the story of her journey, Veil, Duster, and Tire Iron. (In 2005, the story was updated and retitled as Alice’s Drive, which can be ordered through Amazon.) Between 1909 and 1975, Ramsey drove across the country more than 30 times. She was married to New Jersey Congressman John Rathbone Ramsey, Sr. and the couple had two children. Her husband never shared his wife’s passion for automobiles. He never learned how to drive and was uncomfortable riding in cars throughout his lifetime. Alice Ramsey continued driving until a year before her death in 1983. On October 17, 2000, she became the first woman inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in Dearborn, Michigan.
Alice’s closest moment to perfection came not in San Francisco where she was hailed as a hero and showered with roses, but as she entered California south of Lake Tahoe, heading down the Sierra slopes to Placerville. “Majestic sugar pines, Douglas firs and redwoods lined our road on both sides. What a land! What mountains! What blue skies and clear, sparkling water! Our hearts leapt within us. None of us had ever seen the like — and we loved it.” With that introduction to the state and her lifelong passion for the road, it feels appropriate that she settled in that region in the 1950s just as California was becoming the car culture capital of the world. Perhaps Alice Huyler Ramsey voiced her own epitaph during an interview 17 years before her death when asked about her life: “I’m probably happiest,” she said, “when I’m holding a wheel.”
Hackensack, Bergen County, New Jersey.
Upcoming event.
The Ghosts of Playground Productions in Irvington.
Original publish date October 16, 2025.
https://weeklyview.net/2025/10/16/the-ghosts-of-playground-productions-in-irvington/
One of the enjoyable aspects of leading ghost tours in Irvington every October is hearing the new ghost stories and spooky tales associated with the buildings we pass along the route. For the past few years, Adam Long and his wife, Andrea, have allowed the tours access to their building, Playground Productions Studio at 5529 N. Bonna Ave., as a jumping-off point to rest and recover after tours. Some of you may know Adam by his stage name, Adam Riviere, a homage to his mother’s whose maiden name. Most importantly, the studio hosts the crew from the Magick Candle every Friday and Saturday night during October for psychic readings for our tour guests and visitors, with the proceeds going to fund the food bank at Gaia Works (6125 E. Washington St.).
Adam graduated from Martinsville High School, studied at Butler University, and attended IUPUI for his graduate work. Adam is an accomplished musician and an artist in his own right. Andrea, originally from London, Kentucky, graduated from North Laurel High School there and from IUPUI in Indianapolis. Andrea is quiet, but when she talks, she speaks with an easy southern drawl that somehow soothes the listener’s ears. As I write this, the couple is celebrating their eleventh wedding anniversary. Adam and Andrea were married in 2014, but have been together since 2008. I first met Adam over a decade ago, when he was a guest on one of my ghost tours. After hearing the Abraham Lincoln ghost train story, which concludes each tour, Adam was sprung. He later informed me that the story resonated with him so deeply that he commissioned an artist friend to create a painting of the ethereal visage for display in his studio office. It comes as no surprise that Adam’s studio is located along the historic corridor of the railroad tracks upon which Lincoln’s funeral train traveled back on April 30, 1865.
Adam’s studio has an interesting history. Adam stated, “It was originally the Coal & Lime Company in Irvington. That was why they wanted to call this area the Coal Yard district, because this is the spot where the trucks would come and pick up the coal to deliver to the areas close by.” The name is a bit of a misnomer, however. While it is true that the company sold “Hoosier Red Pepper Coal” harvested “clean” and “hand picked” from “Indiana’s Richest Coal Mines,” contrary to it’s strict definition, the company specialized in providing hydrated mason’s lime used in the manufacture of common bedrock building materials like glazed tile, fire brick, cement blocks, and common bricks.
On August 3rd, 1922, an ad on page 10 of the Indianapolis Star boasted that the Irvington Coal & Lime Company supplied the “Western Brick as well as other builder’s supplies used in the construction of the new Masonic Temple,” a.k.a. Irvington Masonic Lodge 666, whose cornerstone was laid the year before. Adam was quick to point out to visitors to the property that a portion of the foundation for the old brick factory remains in place several yards away from his studio entrance. Adam informed, “In the early 1950s, a company called Foamcraft bought the building.”
