The Stowaway
Page 20
2 Rudy, Francesca, and Billy Gawronski enjoy Coney Island circa 1920. The beach outings were a treat for this Polish immigrant trio seeking escape from the crowded Lower East Side—and a place for Billy to practice swimming to one day become a proud Polish Falcon like his father.
3 Fourteen-year-old Billy Gawronski was keen to have his rescued stray, Tootsie, compete in a contest organized by the New York Women’s League for Animals. What other dog had been trained to ride a horse? Tootsie’s triumph was covered in the New York Daily News and the New York Daily Sun, Billy’s first taste of celebrity.
4 Billy kept a scrapbook in which he pasted photos of his hero, Commander Byrd, like this one from the New York Times. After her son’s departure, Francesca kept up her own clippings.
5 The first American expedition to Antarctica was funded entirely by donations, with no government support. Even the Times paid for access, promising no bad press for the Commander. One of many sponsors seeking a share of Byrd’s glory was high-end pen company Waterman.
6 The City of New York at full sail. The Antarctica-bound barquentine was an old-fashioned multimasted ship that suggested the previous century—a smart, romantic choice to excite Jazz Age Americans nostalgic for the Heroic Age of Exploration.
7 Sailors and volunteers packing the supply ship Eleanor Bolling. Her cargo included desks, chairs, and typewriters for Byrd’s Antarctic office, radios, binoculars, microscopes, coal, donated cans of food, and a black-and-white cat who wandered on board and was quickly named Eleanor by the crew.
8 Paul Siple whomped his competition vying for the Boy Scout slot with an astounding fifty-nine merit badges, the most of anyone in the nation. The lucky Boy Scout would later become an accomplished polar explorer, authoring four books and coining the term “windchill factor.”
9 The City of New York left Hoboken’s Pier 1 with two hundred tons of material and thirty-three people aboard (not including three thrill-thirsty stowaways) shortly before one o’clock on Saturday, August 25, 1928.
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11 Two young soon-to-be rivals side by side on the cover of the Times: Paul Siple looking every bit the dutiful son, Billy Gawronski rumpled and disappointed.
12 Former stowaway Billy Gawronski, now a coalstoker aboard the Bolling, is seated front right (wearing a black shirt) in this portrait of the crew. The greenie was subject to his share of joshing his first weeks at sea.
13 Members of the expedition could communicate with loved ones by Radiogram, but anything said was fodder for the press. The public clamored to know more about the plucky stowaway, including if his parents had forgiven him for disobeying them.
14 Commander Byrd was notoriously suspicious of those who might speak badly of him, including the New York Times reporter along for the journey. This is one of many secret coded messages from Byrd to his publicist, Hilton Railey, back in the expedition’s New York City headquarters.
15 Anchored to the imposing Ross Barrier, the City of New York looked like a toy ship.
16 The expedition may have packed state-of-the-art radios and four newfangled airplanes, but dogs still pulled supply sleds across the ice as they had in the days of Shackleton and Scott.
17 Billy was part of the team that built the first village on ice: Little America, with its soon-iconic buildings and radio towers. There was also a weather station, a magnetic observatory, and a library with fine leatherback chairs.
18 After decades of European triumphs in the southernmost continent, Americans thrilled at seeing the Stars and Stripes rising over the ice.
19 Commander Byrd holding his terrier, Igloo, who, after voyaging to both ends of the Earth, was now one of the most famous and well-traveled dogs in history.
20 Radio operators successfully attempted the longest-distanced radio signals to date, communicating with a station in Bergen, Norway. They would also keep track of Byrd on his world-inspiring flight over the South Pole.
21 Finally, the excitement Billy had been waiting for! A sudden break in the ice sent aerologist Henry Harrison tumbling down the side of the Ross Ice Barrier and mechanic Bennie Roth into the frigid Ross Sea. Billy dove into the 28-degree water to help rescue Roth, who couldn’t swim.
22 Some dinners in Little America included whale meatballs or seal steak. There weren’t many vegetables, though. Even those dehydrated vegetables that made the voyage south were inedible; it turned out they’d been packaged during World War I.
23 Paul Siple had an ingenious plan to convince Laurence Gould to let him overwinter. Was the second-in-command aware of his Boy Scout badge in taxidermy?
24 Bridge was a popular leisure activity during the four months of hibernation, as were other card games. One man passed his fifteen hundred hours of spare time building a miniature model of the New York.
25 The midwinter Antarctic Follies performance lifted the overwinterers’ spirits with acrobatics, chorus girls, and musicians in blackface. Audience members drank “medicinal” alcohol mixed with lemon powder, a local specialty called a blowtorch.
26 After 125 days of darkness, the sun rose again in late August, and soon the crew could emerge from the ice and dig out the Floyd Bennett for Byrd’s flight over the South Pole.
28 Clad in furs against the fierce cold, aerial surveyor Ashley McKinley was entrusted with the Paramount twins’ enormous camera to film Byrd’s historic flight. No naysayers could grumble that the commander fudged the coordinates this time.
