Ward Abbott Quotes

Bury Me Deep, Megan Abbott Red Baker, Robert Ward Ghost Story, Peter Straub The Getaway, Jim Thompson The Godfather, Mario Puzo Suggested Viewing Misery (1990) The King of Comedy (1982) A Place in the Sun (1951) I Want to Live! (1958) The Wire, season 2

As Tomiko and I sank to our knees on floor pillows, her mother filled our sake cups with an amber-green liquid. Called toso, it was a traditional New Year's elixir made from sweet rice wine seasoned with a Chinese herbal-medicine mixture called tososan. Meant to ward off the evil spirits, the drink was honeyed, warm, and laced with cinnamon and peppery sansho. To display the contents of the lacquer boxes, Tomiko's mother had arranged the various layers in the center of the table. The top layer always contains the traditional sweet dishes and hors d'oeuvres, while the second layer holds steamed, boiled, and vinegared offerings. The third box consists of foods that have been grilled or fried. Since not everything fit into the lacquer boxes, Tomiko's mother had placed a long rectangular dish at everyone's place holding three different nibbles. The first one was a small bowl of herring eggs to represent fertility. Waxy yellow in color, they had a plastic pop and mild saline flavor. Next came a miniature stack of sugar- and soy-braised burdock root cut like penne pasta and tossed with a rich nutty cream made from pounded sesame seeds. Called tataki gobo (pounded burdock root), the dish is so named because the gobo (root) symbolizes the hope for a stable, deeply rooted life, while the homonym for tataki (pounded) also means "joy aplenty." The third item consisted of a tiny clump of intensely flavored soy-caramelized sardines that tasted like ocean candy. Called tazukuri, meaning "paddy-tilling," the sticky fish symbolized hopes for a good harvest, since in ancient times, farmers used chopped sardines along with ash for fertilizer.

The verdicts in the criminal trial arising out of the Morro Castle disaster caused a new sensation. William Warms was sentenced to two years imprisonment; Eban Abbott received four years; Ward Line vice-president Henry E. Cabaud was fined five thousand dollars and given one year’s suspended sentence.

On December 3, 1934, the grand jury handed out indictments. Accused of willful negligence were Acting Captain William Warms, Chief Engineer Eban Abbott, and Ward Line vice-president Henry E. Cabaud. In the preamble to the charges against Warms, the indictment declared: “Members of the crew were without discipline and did not know what to do, and the passengers were left to help themselves; the passengers in large numbers were pushed into the water or jumped in the water or perished in the fire.” Warms was accused specifically of failing to observe the law in ten matters: 1. To divide the sailors in equal watches. 2. To keep himself advised of the extent of the fire. 3. To maneuver, slow down, or stop the vessel. 4. To have the passengers aroused. 5. To provide the passengers with life preservers. 6. To take steps for the protection of lives. 7. To organize the crew to fight the fire properly. 8. To send distress signals promptly. 9. To see that the passengers were put in lifeboats and that the lifeboats were lowered. 10. To control and direct the crew in the lifeboats after the lifeboats had been lowered.

Construction of the SS Morro Castle was begun by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company in January of 1929 for the New York and Cuba Mail Steam Ship Company, better known as the Ward Line. The ship was launched in March of 1930, followed in May by the construction of her sister ship the SS Oriente. Both ships were 508 feet long and had a breath of almost 80 feet and weighed in at 11,520 gross tons (GRT). The ships were driven by General Electric turbo generators, which supplied the necessary electrical current to two propulsion motors. Having twin screws both ships could maintain a cruising speed of 20 knots. State of the art, each ship was elegantly fitted out to accommodate 489 passengers and had a complement of 240 officers and crew. It is estimated that the ships cost approximately $5 million each, of which 75% was given to the company as a low cost government loan to be repaid over twenty years. The SS Morro Castle was named for the fortress that guards the entrance to Havana Bay. On the evening of September 5, 1934 Captain Robert Willmott had his dinner delivered to his quarters. Shortly thereafter, he complained of stomach trouble and shortly after that, died of an apparent heart attack. With this twist of fate the command of the ship went to the Chief Mate, William Warms. During the overnight hours, with winds increasing to over 30 miles per hour, the ship continued along the Atlantic coast towards New York harbor. Early on September 8, 1934 the ship had what started as a minor fire in a storage locker. With the increasing winds, the fire quickly intensified causing the ship to burn down to the waterline, killing a total of 137 passengers and crew members. Many passengers died when they jumped into the water with the cork life preservers breaking their necks and killing them instantly on impact. Only half of the ships 12 lifeboats were launched and then losing power the ship drifted, with heavy onshore winds and a raging sea the hapless ship ground ashore near Asbury Park. Hard aground she remained there for several months as a morbid tourist attraction. On March 14, 1935 the ship was towed to Gravesend Bay, New York and then to Baltimore, MD, where she was scrapped. The Chief Mate Robert Warms and Chief Engineer Eban Abbott as well as the Ward Line vice-president Henry Cabaud were eventually indicted on various charges, including willful negligence. All three were convicted and sent to jail, however later an appeals court later overturned the ship’s officers convictions and instead placed much of the blame on the dead Captain Willmott. Go figure….

Not a direct quote, but referenced in the author's note at the end - Sister Elizabeth Kenny, was instrumental in developing a new method of treating polio. Barbara Johnson, a laboratory technician who was paralyzed with polio after a workplace accident but went on the work with Sabin as his statistician. Isabel Morgan vaccine successfully induced immunity in monkeys and was the basis of Jonas Salk's entry into the vaccine race. We'd be talking about the Morgan vaccine if she hadn't refused to test the vaccine on children. Elsie Ward perfected the technique for growing the virus outside a living body. Her technique allowed Salk's lab to make enough of the virus to put in the vaccines for millions of children. Whistleblower Bernice Eddy reported that test monkeys who got the vaccine from Cutter laboratories were developing polio, thus alerting officials that Cutter would be releasing unsafe vaccines for use. -- Her concerns were ignored and caused 200 children to acquire Polio through the vaccine. Many of the children were paralyzed. Some died. Federal regulations of vaccines was tightened because of this - and her. Eleanor Abbott invented the game Candy Land to amuse patients after she herself was hospitalized for the disease.