Foamcraft still exists. According to their website, “In 1952, Robert T. Elliott, the founder of our company, started the Foamcraft Rubber Company. As a District Sales Manager for the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, he was responsible for helping to start several foam rubber distributors. Foamcraft was his special passion, though, and in founding our company, he set a foundation for business integrity and dedication to service, as well as a vision to develop long-term relationships with our customers.” Foamcraft makes specialized cushioning used in furniture, beds, minivans, boats, and other products. The company buys large blocks of foam rubber called “Buns” or “Blocks” and cuts them to smaller sizes and shapes as needed by their customers. It was, and remains, a family-run operation with a very high-tenured workforce staffed by generations of families working “cutting foam” for a variety of customer products. The company boasts a 99.9% on-time production and delivery reputation.
Elliott opened his Irvington foam factory on Bonna Avenue in 1957, and it remained there for the next 44 years. Foamcraft briefly relocated in 2001 to a leased building on Post Road before moving to a much larger facility in Greenfield in 2016, where it remains today. Company headquarters are located at 9230 Harrison Park Ct. in between the Fort Benjamin branch library and Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital in Lawrence. Foamcraft also has a manufacturing facility in Elkhart. They never forgot their ties to Irvington, though. Employees referred to the old 20,000 square foot factory, made up of several buildings, simply as the “Bonna.” According to their Web site, employees remember the Bonna facility as “dark and spread out with rooms everywhere. It was sort of claustrophobic with low ceilings, and we worked elbow-to-elbow. It had slippery floors throughout the facility, which sometimes required us to spread sand or sawdust in certain areas.” Despite the distinctly ominous Irvington location’s appearance, inside and out, Foamcraft’s employees described the working atmosphere as “Valhalla.”
One former employee, Jim Quakenbush, recalls that Foamcraft Inc. “ was located on Bonna Ave. just east of Ritter Ave. I worked there for two summers, unloading railroad cars in 1970 & 1971. I have fond memories of working there. Rob Elliott, whose father owned the company, worked with me unloading train cars full of large refrigerator-sized foam rubber “buns”. I think Rob became the CEO and may still be. The warehouse building still stands, but the office building is gone. The railroad track is gone. I really enjoyed the people. My supervisor was Dave Fisher. Great guy. Don Scruggs was a truck driver, funny as hell. Larry Harding worked with me. [The] Sewing department had Ursie Hert, Ralph Wainwright, from Jamaica. Clayton Sneed was a saw operator. Paul was an autistic laborer who used to irritate Ralph. I laughed so hard listening to them argue back and forth. All in good fun. Good memories.”
The old Foamcraft building has quite a history to it, and apparently, a few ghosts as well. Adam recalled, “When I first moved in here, while I locked up at night, stepping out the door, there was a feeling. It wasn’t really ominous, but it definitely gave you a creepy feeling. “ When asked if he feels a presence in the building, Adam stated, “Yes, sometimes when I’m alone in the building, I can hear sharp knocks on the wood in the studio. When I check, nothing is there to explain it.” Adam and Andrea say they don’t ever feel uncomfortable in their building, and they don’t think there is any dark energy connected to their workspace. “We just take it as it comes, we’re used to it now.”
The factory site was visited by tragedy in the autumn of 1968. The front page of the November 12, 1968, Indy News announced “Plant Fire Kills Two Women. 33 Escape Blaze on Eastside.” At 3:34 in the afternoon, firefighters responded to a three-alarm fire at the Foamcraft factory plant. Mrs. Hilda F. Muffler, 59, of 6550 East Troy Avenue, and Mrs. Marjorie J. Smith, 40, of 152 South Summit Street, were killed in the blaze. Mrs. Muffler was employed as a seamstress, and Mrs. Smith as a cutter. Authorities theorized that the two women may have collided and been knocked unconscious during the frenzy to escape the fire. The women died of smoke inhalation and heat. According to the article, Fire Department investigators said the fire was caused by ‘misuse of electricity,’ but did not elaborate.
