❖ COOLING OFF ON THE BERING ❖ 1937

Schooner SOPHIE CHRISTENSON
Coming home from the Bering Sea.
Photo dated 2 years before James Flynn story below.
Original photo from the S.P.H.S.©

"James N. Flynn of Issaquah and his cousin, Richard Holder of Langley, Whidbey Island, remember codfishing in the Bering Sea aboard the four-masted SOPHIE CHRISTENSON as the most difficult $300 they ever earned.

      Flynn kept a pencilled 1937 journal of their ordeal. Most of the pages were accidentally lost, but his memory is keen. The SOPHIE'S exploits, and those of her captain, J.E. Shields, are documented.

      Men like Flynn and Holder are significant to me because each day I can look out my office window, north over Lake Union, and see Seattle's last remaining sailing ship, the forlorn-looking three-masted WAWONA. She, too, was a codfisher in the Bering Sea, at times within hailing distance of the SOPHIE.

      Equally important, Flynn's penciled journal and his recollections convince me that wooden ships were manned by men of iron. Ashore, many of the men were stumbling, rum-soaked derelicts. One readily admitted he chose thieving to working for wages. Two were tough, grizzled men in their 80s who had been at sea all their adult lives. One was a stowaway deaf mute. There were 45 men in all, and every one performed courageously and well.

      One day, Flynn handed me the age-yellowed pages of his journal. I looked at them and asked what would have been the title. He grinned and said, "Five Months Without a Bath."

      This is James N. Flynn's story.

❖  ❖  ❖

      My cousin, Rich, was only 17 but he was around 6 feet and husky. I was 22, and both of us and been toughened by manual labor. Neither of us and been at sea. We hired on as salters, helped by 'connections.' Times were lean.

      We were aboard the SOPHIE somewhere near Pier 51, waiting to be towed by tug beyond Cape Flattery. It took seven hrs to get the crew on board. They were trying to drink enough to last them for five months.

      I was in awe. Thirty men out of their drunken minds. The mates would herd a group aboard, then go into the taverns for the others. While the mates were gone, those on board would wander ashore again.

       We got under way in the evening, in tow. Up on the forecastle, the jugs and bottles were open. They were drinking everything dry before we were to let go of the tow line.

      When the tug's tow line let go, beyond Cape Flattery, the drinking stopped. According to some kind of code, all remaining booze was tossed overboard.

      Then began a weird transformation in the men, like a Jekyll-Hyde change. The drunks straightened up and became sailors. They cleansed themselves, changed clothing and went to work. We hoisted sails and got under way. I went aloft and was scared at the 100-foot height, but the old hands understood and helped me. 

Aloft on SOPHIE CHRISTENSON
Undated, unknown fishermen,
Unknown photographer.
Courtesy of R.R. Burke

I learned that if you are willing to pitch in, you get help and respect.

      The men were mechanical wizards. We had 22 fishing dories aboard, each equipped with a 10-HP Johnson outboard engine (only recently the dories had  been sail-powered.) The men disassembled the engines to basic pieces on the docks, right down to needle valves. They cleansed and inspected every part, then reassembled the engines and honed them to perfection, as if a man's life depended on a perfect engine. It did.

      We hauled out ropes and lines, canvas and brass. The old-timers went to work with their needles and twine. The dress gang sharpened knives.

Aboard Fishing Schooner SOPHIE CHRISTENSON
Unknown date, crew or photographer.
Click to enlarge.
Courtesy of R.R. Burke

      We sailed through an Aleutian pass, probably Unimak, and into the Bering Sea.

      Now, we're organized into rosters: 23 men listed as fishermen, 18 in the dress gang. The deck fisherman was Jalmar, the tongue cutter was Mac, the watchman was Harry, and the cooks were Walter and Frank. I did not record last names, but two men signed themselves as Cash Money and No Dory.

      The captain, J.E. Shields, and his brother and son owned the codfish packing plant at Poulsbo, the SOPHIE, C.A. THAYER and MY NORDIC MAID.

      Captain Shields operated the ship's store and, as we sailed northward into cold, sold us warm clothing and foul-weather gear as desired. He was the doctor, provisioner, chaplain, navigator, and judge.

