THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, March 16, 1995 TAG: 9503160389
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RODANTHE LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
When his fourth-grade class visited the Chicamacomico Lifesaving Station on Wednesday, Brandon Midgett expected to see surf boats and old oars.
He never dreamed he'd see a portrait of his ancestor hanging on a wooden wall.
``Hey, you guys! That's my great-great-granddad,'' Midgett shouted to his classmates, gesturing toward the framed photo of a stern, white-haired man wearing a medal-adorned uniform. ``John Allen Midgett Jr. It says it right here. We have this same picture at my granddad's house.''
The fourth-graders at Cape Hatteras School, as part of their social studies unit, have been studying the United States Lifesaving Service and the surfmen who saved hundreds of lives along the Outer Banks.
National Park Service rangers helped prepare lesson plans. On Wednesday, rangers began offering special school group tours of the historic Chicamacomico station.
At least a dozen of the 46 students on the field trip had relatives who had served in the U.S. Lifesaving Service or its successor, the U.S. Coast Guard.
``This is where the surfmen stayed, all six of them, in this one room,'' Ranger Andy White told some of the children who crowded into the upstairs bunk room. ``Can you all imagine sharing your room with five other guys and six lockers?''
``Must've been pretty small lockers,'' one girl answered.
``Hope you liked all the other guys you were crammed in with,'' a boy responded.
Formed in 1847 by the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, the United States Lifesaving Service began operating stations in New Jersey and soon opened outposts along the Atlantic seaboard. In 1874, workers built seven lifesaving stations along Outer Banks beaches. Chicamacomico, in the village of Rodanthe on Hatteras Island, is one of the area's original stations.
The first Chicamacomico station was converted to a boathouse in 1911 when the current gable-roofed structure was completed. The lifesaving station site, on the east side of N.C. Route 12, contains a somewhat restored boathouse, cistern, kitchen, paint house, and the main station. A local preservation society owns and maintains the buildings.
``About 100 years ago, back when there were no houses on the beach, the lifesaving crews had to work and live here from September through April,'' Ranger Rob Bolling told students sitting outside the station. ``They had to have muscles of steel and hearts of oak. They had to shower with salt water and row those surf boats so hard that their hands would be bleeding. They had to walk six miles up and six miles back down the beach every night on patrol, looking for shipwrecks. They had to provide their own uniforms and food. They had to cook all their own meals.
``And for that,'' Bolling said, ``the surfmen earned $50 a month.''
Encouraging the children to act out the employment of some of their ancestors, Bolling asked the school group to plan menus for five fictitious fellow surfmen. If students in Mike Finnegan or Chalaron May's classes had been responsible for fixing the station's meals, rescuers would have survived solely on french fries, pizza and tacos.
``Of course, none of those foods were even invented back then,'' Bolling reminded the class. ``Maybe instead of french fries you all could've filled up on boiled potatoes.''
``Yuck,'' the class groaned collectively.
``I'd rather starve,'' one girl added.
Since saving shipwreck victims was the most exciting aspect of a surfman's job, students spent about 30 minutes learning how to rig a rescue expedition. They wound ropes around Brandon Midgett, having him pose as a make-shift mast on a sinking boat, and pretended to send a ``breeches buoy'' out to sea. A breeches buoy is a pair of short canvas pants sewn into a lifesaving ring. Surfmen shot a line to the sinking ship, maneuvered the buoy to the crew with pulleys, then reeled the sailors back to shore one by one. When shipwrecks were too far offshore for the breeches buoy, lifesaving crews rowed the wooden surf boats through the waves.
On Aug. 18, 1918, Capt. John Allen Midgett Jr. and his crew rescued 42 members of a British tanker's 52-person crew near the beach in Rodanthe. The ``Mirlo'' had hit a German mine and exploded in a cascade of fire. The Chicamacomico surf men received medals of honor for successfully completing what federal officials deemed ``one of the most dramatic rescue operations in the annals of the Coast Guard.''
Students seemed impressed with their Hatteras Island heritage.
``I liked learning about the house where they stayed the most. But if I were living here, I'd paint the walls a different color than pink,'' 9-year-old Michelle King said. ``I'd still want to be a lifesaver, I think, even though it sounds hard.
``I think I would like to save some lives.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
DREW C. WILSON/Staff
Brandon Midgett, a Cape Hatteras School fourth-grader who is the
great-great-grandson of heroic surfman John Allen Midgett Jr., acted
in a demonstration of lifesaving apparatus with National Park
Service Ranger Chris Eckard.
by CNB