27 Byrd’s first Antarctic expedition explored an area roughly half the size of the United States, charting ten new mountain ranges—one of which Byrd would name after sponsor John D. Rockefeller Jr.
29 The people of New York gave a hero’s welcome to Admiral Byrd—Commander no more. The police band struck up “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny” and real Wall Street tickertape rained down.
30 Another honor for the Byrd men: dinner in the grand ballroom of the Hotel Astor. The admiral’s portrait may have graced the first page of the menu, but Russell Owen cheekily proposed that all present raise a glass to Bernt Balchen, the first to pilot a plane over the South Pole.
31 The Paramount documentary With Byrd at the South Pole won for Best Cinematography at the third-ever Academy Awards, although many dismissed the film as mawkish—not that this stopped Byrdmaniacs from rushing to buy tickets.
32 Billy returned from his adventures two inches taller and noticeably more mature.
33 Byrd’s PR team wrote the kid stowaway’s speeches, but Billy would make edits on the page. Vertical lines between words indicate a pause for breath. The onetime “juvenile delinquent” took his public appearances seriously!
34 A reception at the plush Hotel St. George in Brooklyn Heights. In later years, this photo would hang in the former stowaway’s living room.
35 Billy was grateful for work during the Depression, but touring with the American Pacific Whaling Company wasn’t one of his prouder moments. Still, that didn’t stop Francesca from saving newspaper clippings about her son’s travels with the seventy-two-ton whale of San Clemente.
36 Even Admiral Byrd was having difficulty securing paying work for his men, but getting a kid admitted to Columbia was doable. (Here Billy spells his surname the way the papers did, with a “v” in place of the “w.”)
37 Billy’s months shoveling coal in the Eleanor Bolling’s dreaded stokehold proved just the start he’d needed for a career at sea. Here he stands on the deck of the SS Manhattan in 1937, a third mate in the US Merchant Marines.
38 In 1943, William Gawronski was given his first command, the SS Jose Bonifacio, becoming at thirty-two one of the youngest captains in World War II. He would spend three decades in the Merchant Marines, traveling to every continent but Antarctica.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My first nonfiction book, spanning more than a hundred years of history, was a vast undertaking, and many people helped bring it to fruition.
First and foremost, I’d like to thank Gizela Gawronski, Billy’s widow from his second
marriage, who was with me on this journey from our first phone contact. I am so very grateful to her.
William Gawronski Jr. was a most unexpected source of information, and I thank him as well for his quick attention to any questions I had. As he remains jailed, this is no small feat.
Much gratitude goes to my phenomenal editor, Megan Hogan, who surpassed my expectations. Every email from her brings a smile to my face.
Simon & Schuster’s publisher, Jonathan Karp, was an early champion as well as executive editor Priscilla Painton. Their expert feedback also helped shape this narrative greatly. Much appreciation also goes to Thomas LeBien (who bought the book on proposal in 2013) and Millicent Bennett, early editorial stewards. Thanks also to Simon & Schuster’s Anne Pearce, Jessica Breen, Jackie Seow, Ruth Lee-Mui, Philip Bashe, Chelsea Cohen, Allison Har-zvi, Pete Garceau, and Marie Florio.
Gratitude goes to my cherished agent Holly McGhee of Pippin Properties, who took over when my (equally adored) agent Julie Just retired from the business to focus on writing—but, fortunately, not until just after Julie’s sale of my book. My deepest appreciation also goes to Robin Budd from Viewfinder Management for her skillful guidance and emotional support throughout the writing of this book.
Byrd expedition historian Eugene Rodgers gave me a marvelous in-person interview early on, and I sent him countless emails clarifying new information (as his research was done before the internet era), which he always replied to within minutes. It was like having a Talmudic scholar on call.
Exceptional help was also offered in person (and online for several years) by Laura Kissel, Ohio State University’s Byrd polar historian.
Much thanks to Iwona Korga of the Józef Piłsudski Institute of America, and her volunteer assistant Agnieszka Petla Brissey, who served as my Polish translator there. In a wonderful coincidence, while at the Piłsudski Institute, I mentioned that I needed to go to the Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, New York, and met Agnieszka’s graduating fiancé (now husband), Ian Brissey, who led me on a daylong tour of the academy, set up interviews with his instructors there, and helped me find relics of Rudolf Gawronski’s original interior decorating.
Heather Davis drove me around her neighborhood of Bayside—a perfect excuse to spend time with an old high school friend. Jonathan Sherman drove me around Columbus, Ohio—a perfect excuse to spend time with an old elementary school friend.
As you may gather, my native New Yorker’s lack of driver’s license is a theme here. When I needed to visit a prison deep in orange-grove territory, I asked Alan Solowitz of Tampa, one of the two adopted sons of the “Jewish stowaway” Jack Solowitz (featured in this narrative), if he’d like to drive me, and I could interview him en route. Thus the warring stowaways’ sons were reunited almost ninety years after their fathers’ quarrel led to their discovery. Alan has since become a friend.