      But crewmen settled their differences among themselves. When Finns and Swedes became clannish and segregated themselves, we insisted that everybody speak English. AS for medical aid, nobody during the 4 1/2 months became ill in that adverse climate––no flu, no colds, no lung congestion. Health was excellent.

      The SOPHIE was traditionally a good-luck ship. By reputation, illness or storm damage never enfeebled her. By 9 July we had taken and salted down 212,154 cod. Fourth July is memorable, not because it was a holiday, but because a one-day blizzard, or williwaw, iced the decks and sent us below.

      There was no heat in the crew's forecastle and no electric lights. We had no bathing facilities, except for buckets or whatever we improvised. The toilet was on the weather deck, extending over the side.

      These dorymen awed me.

Crew of SOPHIE CHRISTENSON
Bering Sea
Undated, unknown crew names,
unknown photographer.
Courtesy of RR Burke.

 They fished from dawn to dusk, and there wasn't much darkness. We worked up to 18 hours a day. They did not wear life preservers, because they reasoned the cold water would finish them in seven minutes. They would come back to the ship, heavily laden, and disappear behind giant waves. They would come alongside to mountainous gray swells and pitchfork their catches to us on deck, using one-prong forks. 

      Our hands were calloused like dogs' paws by rock salt and sea water. Our hands would split wide open and bleed. Men would strike matches on their horny palms. One common healing balm for split hands was human urine––our own.

      Maybe you have heard of the codfishermen's war against the Japanese. The Japanese fishing ships laid a net around us, entirely hemming us in. The captain was infuriated and gave orders to sail through it, ram our way out. We became entangled, our rudder was disable, and men tried to dive down and cut us fee. The cold water immobilized them. Finally, using knives attached to the ends of poles, we cut our way free of the nets. Captain Shields threatened to shoot at the encroachers with rifles, but he was dissuaded. (But the next year, in 1938, he instigated an arms buildup among fishermen which bordered on a shootout.)

      We returned to Seattle in late August 1937. I was a year older, having observed my 23rd birthday on 8 May. We sailed into Poulsbo, to Captain Shields' codfish processing plant, carrying about 400,000 pounds of cod. We had been gone about 4 1/2 months, and my wages were $300 net. 

Schooner SOPHIE CHRISTENSON
Home at winter moorage, Seattle, WA.
1941 photo by James A. Turner from
the Archives of the S.P.H.S.©

      Many of the crewmen collected their pay and resumed where they left off––in the taverns. My cousin and I returned to Issaquah in time for the potato harvest in the Yakima area. I had gained 25 pounds.

      I know you wonder whether I would sail aboard the SOPHIE again. Yes, I would––as a young man."

Above text from: My Waterfront. Carter, Glenn, Seattle, WA. Seagull Books Co. 1977.

      

      

      

  

      

❖ SCHOONER SOPHIE CHRISTENSON--FULL OF FISH BUT OUT OF FOOD IN THE BERING SEA ❖

Dories transfer food from liner GENERAL LEE
to fishing schooner SOPHIE CHRISTENSON in distance.
L-R: Chief Steward E.A. Gruby; Capt. C.S. Hansen; (?)
Sophie had radioed the crew was starving from depleted
supplies from adverse weather.
Photo back-stamp dated 29 October 1934.

SCHOONER SOPHIE CHRISTENSON
ON 117099
675 gross tons; 180.6' x 38.9' x 13.4'
Built 1901 by Hall Brothers at Pt. Blakely, WA.
For owners: Sudden and Christenson of San Francisco.
Here she is heading home to Poulsbo owner after 57 days
at sea with a record catch of cod, one year later than the 
top photo with GENERAL LEE.
1935 original photo from the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

"A near-tragedy of the Pacific was averted with the arrival of the States Liner GENERAL LEE, commanded by Capt. C E Christensen, out of Seattle. The SOPHIE CHRISTENSON was a cod-fisher and had been out of Seattle six months with the largest load of codfish in her holds than was ever carried by any American fisher. Due to rough weather and adverse winds, the CHRISTENSON was entirely out of food supplies. In the path of the GENERAL LEE's route to the Orient, they laid after asking for assistance by wireless and waited for them to reach her. Upon arriving there, Capt. Hansen with the assistance of Chief Steward E. A. Gruby loaded into dories sent by the CHRISTENSON more than 1,200 lbs of food supplies. That amount of food, they figured would keep life in the bodies of a crew of 48 men aboard, until they would reach their homeport, Seattle, to which they were bound and hoped to make in less than a month's time." Unknown newspaper publisher, dated 29 October 1934.