The article further reports, “An employee, Jack Miller, 56, 250 Audubon Circle, said he was seated at his desk and heard a crackling sound. He looked at a nearby thermostat and said he saw sparks flying from the mechanism. Miller said he ran into another room to get a fire extinguisher, but when he returned, the sparks had ignited stacks of latex foam rubber nearby. There was nothing I could do with the fire extinguisher by the time I got back. It was out of control.” Another Star article quotes Miller as saying he saw a “flash of lightning” come from the wall thermostat and strike a pile of foam. Deputy Marion County Coroner and chief of the fire prevention bureau, Donald E. Bollinger, said the victim’s bodies suffered no burns and were found lying face down perpendicular, one atop the other, in the one-story concrete block plant. The women were found within 4 feet of an office door and only 8 feet from the nearest exit door.
They were discovered to be some 70 feet from the nearest fire damage about 25 minutes after the first alarm had sounded. Other employees challenged the notion that the women panicked trying to escape. Bollinger later theorized that since Mrs. Smith’s coat was found lying next to her body, the women may have attempted to reach a restroom to retrieve their coats and purses before being overcome by smoke.
The fire was spectacular, with flames shooting over 100 feet high in the sky, and the massive plumes of heavy black smoke could be seen from all over the city of Indianapolis. The high-intensity heat hampered firefighters’ efforts to extinguish it quickly. The first alarm came at 3:34, the second at 3:44, and the third at 4:42 pm. Emergency first responders arrived quickly with over 20 pieces of firefighting equipment and 65 firefighters. John T. O’Brien, owner of the Bonna Printing Company at 5543 Bonna Avenue, reported that his adjacent building suffered only minor smoke and water damage during the conflagration. Other adjacent businesses, Krauter Equipment Company & the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company, also reported minor damage. At 12:17 am, the blaze briefly reignited, and firemen were again called to extinguish the flames. That second fire had ignited beneath the collapsed roof of the factory and was brought under control at 1:17 am.
The Foamcraft building was destroyed in the inferno. Investigators determined the fire started along the north wall of the “blackened pillow room” on the northeast corner of the building. Deputy Chief Bollinger later speculated that the fire could have been prevented if the wall receptacle box, which contained the mechanism controlling the heating blowers, had been properly covered. One unnamed employee told Bollinger that he tried to make a metal cover for the box the week before the blaze, but was shocked during the attempted installation and was unable to do so. That same employee said that he had informed company officials of the problem, but it had not been fixed yet.
Learning that Adam and Andrea’s building may have a resident ghost, one could believe that the spirits of Playgorund Productions Studio are those of the tragic victims of the Foamcraft factory fire from 1968, but that does not appear to be the case. Tim Poynter, intuitive psychic empath who has worked with me on the tours for decades and now spends every October Friday and Saturday night in the building, admits that he encounters those spirits regularly, “But they aren’t necessarily attached to the building. They seem to be just passing through. Sometimes the tour guests bring them, and at other times, they are brought in by the readers.” Likewise, longtime tour volunteer Cindy Adkins, who was featured as a psychic intuitive in an episode of Zak Bagans’ Ghost Adventures in 2019, does not feel a resident ghost in the building. “They’re not in here permanently. I don’t feel them inside, but I do think some spirits are roaming around outside the building.” said Cindy. Indeed, it should be noted that the spot where the two employees died is located outside the studio, about 20-30 yards northwest of the door.
Today, Playground Productions Studio is a far cry from the old, dark, and spooky, chopped-up Foamcraft factory. The working studio is now full of light and texture. Walls are constructed of a naturally grounded hardwood facia and are peppered by soft blankets buffering any echoes and sounds that might affect the recording work. The artists, bands, and performers who regularly work or visit the Playground are joyful and carefree whenever there is an event or party going on. Knowing the depth of feeling that former Foamcraft employees have for the old “Bonna” location, it is easy to imagine that if there are spirits hovering around the property, inside or out, they do so with mirth and glee.
Foamcraft has created a fantastic, informative, and historical video with scenes shot at the old factory on Bonna. It can be found on the Web at: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/foamcraft-inc-_the-story-of-foamcraft-inc-activity-7089985534889975808-y92J/
Immigration, Baseball, PTSD, and the Titanic.
