Siwash
FRIEND
Alaska Range
Always looking to expand my sweet little cabin library I came across this article in this mornings paper. Next time I am in town I will stop at Titlewave and pick up a copy, sounds like an interesting book.
FAIRBANKS -- In these days of Twitter feeds, 24-hour news cycles, paparazzi hovering to catch celebrities in their every awkward moment and publications willing to pay obscene sums of money for such moments, camera phones that put everyone at risk for public exposure, YouTube, and the whole virtual industry of celebri-stalking, it’s hard to imagine a time when two of America’s most well-known faces could die in a plane crash with no witnesses but a Native Alaskan family and no media to document every second. But that’s exactly what happened when Will Rogers, America’s beloved humorist, and Wiley Post, famous aviator, died in a small lagoon near Point Barrow, Alaska, in 1935.
Author John Evangelist Walsh’s book, “When the Laughing Stopped: The Strange, Sad Death of Will Rogers,” takes a look at this American tragedy, adding another dimension to the familiar story.
Will Rogers, the “cowboy philosopher,” was known for his simple, wryly humorous way of looking at the world. Filled with folksy charm, his columns and radio shows were much followed, and his observations that seemed, on the surface, just a simple man’s musings on the imponderables of life held a sharp, knowing undercurrent that made people think, even while they were laughing.
Rogers was 55 at the time of his death, at the “height of his immense fame,” Walsh tells the reader. With a homey, confiding way of talking, a manner that made his listeners feel Rogers was talking straight to them, and charm and sheer magnetism, Rogers was “dearly loved just for being himself.”
Wiley Post had made his name as the first pilot to fly solo around the world, in a Lockheed Vega aircraft, the Winnie Mae. Post was also known for his work in high-altitude flying and his part in developing one of the first pressure suits. Post and Rogers shared a background as “Oklahoma boys,” according to Walsh, and had been friends for 10 or more years before their ill-fated trip to Alaska in 1935.
After finishing his third movie of the year, “Steamboat Around the Bend,” Rogers had plans to fly up to Alaska with Post, while Post was hoping to cut Alaska short and head over to Russia in an attempt to map out a new mail-passenger route to Asia. Post needed Rogers’ financing for the trip, as fortune had not followed Post’s fame as a pilot. Rogers, however, was just out for a lark, wanting to see Alaska, maybe do some hunting and fishing. He wasn’t sure about Russia, and according to Walsh, hadn’t yet made up his mind to go that far when the two left California on Aug. 4.
Walsh details the last days of the two men: Disparate in demeanor, fame, and fortune, Post, although well known for his piloting exploits, had never managed to turn those exploits into the kind of cash Rogers commanded, just by being himself. Rogers was a calm, outwardly laconic man, who had an “energetic inner self — intensely and continuously driven, both mentally and physically …” Post was “a silent, testy man … nervous and impatient, though he was mostly able to hide it.”
The two men boarded Post’s plane, a heavily modified secondhand Lockheed Orion, in Seattle on Aug. 6. Post had removed the original wheels on the plane after they landed in Seattle, replacing them with pontoons, more practical for Alaska, Post said, but with a regrettable tendency to alter the ship’s aerodynamics. But not critically, Post added quickly, and Rogers chimed in that Post’s skills were up to the challenge.
Observers, however, noted that the pontoons seemed awfully big for the little plane, “too long and heavy.”
On Aug. 15, the Signal Corps officer at Point Barrow, Sgt. Morgan, commented to Charlie Brower, a noted Barrow resident who was waiting for Rogers to visit, that he wouldn’t likely be hosting any movie stars because of the weather. Morgan had just sent out the morning forecast, indicating “impossible conditions and heavy, wide-spread, blanketing fog.” Not the kind of weather an experienced pilot would chance. At 10 that night, another Barrow resident, Frank Daugherty, was roused by a pounding at his door — an Eskimo reported an airplane crash at a lagoon about two hours away. Claire Ohpeaha had run all the way to Barrow to report the news after he and his family witnessed the crash Okpeaha was the last person to speak to Rogers before he died.
Morgan, Daugherty, Okpeaha and several of Okpeaha’s Native friends traveled to Walakpa Lagoon to see to the crash. Morgan and Daugherty were pretty sure who the occupants were, and that they hadn’t survived the impact.