1933: J.E. Shields was master on his 1st trip north to the Bering Sea. That was the largest cargo of salt cod ever landed either before or since. 
1934: Three schooners, SOPHIE CHRISTENSON, WAWONA and the AZALEA, with auxiliary schooner DOROTHEA, came home from the Bering with a total catch of 1,633,425 fish. 
      Lost: Einer Kirby, swept overboard from the SOPHIE outward bound 600 miles west of Cape Flattery. H.W. McCurdy's Marine History of the Pacific Northwest. Gordon Newell, editor. Superior. p.429.   
  

❖ THE SOPHIE RAN TO COD ❖

Captain John E. Shields
Dated 12 September 1948
Original photo from the archives of the S. P. H. S.©

Claiming the greatest voyage ever made by a American codfishing vessel, the four-masted schooner SOPHIE CHRISTENSON, was towed into Puget Sound, 5 Sept 1933, after five months in the Bering Sea. Captain-owner J. E. Shields and crew claimed for the SOPHIE; (1) the largest total catch made by one ship on one voyage––453,356 fish, 700 tons; (2) largest catch ever made by one man on one voyage––Ray Press––25,487 fish; (3) largest catch made by one man in one day's fishing––Dannie McEachran, Newfoundland second mate––1,051 fish; (4) largest catch made by one ship in one day––16,851 fish.
Records or not, the SOPHIE had just concluded her finest trip with some $30,000 pay to divide among her crew of forty-one. She brought back one black mark––empty dory No. 13. It had been found after a five-day southeasterly gale and twenty-eight year old Sven Markstrom was missing.
Capt. Shields and 2nd Mate McEachran told of days in the Bering Sea when a gray cloud-rack scudded over the mastheads as she labored through a smother that swept her decks from the jib boom to taffrail. In this sea, the dories, swung over the side one by one, were whirled away and out of sight in the great, gray waves churned along the schooner's sides.
Out in the dories each fisherman was alone between turbulent sea and sky, his outboard motor keeping him underway as the little craft soared and plunged, fishing all the time until the load crowded the gunwales. Then back toward the schooner and after making fast his falls, each man would dive like a porpoise for the decks as the sea swung him level with the pitching rail.
The men told of that record day––24 July––when the dories came out of the fog laden with enough fish to swamp the stay-aboard crew that had to split and salt the catch and everyone had visions of gold at the end of the rainbow.
The captain and men spoke low when they talked of that other day when Sven Markstrom was lost to leeward in the gale. They could not see the man alone in the dory as the ship lay miles away but they knew the trampling thunder of an Arctic sea towering out of sight. Somehow they knew this man would  never come back yet waited in silence under a beacon flare on the heaving deck. Five days later when the gale had blown itself out they found the empty dory. The men accepted this stoically as a part of codfishing in the Bering Sea.
The SOPHIE CHRISTENSON always made good newspaper copy. Writing in The Seattle Star, 28 April 1937, H. E. Jamison told of the preparations for another five-months stay in the north.

      Towering above the dock sheds the four masts of the SOPHIE CHRISTENSON have been beckoning waterfront wanderers to Pier Four. Monday, 22 dories were snuggled up to the port side of the windjammer, like so many chicks on a frosty morning.
They were waiting patiently to be hoisted aboard and nested 'tween decks for their long trek to Bristol Bay. Once beyond 'Smoking Moses' (Mount Shishaldin) in the Aleutians, these frail craft will be manned by lusty codfishermen.
Capt. John Shields, large and rosy-cheeked, looking more like a small town business man than a deep sea fisherman, was busy looking after last minute details and checking supplies aboard. He did manage to take time out to tell me he had 400 tons of salt aboard and that in the five months they'd be gone he hoped to bring back at least 600 tons of codfish.
The fishermen work on a share basis, while the others are on a monthly salary. Aside from the officers, the 'others' are mostly the dress gang––those who stay aboard, dress and clean the fish before they are passed to the salters in the holds.
The railings of the SOPHIE are scarred deep by lines from those aboard who fish when time lags heavy on their hands.

