Edmund Fitzgerald Sunk Nov 9, 1975: Mariners' Church to Celebrate Annual Great Lakes Memorial Service

DETROIT, Nov. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Mariners' Church of Detroit, celebrating its 175 anniversary serving as "A House of Prayer For All People" and "The Maritime Sailors Cathedral," will offer its annual Great Lakes Memorial at 11:00am, Sunday, Nov. 12.

The Rev. Tony Feint will perform the service which will honor the memory of the more than 6,000 Great Lakes shipwrecks and the more than 10,000 sailors who have lost their lives in them. Of course, Mariners' Church has had a particular connection to the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald. 

At 2:30 p.m. November 9, 1975, the Fitzgerald, then the largest ship on the Great Lakes, set sail from the Burlington Northern Railroad dock in Superior, WI loaded with 26,116 tons of taconite headed for a steel mill on Zug Island.  Weather was normal for the time of year.

A day later gale force wind warnings were issued, winds gusted to near hurricane speeds over 50 miles per hour, and waves ranged from 18 to 25 feet, one of them smashing the Fitzgerald's lifeboat making it unusable.  By 7 p.m. the Fitzgerald was in serious trouble 17 miles off Whitefish Bay, MI, and by 7:30 the ship had sunk, likely going down bow first in the raging seas.  There were no survivors among the 29 crew on board and no bodies were ever recovered.

In Detroit, Reverend Richard Ingalls, then the pastor of Mariners' Church, came to the church in the cold, dark pre-dawn hours November 12 to commemorate the loss of lives, by solemnly ringing the church "brotherhood bell" 29 times, an act immortalized in Gordon Lightfoot's ballad, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."   

This activity will be memorialized again this year, as it is every year, at the annual Great Lakes Memorial service.  Any person wishing to pay tribute to fallen sailors or wanting to pray for safe passage is encouraged to join Mariners' congregation and members of the Armed Services who regularly attend.    

Mariners' was founded in 1842 as a "House of Prayer for All People" and with a special interest in providing a place of worship for sailors of the Great Lakes. The church, which just celebrated its 175^th anniversary, is the oldest structure on the Detroit River, located at the entrance to the Detroit-Windsor tunnel. 

SOURCE Mariners' Church of Detroit