S.S. Medina Victory

Medina's World War II War Bond Headquarters

Medina County contributed so much to the war effort during World War II. The newspapers of the time are filled with information on tire drives, paper drives, metal drives. The War Bond building where Medinians donated more that their fair share, still stands, having been moved to a lot to the west of the Medina Hospital.

The young men and women of Medina enlisted to fight the country's enemies, whether it was behind a cannon, a rifle, a medical mask or a typewriter.

Everyone had a Victory Garden and the library had a Victory drive in order for Medina's citizens to donate books to be sent overseas.

And Medina had a United States Victory Class Ship named after it.

WHAT?

The S.S. Victory Medina was built toward the end of World War II and was launched on 10 February 1945.

What is a Victory Ship?

According to Wikipedia, Victory Ships were:

"The Victory ship was a class of cargo ship produced in large numbers by North American shipyards during World War II to replace losses caused by German submarines." They were larger and faster than the previously built Liberty ships.

A Victory Class Cargo ship

A cross section view showing the layout of the ship.

The first 33 of the Victory ships were named for members of the United Nations. The other 500 ships were named after U.S. towns and cities, and colleges and universities. Each state would only have two town names used. The towns had to represent the historic nature of the area. The S.S. Bucyrus Victory, the first Ohio ship to be named after an Ohio town, was launched in January 1945.

How did little ol' Medina get a ship named after it?

In early 1944, local businessman, Frank E. Judkins, was on a business trip out west and met up with Mr. John Carmody of the U.S. Maritime Commission. After chatting awhile and extolling the virtues of his hometown, Mr. Judkins asked how to get a ship named after "Medina". He was told to submit a petition. When he arrived back in Medina, he obtained the signatures of nearly 200 Medina Legion members, business men, and various civic club members. He submitted the request in April.

Weeks and months went by with no word. Judkins kept the pressure on with multiple letters inquiring the status of the request. Finally, in December of 1944, the Medina Chamber of Commerce received notification that a Victory Ship was being built at the Permante shipyards in Richmond California that would be named the "SS Medina Victory." It was to be launched on February 7, 1945. Frank was invited to the launch, but when it was delayed he was unable to attend.

Medina Gazette 22 Dec 1944, page 1

The Maritime Commission requested that the city send a woman the help launch the ship.

As the city would have to pay her expenses to travel to California, the Chamber decided to request that Mrs. Chaffee do the honors. Mrs. Chaffee's mother, Mrs. W.S. Thorpe, was still living in Medina. Mrs. Chaffee had accompanied her husband, Navy Lieutenant Almerin Chaffee when he was stationed to Oakland, California. So she was very near the Redmond shipyards.

Medina Gazette  26 December 1944, page 1.

On February 10, 1945, the S.S. Medina Victory was launched.

Mrs. Chaffee receiving a bouquet from flower girl,
Janet Eggleston
Scrapbook of Launch of S.S. Medina Victory

Mrs. Chaffee christening the S.S. Medina
Scrapbook of Launch of S.S. Medina Victory

The S.S. Medina going down the slipway
Scrapbook of Launch of S.S. Medina Victory

The S.S. Medina Victory is launched!
Scrapbook of Launch of S.S. Medina Victory

Her first voyage took her from San Pedro California, to Melbourne, Australia, to Calcutta, India, Ceylon, Mozambique, Durban and then to Philadelphia, PA. After this one voyage as a cargo ship, the War Shipping Administration decided to convert her to a troop transport ship.

Again from Wikipedia:

"Many Victory ships were converted to troopships to bring US soldiers home at the end of World War II. A total of 97 Victory ships were converted to carry up to 1,600 soldiers. To convert the ships the cargo hold were converted to bunk beds and hammocks stacked three high. Mess halls and exercise places were also added."

When this conversion was complete, the S.S. Medina Victory was loaned to the British. She sailed from New York in October 1945 for the Mediterranean where she ferried troops between  the Middle East and Toulon, France.


In 1948, the ship was purchased by the Donaldson Line and was turned into a passenger/freighter ship and was renamed the Laurentia. The ship was in operation until 1966 and was scrapped in '67.

S.S. Laurentia, previously named the S.S. Medina Victory

Do not confuse the S.S. Medina Victory with the S.S. Medina, a freighter built in 1914 and named for the river in Texas. That ship was once part of the U.S. Coast Guard, but spent most of her time as a cruise liner. At one time, she was a floating book shop and now is being converted into a luxury hotel.

S.S. Medina, built in 1914.

SOURCES:

The Atlantic Liners 1925-70 by Frederick Emmons
Donaldson Line Laurentia
National Park Service
Scrapbook of the launch of the S.S. Medina, donated to the Medina Library by Franz Zrilich, 1994.
Western Ocean Passenger Lines and Liners 1934-1969 by Commander C.R. Vernon Gibbs.
Wikipedia S.S. Bucyrus
Wikipedia Medina/Doulos Phos
Wikipedia Victory Ships
2 page letter detailing the application process, authenticated by F.E. Judkins.