Celebrated activist swimmer Lewis Pugh did his remarkable five Speedo polar swims on my 2015 Ross Sea journey to bring attention to the wildlife of the Ross Sea. Lewis was a wonderful dinner companion and, when not shivering, a trusted source on describing swimming in open water.
There were many other experts on my 2015 expedition that I also peppered with questions at dinnertime, including James Creswell on geology, and Jim Mayer on Shackleton, and Antarctica historian Carol Knott. Dr. Gary Miller, one of the foremost penguin experts in the world, was also a mentor on this trip, and he insisted I reach the Ross Barrier by inflatable rubber Zodiac seacraft on the worst weather day of the trip. I’ll never forget as he sang to calm his five passengers who risked the experience, as we were frozen and terrified, and briefly the six humans on the southernmost vessel in the world. During this monthlong expedition, I also befriended Anne Charlesworth and Karina Taylor, two veteran travelers to Antarctica, who talked this chicken into many more Zodiac and helicopter trips even in iffiest weather. My greatest companion on the journey was the oldest passenger on the ship, Sam Adams, who thrilled me with stories of visiting the Byrd exhibit at the Chicago World’s Fair (Century of Progress) in 1934 and who remains a dear friend.
A special shout-out to genealogist Kenyatta Berry of PBS’s Genealogy Roadshow, as she helped me trace African American stowaway Robert White Lanier, who proved one of the more frustrating characters to follow, as he disappeared from the historical record after the 1930s.
Eric Pomerance, my former writing partner, offered a careful read-through of the manuscript, a sharp-eyed review of my promotional materials, and much emotional support, and Corey S. Powell, in addition to a read-through, drove this desperate New Yorker without a license to Cape Elizabeth, Maine, for my first interview with Billy Gawronski’s widow.
My close friends Maria Smilios and Sarah Rose, who are my talented and motivated nonfiction support gals, offered daily encouragement throughout the writing of the book.
My husband, Paul O’Leary, took care of our daughter, Violet O’Leary, when I was away in Antarctica. And vice versa. The ability to go all out was essential for me to tell the story. Thank you both for the extraordinary gift of time and love.
Additional thanks to Captain Kenneth R. Force, USMS; Father Lizinczyk, St. Stanislaus Church; Johnathan Thayer, Seamen’s Church Institute; Dan Brenner, Queens College Library; Lacey Flint, the Explorers Club; George Billy, chief librarian, US Merchant Marine Academy; Larry Solowitz; Maryanne Smolka, who generously let me tour Billy Gawronski’s former Bayside home where she lives now; Steven King of the Northport Historical Society; celebrated author Tom Reiss and New York City historian and author James Sanders, both of whom were advocates of the book in its proposal stage; Northport enthusiast Vicki Karp; Florida district attorney Debra Munchel, who helped fight for access to William Gawronski Jr.; Conor McCourt, who ran private investigator reports of Billy’s sons for me; Ann and Susan Beyer, daughters of Frederick Beyer, Billy Gawronski’s closest friend as an adult; Billy Gawronski’s former third mate Captain Earl Mealins; Cape Elizabeth historian Barbara Sanborn; Bayside historian Alison McKay; radio historian Dr. Donna Halper; Alec Cumming; Janet Rosen, who has the photo-captioning gene I was not born with; the talented Franco Vogt for taking my author photo in his Woodstock studio; Lucia Reale-Vogt; Adam Lawrence, for his photo-clearance expertise; Pam Swing, who introduced me to Eleanor “Lee” Byrd; Dona Siatras; the Merchant Marines historian, Joshua M. Smith; and Ainslie Heather, Port Chalmers librarian.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
© FRANCO VOGT
LAURIE GWEN SHAPIRO is a native of New York City’s Lower East Side, where she still lives with her Aussie husband, fifteen-year-old daughter, and elderly father, who used to swim in the East River. She has most recently written articles for publications including New York, Slate, Aeon, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, and has her own history column focusing on unsung heroes for The Forward. Shapiro is also a documentary filmmaker who won an Independent Spirit Award for directing IFC’s Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale and an Emmy nomination for producing HBO’s Finishing Heaven. This is her first nonfiction book.
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NOTES
Much of the daily activities of the Byrd campaign, before, during, and afterward, were covered by the New York Times, official paper of the expedition. Unless noted, general expedition details come from that coverage, which was generally accurate although not impartial.
Commander Byrd, for example, was never disparaged. Many other newspapers of the era were consulted, but the Times’s star journalist Russell Owen was along for the journey and received a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage. Please assume that general expedition details come from this widely available coverage, which, for the most part, if left unchallenged, were backed by eminent Byrd scholars such as Eugene Rodgers and his colleague Lisle A. Rose. If my original research later disproved information or uncovered new details not covered by those scholars, like a cow being sent to Antarctica from Los Angeles, I was privileged to run it by my (now friend) Eugene Rodgers, who would debate me as to whether it was a legitimate add. We did not always agree but always had fun debating.
In-person and phone interviews form the core of personal information on William Gawronski; the most useful were with his second wife, Gizela Gawronski, and his son William Gawronski Jr.
Gizela Gawronski is GG.