Captain Louis Van Bogaert Original 1957 photo from the archives of the S.P.H.S.© |
So the captain was especially happy about a gift that he took back to his home in Alhambra, CA, after a visit in Seattle.
Ralph C. Hitchcock Ship model maker, 1965, Lopez Island. Original photo from the archives of the S. P. H. S. |
The model was the work of Ralph C. Hitchcock, a retired Boeing engineer. In retirement he became a professional model builder, producing 22 models, most all of museum quality. Mr. Hitchcock and his wife lived on Lopez Island for several years and bestowed 3 ship models to the collection of the Lopez Historical Museum. His work also went to the Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society, the WA. State Hist. Museum and the Smithsonian.
Hitchcock and his wife, Eva, had driven from CA to Seattle with Capt. Van Bogaert and on several occasions Van Bogaert had wanted to stop and look for a bottle with a ship model in it. But Hitchcock always found an objection.
'I'll get you a bottle,' Hitchcock kept saying.
But Van Bogaert was surprised when the bottle turned out to have a model which Hitchcock himself had made.
Hitchcock made the model of the famous Puget Sound passenger ship the FLYER which is in the aforementioned State Museum at Tacoma, but the ROSALIE is the first model he ever assembled in a bottle.
'And it only took twice as long to make as I thought it would,' he said. That made it an 85-hour job.
The model was in 34 pieces before Hitchcock began assembling it inside the bottle, which has a neck with a diameter of only three-quarters of an inch across.
The ROSALIE, 136 ft, was built in Alameda, CA in 1893. She carried passengers between San Francisco and Oakland when it cost only a nickel to make the trip.
The ROSALIE came to Puget Sound, but when gold was discovered in AK she was put into service between Seattle and the North. Among her skippers, while she was owned by the Alaska Steamship Co was Capt. Johnny (Dynamite) O'Brien.
Much of the ROSALIE's service was in the San Juan Islands as part of the Puget Sound Navigation Co. fleet. That was where Van Bogaert served aboard her.
ROSALIE's career came to an end 22 June 1918 when she caught fire while tied to a pier on the Duwamish Waterway and was a total loss."
The above text from The Seattle Times. 1965
Ralph HItchcock recorded that he had made 22 ship models up to this date.
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