Original Publish Date October 2, 2025.
https://weeklyview.net/2025/10/02/immigration-baseball-ptsd-and-the-titanic/
It’s playoff time in Major League Baseball. Right now, there are 12 teams marching toward the World Series. One of those teams, the Detroit Tigers, is heading to the playoffs for the second year in a row following a decade-long drought. The Tigers are one of the most storied franchises in MLB history. Since they became a major league franchise in 1901, the Tigers have won four World Series championships, 11 AL pennants, and four AL Central division championships. From 1912 to 1937, the Tigers played their home games at Navin Field in the Corktown neighborhood of Detroit. Corktown is a traditionally Irish settlement named so because nearly half of its settlers traced their lineage to County Cork, Ireland. Corktown is the oldest neighborhood in Detroit.
In 1911, the new Tigers owner Frank Navin ordered a new steel-and-concrete baseball park to be built that could seat 23,000 fans. Navin Field opened on April 20, 1912, the same day as the Red Soxs’ Fenway Park in Boston and just 5 days after the RMS Titanic sank. Another ominous portent is the fact that Cleveland Naps player “Shoeless” Joe Jackson scored the first run at Navin Field. Jackson was later banned from baseball as a member of the Chicago “Black Sox” team, accused of throwing the 1919 World Series. The $300,000 price tag for Navin Field translates to about $50 million today. The ballpark featured a 125-foot flagpole in center field that, to this day, is the tallest obstacle ever built in fair territory in a major league park. 26,000 fans crammed into the park for Navin Field’s opening day, postponed two days from its planned inaugural date because of rain. Despite that Motor City milestone, most of the attention was knocked from newspaper headlines the next morning by the sinking of the Titanic.
The week before that milestone grand opening day, some 3,700 miles away, a nine-year-old British boy named Frank John William Goldsmith was preparing for the trip of a lifetime. Frankie was born in Strood, Kent, England, the eldest child of Frank and Emily Goldsmith. Between 1908 to 1911, most of the extended Goldsmith family emigrated to the US, settling in Detroit. In the spring of 1912, Frankie’s parents decided to join them. The Goldsmith family boarded the New York City-bound RMS Titanic in Southampton as third-class passengers. During the first three uneventful days aboard ship, Frankie spent his time playing and exploring the ship with other similarly aged English-speaking third-class children. The boys ran the decks, climbed the baggage cranes, and wandered down to the boiler rooms to watch the stokers and firemen at work. Of these boys, only Frankie and one other survived the sinking.
Unsurprisingly, Goldsmith (1902-1982) remembered the exact moment his personal Titanic trauma began for the rest of his life. In a speech to the Rotary Club in 1977, he recalled that he was lacing up his shoes in his third-class passenger cabin when a Titanic officer knocked on, and then opened, the cabin door at about 1:30 a.m. The officer pointed to the ceiling and informed them to put on one of the lifejackets located there. Earlier, Frankie’s father woke his family and informed them to get dressed and prepare to make their way up to the prow of the ship. Ironically, Frankie’s family likely made their way up from their cramped F-deck third-class quarters via the opulent Grand Staircase of the ship. Upon learning that the “Unsinkable Titanic” had struck an iceberg, the family made their way to the forward end of the boat deck, where the “Collapsible C” lifeboat was being loaded. Frankie remembered the lifeboat being surrounded by a ring of crewmen who were only letting women and children on. Collapsible C was the second to last ship to leave, carrying 41 passengers and departing at 1:47 a.m.
Goldsmith wrote of the experience: “Mother and I then were permitted through the gateway. My dad reached down and patted me on the shoulder and said, ‘So long, Frankie, I’ll see you later.’ He didn’t, and he may have known he wouldn’t.” Goldsmith Sr. died in the sinking; his body was never recovered. Goldsmith wrote a book about his Titanic experience, published posthumously by the Titanic Historical Society in 1991. That book, Echoes in the Night: Memories of a Titanic Survivor, remains the only full account recorded by a third-class passenger.
