(Photo courtesy of the Pier Wisconsin Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
PRESS RELEASE
Join Rochelle Pennington at the (Organization Name) for a presentation on Chicago's famous Christmas Tree Ship on (Date) at (Time). Pennington's program will detail one of the most well-known shipwrecks of the Great Lakes. Come and hear about "Captain Santa" and his yearly voyage down Lake Michigan to Chicago.
Pennington has authored two books on the schooner which delivered Christmas trees to the citizens of Chicago each holiday season before it was caught in “The Great Storm of 1912” and subsequently went to the bottom of Lake Michigan fully loaded with trees. (To this day, the ship is still loaded with its trees and is a popular Great Lakes dive site. Pennington will share present-day, underwater photographs of Christmas trees still visible in the ship’s hold.)
"It is a story that exemplifies the best of humanity," said Pennington. "At its heart we find courage, love, generosity, heroism and the importance of family and tradition. The moment I first heard the story of the Christmas Tree Ship, I understood why it had endeared itself to so many people over the years and was still being shared a century later."
"The ship's final voyage was not to the bottom of the lake," added Pennington, "but into the pages of history."
Pennington’s children’s book on the ship, as well as her 325-page documentary book, The Historic Christmas Tree Ship: A True Story of Faith, Hope and Love, will be available following the program. The documentary book examines the legendary ship - and its captain - from every angle and includes more than 60 photographs, along with hundreds of citations from vintage newspaper clippings spanning a period of 140 years. Her slide presentation will include many of the century-old photographs of Captain “Santa” Schuenemann, his family and his ship. In addition, she will have several artifacts along to share with the audience, including an axe used to chop the trees down, dishes, a medicine bottle, a spittoon, a clay pipe and an ornament carved from one of the first Christmas trees raised from the ship in 1971 when the vessel was discovered. In addition, Pennington will also be bringing a Christmas tree from the cargo which was raised more than 30 years ago.
Pennington's research was used to create a television program on The Weather Channel's Storm Stories. The program airs nationally each December.
Her multi-visual presentation will focus on the little-known facts surrounding this most loved story of the Great Lakes including: the ship’s mysterious disappearance, clues washed ashore in the decades following the vessel’s demise, ghost ship sightings of the phantom schooner (the vessel is nicknamed Lake Michigan’s Flying Dutchman) and mysterious omens that were believed to have cursed the ship immediately before it set sail on its final voyage on November 22, 1912. She will also present photos of the "new" Christmas Ship which the Great Lakes Coast Guard has been sailing the past six years into Chicago's Navy Pier in memory of the original ship. (The Coast Guard vessel sails from Michigan each December to Chicago, Illinois. Once docked, all of the trees on board the ship are given away free to needy families in the spirit of Captain Santa.)
To learn more about the Christmas Tree Ship go
to
www.christmastreeshipbooks.com.
