Louis Armstrong, the Wonosobo, Portland, Oregon, my father

Launch Wonosobo, photo: Joop van Bilsen 

Believe it or not but my father sailed on the WoNosobo as second mate in 1957. Now the name is a nice coincidence with this blog's name and one I had not thought of until today. Besides, it is far from the reason why I am writing. No, that reason is the meeting my dad and others on board had with a musical legend in the port of Portland, Oregon.

My dad has told me about it multiple times. As he died over six years ago, it's time to write it down before everyone has forgotten about it. There may be no one left alive to tell it first hand. So here I go at the best of my recollection.

The Wonosobo was not, as I remembered, a Liberty ship bought by Rotterdamsche Lloyd and turned into a regular freighter after the war. No, it was launched in the fall of 1954 in Krimpen aan den IJssel, not far from Rotterdam. (Thank you, Wikimedia Commons.) It was part of a series "W boats". When my father sailed on it, it was a fairly new ship and I'm almost certain that I saw it as a small kid in the 1960s.

You have to consider that a sailor in those days was away for months on end, even easily over a year, sailing wherever the freight available took it. Flying was extremely expensive, so relief of duty came only in the home port of Rotterdam. After a few weeks the next boat came in and off my dad went again, well into the 1960s this was standard practice.

In 1957 he sailed up and down the U.S. and Canadian west coast a few times. A life changing experience as he met my, Australian, mother in Vancouver, British Columbia, who had washed up there during a world trip taking many years and started to work there to save up for the rest of the trip. None of the three young women travelling together made it home.

Sailing to Vancouver he sailed the Juan de Foca Strait and had told about sailing between two islands, so close to the shore it was as if you could shake hands with people standing in their front gardens. In 2003 I sailed on a ferry from Sidney on Vancouver Island to Anacortes in the U.S. "We are going to do something special", it was announced, to overtake another ferry in front of us, so we would dock earlier. The ship turned to port and not much later it was as if I could shake hands with people sitting at their pools on the closest island. Some things had changed in 30 plus years. Looking at the map, it must be the strait between Orcas Island and Shaw Island.

Looking at the pictures, the weather must have been nice in Portland, but I can't give you a date. My then, not yet, dad in the top right picture is standing behind Satchmo. This is what I recall.

Photo's from family album.

Some officers of the Wonosobo had gone into town and either ran into a Louis Armstrong concert or into the man at a hotel bar. They accosted him and invited him to come visit on board. He said that sounded very interesting and would do so. The two came back on board and shared the news. No one either believed them or thought that the man would show up at all.

The next day the local agent called on board, saying that he had been contacted by someone in Louis Armstrong's entourage and that the whole band, including singer Velma Middleton, would come by in the afternoon. They did and were welcomed by the officers and crew. No, they did not play, just relaxed, conversed and enjoyed a free afternoon, sitting on deck, before going back on stage later that day. Who the colleagues in the picture are I do not know. Velma Middleton most likely is the lady on the left. The lady in white could be Mrs. Armstrong, Lucille Wilson.

It's not an exciting story but a nice footnote to Armstrong's career. The more exiting stories were always about harbours and sailing, like between the two islands.

The funny thing is, my dad had absolutely nothing with music and couldn't care less about it. Perhaps oddly enough he did like to sing for us when we were young. He didn't read to us, but sang us songs, before he fell asleep first on the bed of one of us. Songs from his boy scouts' songbook. He had a strong voice and certainly could hold his tunes.

The only artists he seemed to like were Doris Day and Louis Armstrong. I can't even be really sure if he truly liked the music. Whether the latter came through the meeting or stems from before it, I have no way of telling. I now own three singles by Satchmo. One is from 1955, so who knows? It would have made the meeting more special for him, so lets hope it was.

My mother did own an album by Doris Day and one by Armstrong with Ella Fitzgerald, that she brought with her from Vancouver. All in characteristic cardboard sleeves. I have never encountered an album covered by cardboard, except all the albums she brought with her of which I have several, or broke as a small kid, if I do not.

Fact is that he didn't really care about music. Choosing music for his funeral was not that difficult. One Louis Armstrong song, 'What A Wonderful World', as that he thought it was and 'Che Sera' by Doris Day. The final song was a tribute to his working years and the reason that we children exist in the first place and to "sail" him off to his final resting place, reunited with the love of his life. Rod Stewart's 'Sailing' was chosen so right by my brother. I can't really listen to it any more because of it.

All protagonists in this story no longer exist. The Wonosobo is long out of action. Louis Armstrong died in 1971, my dad in 2015.

If there's anyone who knows more about this story, recognises someone in the pictures or knows who made them, get into contact and we'll build the story together from here.

Wout de Natris