As their lifeboat floundered in the Atlantic Ocean, to keep her son’s young mind off the unfolding tragedy, Frankie’s mother instructed him to turn his back to the sinking ship and care for an invalid survivor. For forty agonizing minutes, the screams of the doomed passengers echoed across the water. By 2:20 a.m, the RMS Titanic was totally submerged, but helpless survivors lasted another 10 minutes before surrendering to the icy waters. The ship sank two hours and 40 minutes after impact with the iceberg. Collapsible C was picked up by the RMS Carpathia around 6:30 a.m. During those four anguished hours asea, Mrs. Goldsmith busied herself sewing clothes from blankets for women and children who had left the ship in only nightclothes. After being rescued, young Frankie was initiated by RMS Carpathia’s boiler-stokers as an honorary seaman by having him drink a mixture of water, vinegar, and a whole raw egg. Frankie swallowed it in one gulp, and from then on, he proudly considered himself a member of the ship’s crew. Nine-year-old Goldsmith remembered the crewmen telling him, “Don’t cry, Frankie, your dad will probably be in New York before you are.”
Growing up, Goldsmith clung to the hope of his father’s survival. It took him months to understand that his dad was really dead, and for years afterward, he dreamed that “another ship must have picked him up and one day he will come walking right through that door and say, ‘Hello, Frankie.’” Alas, he never saw his father again. Throughout Goldsmith’s life the Titanic became both a dream and a nightmare. At times, he would suddenly start talking uncontrollably about that midnight, how he grabbed some candy when leaving their cabin; how, as his descending lifeboat passed a porthole, he saw teen-age crew members playing hide and seek; how the Titanic shot off rockets as if it were the King’s birthday. An adolescent memory of his lifeboat rowing hard after the receding lights of a foreign fishing boat, fleeing the disaster lest its illegal presence become known. The endless, anxious nail-biting sick-feeling of survivor’s guilt that never goes away.
Upon arrival in New York City, Frankie and his mother were cared for by the Salvation Army, which provided train fare to reach their relatives in Detroit. They moved to a home near the newly opened Navin Field, home of the Detroit Tigers. However, unlike most 9-year-old boys, Frankie was never a big fan of baseball. Within easy earshot of the new ballyard, every time Frankie heard the crowd erupt in cheers during a game, he cringed. The sound reminded him of the screams of the dying passengers and crew in the water just after the ship sank; as a result, he never attended Tigers baseball games. Although the acronym PTSD is a more recent generational term, it is nonetheless real. Post-traumatic stress disorder exists as a mental health condition caused by an extremely stressful or terrifying event. PTSD can be caused by either being a part of it or by witnessing it. PTSD may include flashbacks, nightmares, severe anxiety, and uncontrollable thoughts about the event. Nearly everyone knows someone who has suffered from, or continues to battle against, the mysterious (often undiagnosed) condition. It can be a combat war veteran friend who avoids July 4th celebrations or a family member who avoids hospitals due to the loss of a loved one to cancer or another devastating disease. The point is, as I’ve always preached, history matters, and many of the daily hardships we face today have been outlined by our ancestors.
Frankie married Victoria Agnes Lawrence (Goldsmith) in 1926, and they had three sons: James, Charles, and Frank II. During World War II, Frankie served as a civilian photographer for the U.S. Army Air Corps. After the war, he brought his family to Ashland, Ohio, and later opened a photography supply store in nearby Mansfield. Goldsmith died at his home in 1982, at age 79. His ashes were scattered over the North Atlantic, above the site where the Titanic rests.
Frank John William Goldsmith Jr. was just another immigrant child when he survived the tragic sinking of the Titanic. For the remainder of his life, the fatherless boy could never enjoy the cheers of a crowd, regardless of the occasion. Every loud exuberant roar transported him back to that dark April night in 1912. To Frankie, the sound echoed the screams and cries of passengers fighting for their lives in the icy Atlantic. Goldsmith carried the weight of that association with him for the rest of his life. So my friends, when you encounter a neighbor, a friend, a relative, or an immigrant, remember you take them as you find them. Their story might run a little deeper than you think.