The news was relayed through Signal Corps wires, and Joe Crosson flew to Barrow to pick up the bodies and return them home.
Walsh has included images of many of the newspaper headlines and front pages that informed the world of Rogers’ passing. These, along with the numerous photos of the scene, Post and Rogers, and Claire Okpeaha and the other players in the story, add immediacy to a story that reads like a thriller. Walsh has also included many of Rogers’ letters and columns written during the short-lived trip, showcasing Rogers’ homespun humor and enjoyment of even the simplest things. He gets at the heart of who Rogers was, and why he was so popular.
Walsh spends a lot of time on what he terms the “strangest, saddest” part of Rogers’ death — Rogers’ daughter Mary, a budding actress with lots of talent, was performing in summer stock theater in Skowhegan, Maine. While her father was flying to the ceiling of the world, Mary Rogers was playing the lead part in a place called “Ceiling Zero,” about “daring pilots and the hazards of flying, dramatically emphasized by two deadly crashes.” The highlight of the play, the crashes, took place off-stage, but one is heard — the “terrible sound of a plane hitting the ground, described in the script as a ‘terrific, metallic, tearing CRASH as the plane rips into the hangar, the boom-boom of exploding gas banks, and a burst of flame flickering distantly through the fog in the windows at right’ … [one of the actors] turns on the crash siren, which shrieks in growing crescendo.”
When Mary Rogers discovers her father died in a plane crash at almost the exact minute she is listening to a pretend crash on stage, she has a nervous breakdown. Although she tried for several years afterwards, she was never able to return to the stage, and so her career was cut short, just as her father’s life was, by that crash.
This is a fascinating, well written and well documented look at a piece of Alaska history that is all too often lumped into that drawer labeled “Alaska has lots of tragic plane crashes.” But each tragedy, despite the similar circumstances that bring the planes down, is different, in that different people are lost, and different lives are shattered. “When the Laughing Stopped” looks at how one perhaps typical crash shattered the lives of a family and the hearts of a nation.
Libbie Martin is a freelance writer who lives in Fairbanks. She can be reached at martinlibbie@yahoo.com or 347-2422
FAIRBANKS -- In these days of Twitter feeds, 24-hour news cycles, paparazzi hovering to catch celebrities in their every awkward moment and publications willing to pay obscene sums of money for such moments, camera phones that put everyone at risk for public exposure, YouTube, and the whole virtual industry of celebri-stalking, it’s hard to imagine a time when two of America’s most well-known faces could die in a plane crash with no witnesses but a Native Alaskan family and no media to document every second. But that’s exactly what happened when Will Rogers, America’s beloved humorist, and Wiley Post, famous aviator, died in a small lagoon near Point Barrow, Alaska, in 1935.
Author John Evangelist Walsh’s book, “When the Laughing Stopped: The Strange, Sad Death of Will Rogers,” takes a look at this American tragedy, adding another dimension to the familiar story.
Will Rogers, the “cowboy philosopher,” was known for his simple, wryly humorous way of looking at the world. Filled with folksy charm, his columns and radio shows were much followed, and his observations that seemed, on the surface, just a simple man’s musings on the imponderables of life held a sharp, knowing undercurrent that made people think, even while they were laughing.
Rogers was 55 at the time of his death, at the “height of his immense fame,” Walsh tells the reader. With a homey, confiding way of talking, a manner that made his listeners feel Rogers was talking straight to them, and charm and sheer magnetism, Rogers was “dearly loved just for being himself.”
Wiley Post had made his name as the first pilot to fly solo around the world, in a Lockheed Vega aircraft, the Winnie Mae. Post was also known for his work in high-altitude flying and his part in developing one of the first pressure suits. Post and Rogers shared a background as “Oklahoma boys,” according to Walsh, and had been friends for 10 or more years before their ill-fated trip to Alaska in 1935.
After finishing his third movie of the year, “Steamboat Around the Bend,” Rogers had plans to fly up to Alaska with Post, while Post was hoping to cut Alaska short and head over to Russia in an attempt to map out a new mail-passenger route to Asia. Post needed Rogers’ financing for the trip, as fortune had not followed Post’s fame as a pilot. Rogers, however, was just out for a lark, wanting to see Alaska, maybe do some hunting and fishing. He wasn’t sure about Russia, and according to Walsh, hadn’t yet made up his mind to go that far when the two left California on Aug. 4.