The fisherman I was talking to had been battling the waters of Bristol Bay for 23 years. He told me that in the old days the dories were fitted with leg-o'-mutton sails. When it blew up a storm the fishermen, who could not get back to the mother ship, fashioned a sea anchor from a sail, and hove to. Occasionally men were lost.
Now the 16-ft dories are equipped with 12-HP motors. These light motors are installed in a well that is entirely decked over. The bows are fitted with canvas shields to break the spray that comes aboard.
The men fish from dawn to dark. They are not supposed to go much farther than five or six miles from their vessel and keep a weather eye peeled for the signal that warns them the barometer is taking a nose dive. When the jib of the mother ship is hoisted they are supposed to make for it and batten down.

The cod is a bottom fish or, as my informant told me, a 'gurry sucker'. The mother ship anchors on the banks and the dories, when they are dropped over the side, drift with the tide, dragging an anchor around one of the flukes of which has been fastened a half hitch. This hitch on a taut line, robs the anchor of its effectiveness. The anchor bumps along the bottom, somewhat checking the speed of the dory. The fisherman has a line in each hand, one over each side of his craft, and as soon as he strikes good fishing he pays out all his anchor line. The slack causes the half hitch to come adrift and the anchor holds.
As soon as he has a load he hauls up the anchor on a handy gurdy, cranks up his engine and heads back to the ship. After the fish are loaded aboard the schooner he goes aboard for a 'mug up.' The table is never unset and the fishermen eat all they can whenever they can. "They fed swell on the schooners," said my fisherman.

If he should catch any fish he drifts back toward the mother ship when the tide turns and keeps at it until he has a load.
The fishermen average over and above expenses, about $500, or about $100 per month.
Incidentally, the fishermen never touch the fish with their hands. As soon as they are hauled alongside they slit the throats to bleed them. Then by skillfully manipulating their gaffs, they extricate the hook. They pitchfork them aboard the mother ship with along handled single-prong fork, called a pew.
All fishermen think theirs is the toughest of all fishing, but there is no doubt that dawn-to-dusk codfishing ranks close to halibut fishing for arduous work."
Words only from: Fish and Ships. Ralph Andrews and A. K. Larssen.

These 9 donated photos
aboard the Schooner SOPHIE CHRISTENSON 
are unidentified for date and names  
of fishermen. Can you help us with
names of any crew?

❖ Captain J. E. Shields and His One-Man War ☆ ☆ ☆ A Memorial Day Tribute from "High Tide"

Captain J. E. Shields 
a'board SOPHIE CHRISTENSON

Photograph kindly shared by his grandson Jim Shields, 2011.

"Among my most interesting friends on Seattle's waterfront was Capt. J. E. Shields, shipowner and master mariner extraordinary, who became an international figure a few years before Pearl Harbor by saving from foreign invasion the rich Bristol Bay fishing grounds. This area is famous as the world's greatest district. 

      With nets across the lanes followed by migrating salmon, Japanese fishermen were a threat to the huge Bristol Bay salmon packing industry, and were hampering the operations of the Puget Sound codfishing fleet.

      Protests were of no avail; Capt. Shields sent his famous wireless message asking that a dozen rifles each and plenty of ammunition be sent to the schooners SOPHIE CHRISTENSON and CHARLES R. WILSON, fishing in the Bering Sea. Capt. Shields commanded the SOPHIE, while Capt. Knute Pearson was master of the WILSON.

      The dispatch attracted attention all over the country and was cabled to Japan by news agencies. It was followed a few days later by this message from the SOPHIE:

    'Hurrah! Hurrah! All Japanese boats out of the Bering Sea. Rifles no longer needed'.