Family Treasures

The Orpheus Clock: The Search for My Family's Art Treasures Stolen by the Nazis by Simon Goodman. 

One of the wonderful  benefits of working at a public library is finding and sharing all of the really great books. My co-worker, Cheryl, recommended this book to me and for that, I thank her!

THANK YOU CHERYL!

From the topic, Nazi confiscation of artwork from Jewish citizens during World War II, I was skeptical about how "readable" the book would be. I am not a Holocaust scholar, and am often intimidated by the horror of the topic. Nor am I any kind of art expert. I had one Art History class in college that I did manage to pass, over 30 years ago! I have been fortunate enough to visit several major art museums (Cleveland, New York, Florence, Venice) and stand open-mouthed in front of some truly incredible masterpieces. But I didn't think that would get me through this book.

But I was wrong! Within the first pages, I was captivated  by the author's easy, warm, almost casual style. 300+ pages and I couldn't put it down. 

It is the story of Simon and Nick Goodman, who received boxes and boxes of paperwork after their father died. Their father, Bernard, was a quiet, perhaps depressed, man who didn't connect with his sons. Living in England while growing up, the sons would often accompany Bernard on his trips to Europe. They always assumed that the trips were connected with their father's work as a travel agent. Only when they were teens did the boys learn that their grandparents were victims of the Holocaust.

Without telling you the whole story, know that the author carries you along as the men rediscover their father in the boxes of paperwork that contained his painstaking research and efforts to recover the family's stolen artwork. They encounter personal connections to the coldness and brutality of the Nazi preoccupation with stealing the great art of all of Europe. Throughout the 90's, they suffer when governments, museums, and art collectors refuse to acknowledge that art in their possession was stolen during World War II from the Goodman/Gutmann family. We celebrate along with them when a turning point comes, records open up, compassion prevails, and they are able to start recovering their family's art treasures.

But this excerpt is why I wanted to share this book with you. It appears on the very last page of the book:

"As I embarked on this quest to find my family's lost treasures, a solution to my underlying grief emerged. The more I traced our hidden artworks, the more my family's buried history resurfaced. As I placed yet one more piece of the shattered jigsaw puzzle back together, the lost lives became tangible once more. With each piece came a little renewed pride. Today I am comforted by knowing my place in all this. I no longer suffer from an isolation of rootlessness. My roots are deep and wide, with ancestors that go back many centuries and relatives on four continents."

These words are true for all of us who research our family's history. The treasures we are searching for aren't gold or silver. They are the family Bible, the needlework sampler, the military records and wills of our ancestors. They reconnect us to our ancestors in the same way. All of roots are "deep and wide" if we look for them.

Simon Goodman, author, with his family's Orpheus Clock

If you were a fan of the movies, Monuments Men or The Woman in Gold, or the books, My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past or 
The Family: A Journey into the Heart of the Twentieth Century you will enjoy this book.
ORDER FROM THE LIBRARY

The Cannon on the Square

Generations of Medina's children have clambered over the cannon in the Public Square. Fess up! Either you or your kids are guilty of this desecration!


Have you ever wondered where the gun came from and how it ended up in the park?


If you have, the different plaques on the gun probably just confused you even more.


This plaque is underneath the back of the gun. The green patina of the aged metal is beautiful. However, everything on this plaque is wrong for the gun that sits above it.

This is the manufacturer's plaque. It tells us that the gun is a 57 mm carriage gun that was produced by International Harvester in Chicago in 1945. Now painted over, originally this label would have been black and silver.

This plaque is under the barrel of the gun. Accurate in all that it does say. It is what it doesn't say that I find puzzling.

When was it placed in the square? Where was it before it came to Medina? Why did it come to Medina? Who was involved?


And where do you go when you have these kinds of questions?  You go to the library!

Which is just what a library member did earlier this week. He came to me, asking these very questions. And I started pulling out resource after resource with no success. He had already been to the Medina County Historical Society, but no luck there. His next stop was going to be Post 202 of the American Legion.

But as often happens, I was left wondering, so I continued to dig. After all, another library member could come by any day with the same questions.

And look what I found!

Medina Gazette September 23, 1947, page 8.

This article explains that Charles Lawrence & Ralph Waite of American Legion Post 202 lobbied to get a "memento" of World War II to replace the gun from World War I that used to sit on the cement base. Being frugal Medinians, there was no need to pay for a new base when there was already a perfectly good base going unused. And the article tells that the gun had been at the Erie proving grounds before coming to Medina. The date of the article, 1947 tells us when the gun was moved.

In later articles found online, Ralph Waite says that originally there were three guns that came to Medina. http://medinagazette.northcoastnow.com/2010/06/12/big-gun-goes-away/ 

1. The one on Public Square.
2. One in front of the VFW Hall on North Broadway
3. One in front of the VFW on Pearl Road, north of Medina.

So the next time someone asks me about the cannon on the square...