Walsh details the last days of the two men: Disparate in demeanor, fame, and fortune, Post, although well known for his piloting exploits, had never managed to turn those exploits into the kind of cash Rogers commanded, just by being himself. Rogers was a calm, outwardly laconic man, who had an “energetic inner self — intensely and continuously driven, both mentally and physically …” Post was “a silent, testy man … nervous and impatient, though he was mostly able to hide it.”
The two men boarded Post’s plane, a heavily modified secondhand Lockheed Orion, in Seattle on Aug. 6. Post had removed the original wheels on the plane after they landed in Seattle, replacing them with pontoons, more practical for Alaska, Post said, but with a regrettable tendency to alter the ship’s aerodynamics. But not critically, Post added quickly, and Rogers chimed in that Post’s skills were up to the challenge.
Observers, however, noted that the pontoons seemed awfully big for the little plane, “too long and heavy.”
On Aug. 15, the Signal Corps officer at Point Barrow, Sgt. Morgan, commented to Charlie Brower, a noted Barrow resident who was waiting for Rogers to visit, that he wouldn’t likely be hosting any movie stars because of the weather. Morgan had just sent out the morning forecast, indicating “impossible conditions and heavy, wide-spread, blanketing fog.” Not the kind of weather an experienced pilot would chance. At 10 that night, another Barrow resident, Frank Daugherty, was roused by a pounding at his door — an Eskimo reported an airplane crash at a lagoon about two hours away. Claire Ohpeaha had run all the way to Barrow to report the news after he and his family witnessed the crash Okpeaha was the last person to speak to Rogers before he died.
Morgan, Daugherty, Okpeaha and several of Okpeaha’s Native friends traveled to Walakpa Lagoon to see to the crash. Morgan and Daugherty were pretty sure who the occupants were, and that they hadn’t survived the impact.
The news was relayed through Signal Corps wires, and Joe Crosson flew to Barrow to pick up the bodies and return them home.
Walsh has included images of many of the newspaper headlines and front pages that informed the world of Rogers’ passing. These, along with the numerous photos of the scene, Post and Rogers, and Claire Okpeaha and the other players in the story, add immediacy to a story that reads like a thriller. Walsh has also included many of Rogers’ letters and columns written during the short-lived trip, showcasing Rogers’ homespun humor and enjoyment of even the simplest things. He gets at the heart of who Rogers was, and why he was so popular.
Walsh spends a lot of time on what he terms the “strangest, saddest” part of Rogers’ death — Rogers’ daughter Mary, a budding actress with lots of talent, was performing in summer stock theater in Skowhegan, Maine. While her father was flying to the ceiling of the world, Mary Rogers was playing the lead part in a place called “Ceiling Zero,” about “daring pilots and the hazards of flying, dramatically emphasized by two deadly crashes.” The highlight of the play, the crashes, took place off-stage, but one is heard — the “terrible sound of a plane hitting the ground, described in the script as a ‘terrific, metallic, tearing CRASH as the plane rips into the hangar, the boom-boom of exploding gas banks, and a burst of flame flickering distantly through the fog in the windows at right’ … [one of the actors] turns on the crash siren, which shrieks in growing crescendo.”
When Mary Rogers discovers her father died in a plane crash at almost the exact minute she is listening to a pretend crash on stage, she has a nervous breakdown. Although she tried for several years afterwards, she was never able to return to the stage, and so her career was cut short, just as her father’s life was, by that crash.
This is a fascinating, well written and well documented look at a piece of Alaska history that is all too often lumped into that drawer labeled “Alaska has lots of tragic plane crashes.” But each tragedy, despite the similar circumstances that bring the planes down, is different, in that different people are lost, and different lives are shattered. “When the Laughing Stopped” looks at how one perhaps typical crash shattered the lives of a family and the hearts of a nation.
Libbie Martin is a freelance writer who lives in Fairbanks. She can be reached at martinlibbie@yahoo.com or 347-2422