     Shields, single-handed, had been successful in what repeated protests and international negotiations had failed to accomplish. The Japanese left the Bering before the run of red salmon began and consequently there was a big pack that year. The sturdy skipper had won a one-man war without firing a shot.
      The famous dispatch of Capt. Shields requesting rifles and ammunition for the SOPHIE CHRISTENSON and the CHARLES R. WILSON, was followed by an announcement by a high Coast Guard officer that "if there is going to be any shooting in the Bering Sea, the Coast Guard will do it," but leaders in the fishing industry only smiled.
      I remember a typical story of a codfishing cruise told to me in 1938 by Capt. Shields after his famous "one-man war" with the Japanese. The SOPHIE CHRISTENSON, commanded by the colorful sailing ship skipper, had just towed into Poulsbo, a codfish center for more than 40 years, after a five-month cruise. In the hold of the picturesque vessel were 385,000--not pounds--but codfish, caught on the Bering Sea fishing grounds. In the log of the four-masted sailing schooner were entries that read like pages of a movie thriller.
      Capt. Shields told of chasing the invading Japanese out of the Bering Sea.
      'We had 150 fathoms of chain out and it was blowing great guns,' read one of the entries in the log of the SOPHIE.
      There were days when it was impossible to get a dory over the side and not a fish was caught. Then there would be smiling skies and smooth seas and the fishermen were in their dories by 4 o'clock in the morning, harvesting the gray cod from the sea. The fishermen did not expect calm weather all the time and often sent their blunt-nosed dories into heaving swells, leaving behind them the whine of outboard motors and the odor of burned gasoline.
      One night, a hardy, bearded, fisherman told me, we were lost on the banks in a great fog far from the ship, but Capt.Shields was equal to the situation. With a mechanical fog horn going full blast, he went aloft to the crosstrees and there, 85-feet above the heaving deck, rigged an automobile spotlight hooked up to a six-volt battery. The skipper spent three hours there alone, flashing the brilliant light into the cold, murky night until he saw a faint blur through the ghostly fog. The 'lost' fishermen boarded the ship at 3 o'clock in the morning. They were glad to get back to the SOPHIE and thanked the skipper for what he had done for them.
      High-line man for the voyage was Ray Press with 21,155 fish. With a five-pound sinker and two hooks, Press landed as many as a thousand fish a day.
      Cod are caught in deep water with halibut for bait. The fisherman gradually brings the school closer to the surface, where he works with two lines, one on each side of his anchored dory. With the precision of a machine, he pulls up one line, takes the fish off, baits the hooks, drops the line with its five-pound sinker, and hauls away on the other line. The fish sometimes come into the boat at the rate of 100 an hour, often being caught two at a time.
      A typical day's work begins with breakfast at 4 o'clock in the morning and by 4:30, the dories go over the side and fan out from the mother ship.
      Arriving in the Bering Sea, the ship anchors about 10 miles offshore and the fishermen, in their dories, go as far as five miles from the vessel. By 9 o'clock in the forenoon, the dories, laden with codfish, begin coming in. The fishermen eat dinner before returning to the fishing grounds. This is the heaviest meal of the day. By 5 o'clock in the afternoon, they return for supper and conclude the day's work.
      During the morning, the dressing crew begins work as soon as the first dories arrive. If fishing is good, the crew works from that time until the day's catch is in the hold. Sometimes, these men work well into the night putting the catch in cure, since each day's take must be processed in order to be ready for the following day's catch.
     Capt. Ed Shields, son of Capt. J. E. Shields, is plant manager at Poulsbo and skipper of the schooner C. A. THAYER. He says his plant, originally started in 1911, is the only one of the Pacific Coast that produces and markets codfish.
      Ed Shields made his first trip to the Bering in 1934. Between cruises, he attended the UW where he studied engineering. He graduated in 1939 and then took a year of advanced engineering at Harvard. He put his engineering knowledge to practical use at the Puget Sound Naval Station during WWII.

 Pacific Coast Codfish Co. crew 
unloading their schooner, Poulsbo, WA.
Photo by B. Torvanger,  Pt. Madison, 1914.
From the Saltwater People Historical Society © archives.

      When the schooner returns to Poulsbo with her catch, the cured fish have lost 75 per cent of their weight. One pound of dried fish equals four pounds of fresh fish. More weight is lost in later processing, by the removal of the skin and bones, so a one-pound package of codfish is equivalent to six pounds of fresh codfish.
      As skipper and owner of the SOPHIE CHRISTENSON, Capt. J. E. Shields was the most versatile of master mariners. He was navigator, ship's doctor, pharmacist, a judge of all disputes involving the crew, chief fish-tallier and dentist."
This story, Captain J. E. Shields and His One-Man War, was written by the Seattle waterfront reporter R. H. Calkins, who published his colorful collection of c. 50 essays under the title High Tide, The Stories of Seattle's Waterfront.(1952) 

  To add this volume to your personal library,
try a book search here 

❖ THE PACIFIC COAST CODFISH COMPANY FLEET ❖

Schooner JOHN A 

Undated original from the archives 
of the Saltwater People Historical Society.©

"The three-masted codfish schooner JOHN A was launched in the Eureka, California yard of Peter Mathews, in 1893. She was 131.7 feet L with a 32-foot beam and a 9.8-foot depth of hold. The gross was 282.4-tons; a very fine sailing vessel for her small size.

      The JOHN A was the first schooner of the Pacific Coast Codfish Company fleet to come to Poulsbo. In 1911 my father, Captain J. E. Shields, and others formed a new fish processing company named Pacific Coast Codfish Company (PCCC.) A processing and storage plant was constructed on the shores of Liberty Bay. They purchased the three-masted schooner JOHN A in southern California with Captain John Grottle as the ship's master. The vessel was brought north with a good supply of salt for the preservation of the first year's cargo. The JOHN A sailed to the banks near Sand Point, Alaska, and also near Sanak Island. All fishing was done from one-man dories launched each day from the schooner and returned to her in the evening with the day's catch.

      A good catch resulted, and the fish plant in Poulsbo began winter operations. The salted fish were removed from the vessel, scrubbed, and stored in wooden tanks holding 20-tons each. A work crew was hired to further process the fish. Some saltfish was dried in the sun while other fish had skin and bones removed to be packed in one-pound packages for shipment to the various stores. Thus, a new industry came into operation and a winter payroll resulted.

In 1913 the three-masted schooner CHARLES R. WILSON was purchased. She was constructed in Fairhaven (Eureka,) California in 1891 for the lumber trade, but was then laid up. She was 150-feet L with 35-feet beam x 11-foot depth of hold. She was rated at 345-tons gross; she could land nearly 500-tons of cured cod.

      The company purchased other sailing vessels, all without engines, including the three-master C A THAYER, in 1925. The THAYER was built by Danish-American Hans Bendixen in Eureka at the same yard as the CHARLES R. WILSON, also for the lumber trade. She was listed at 452-tons gross. She could land nearly 600-tons of salt cod which may explain why she was the last commercial sailing vessel on the US west coast and the last to operate out of Poulsbo. She landed her last cargo in 1950 with Captain Ed Shields in command.

       Another sailing vessel of the PCCC fleet, probably the most famous, was the SOPHIE CHRISTENSON, a four-masted schooner built in Port Blakely in 1901. She was built for the lumber trade and for hauling general cargo. She was 180.6-feet long with a 38.9-foot beam and a 13.4-foot depth of hold. She first came to Poulsbo with Captain John Grottle, and last in 1941 with Captain J.E. Shields, her famous skipper. She carried a crew of 22 dory-fishermen, a dressing crew, and cooks to make a total of 44 men.                

      When the war broke out in 1941, the US Government took possession of the JOHN A, the C.A. THAYER, and the SOPHIE CHRISTENSON. Only the C.A. THAYER returned to the fishing trade after the war. The CHARLES R. WILSON operated during the war years delivering cargos of salt cod every year except in 1944. During this time she was under the command of Captain Knute Pearson of Poulsbo.

      During the late 1930s to 1941, the codfish plant provided employment for up to 40 persons, some men, and some women. For the men, it was work on the fishing grounds at sea during the summer season of five months, and work in the fish plant in the winter.

      After the war, conditions returned to near normal as far as the worldwide need for food was concerned. Commercial mechanical refrigeration came into more prominent use and the need for salt preservation passed as frozen fish became available in all of the grocery stores. Thus came the end to this fishery in 1950."

  From: ABOUT THE BOATS

By Captain Ed Shields (1916-2002)

Poulsbo, WA.

Captain James Edward Shields established his reputation from the age of 17, when he went to sea to help his father crew the SOPHIE CHRISTENSON into the Bering Sea and the history books. During the five-month fishing trip, the 45-man vessel set the all-time American record for codfish, hauling home an astounding 455,000 cod. He earned a Masters Degree in Engineering from Harvard but never once turned his back to the sea. Some believe his "crowning touch" was his six-year effort to write the incredible Salt of the Sea: The Pacific Coast Cod Fishery and the Last Days of Sail. The artist Shields remarked that he knew he was the only one left to write the story. Soon after the completion of the manuscript, in the words he chose for his salty father, he "crossed the bar," at the age of 86-years.