Traveling to History: Thirteen
VIRGINIA’S TWO NORWEGIAN LADIES
By James F. Lee
The nine-foot, bronze statue of The Norwegian Lady on the Boardwalk at Virginia Beach. This statue was built by sculptor Ornulf Bast in 1962. (Photo by James F. Lee)
On Good Friday, March 27, 1891, the Norwegian ship Dictator, a bark carrying a cargo of yellow pine, struck a sandbar off Virginia Beach. The ship had been battered for days by severe weather as it journeyed up the East Coast from Florida enroute to Hartlepool, England. As the waves tore his ship apart, Captain Jorgen Jorgensen and the crew made desperate efforts to save themselves using life preservers, a makeshift raft, and the one surviving lifeboat. Several men even tried to swim to safety.
Onshore, Edward Drinkwater, the Keeper of the Seatack Life-Saving Station, assessed the situation, and decided that the sea was too rough to launch a rescue boat. Instead, he ordered his men to shoot rope lines to the stricken ship from a Lyle gun, a small cannon. He hoped to set up a breeches buoy rescue, a lifebuoy ring pulled on a kind of a zip line, allowing crew members to be carried off one at a time. Unfortunately, the rolling of the ship kept dipping the buoy into the water and the attempt was called off.
The 1903 Seatack Life-Saving Station #2 on Atlantic Avenue houses the Virginia Beach Surf and Rescue Museum. This building was later used as a U.S. Coast Guard Station. (Photo by James F. Lee)
The break-up of the Dictator lasted for hours as the raging sea pounded the ship. Finally, one last wave crushed the stricken vessel. Ten people were saved that day and seven lost their lives.
The next day, the Dictator’s wooden figurehead, a dignified lady, was fished out of the water and placed standing on the shore as a memorial to the tragedy, where it remained for the next 62 years. It was severely damaged by a hurricane in 1953.
Nine years later, two nine-foot bronze replicas of the lady were built in Norway, one for Virginia Beach to replace the original lady, and one for Moss, Norway, where the Dictator was registered. Today, the Virginia Beach Norwegian Lady looks out over the sea on the Boardwalk at 25th Street.
The interior of the Virginia Beach Surf and Rescue Museum. The small black cannon in the lower center is a Lyle Gun. (Photo by James F. Lee)
My wife and I learned the story of the statue and the wreck of the Dictator at the Virginia Beach Surf and Rescue Museum on Atlantic Avenue, just a block away from the Norwegian Lady. The museum is housed in a white clapboard building with a watchtower dwarfed by the nearby hotels of Virginia Beach’s Oceanfront. Built in 1903 (replacing an earlier structure built in 1878), this was the Seatack Station #2, one of five lifesaving stations located in what is now Virginia Beach and part of the Life-Saving Service of the United States. These all-volunteer rescue stations operated between September and April, the Atlantic storm season. The volunteers, called surfmen, patrolled the beaches day and night ready to rescue those in distress.
Our docent, Carol, shows the display honoring the wreck of the Dictator. The dory and white life preserver are from the Dictator. (Photo by James F. Lee)
The museum is small. On one wall are blocks, pulleys, rope splicers, and tackle, and on another wall a large map showing the incredible number of wrecks that have occurred off the coast of Virginia and North Carolina. A timeline shows the history of the life-saving station starting with the original building of 1878. There is also a Lyle Gun, nautical instruments, and items washed up from the sea. Several panels tell the history of African American surfmen at life-saving stations in Virginia and North Carolina.
Special attention is given to the Dictator disaster. Our docent, Carol, stood in front of a dory and a life preserver from the ship, telling the tragic tale of the shipwreck. On the wall, a timeline outlines the destruction of the vessel and the rescue efforts by the surfmen. Nearby, a diorama shows a breeches basket rescue from the shore, much like the attempts made by the surfmen trying to save lives from the Dictator. Lines shot out from a Lyle gun onshore connect to the distressed vessel, as rescuers haul a survivor to safety in the breeches ring.
Carol explains how a breeches buoy rescue works at this small display at Virginia Beach Surf and Rescue Museum. (Photo by James F. Lee)
Carol recommended that we see the Norwegian Lady on the next block, which we readily agreed to do. The bronze statue built by sculptor Ornulf Bast is impressive. The Lady stares out to sea as if searching for or watching over those in distress. The Norwegian flag snaps smartly in the stiff breeze. On the pedestal are the words: “I am the Norwegian Lady. I stand here, as my sister before me, to wish all men of the sea safe return home.”
But there is another Norwegian Lady in Hampton Roads. Before we left the museum, our docent told us about Johanne Pauline Jorgensen, the wife of Captain Jorgensen. Mrs. Jorgensen drowned during the wreck. She was one of the last off the ship after having refused to try a breeches buoy rescue. Her husband had gone overboard before her attempting to save their four-year-old son, Carl. Terrified, she jumped into the sea as the Dictator broke up around her. Surfmen later recovered her body, as well as her son’s, and both were buried nearby at Norfolk’s Elmwood Cemetery. Captain Jorgensen survived.
This cart contains the lines shot out to ships in distress by a Lyle Gun. The gun had an effective range of about 250 yards. (Photo by James F. Lee)
We drove to Norfolk to the Elmwood Cemetery to visit the final resting place of Johanne and Carl. The gravestone shaded by the elms and pines of the quiet cemetery is far removed from the stormy sea. Johanne, like her husband, was from the island of Skaatoy in southern Norway. When they married, Johanne decided she wanted to live at sea with Jorgen, and sailed with him far and wide, including a stop in New Zealand where Carl was born.
Her wanderings ended far away from her home, though, in a foreign country, where this Norwegian lady lies buried.
The original figurehead of Norwegian Lady on 16th Street and the Boardwalk in Virginia Beach. This photo was taken in 1920. (Virginia Beach Public Library, Edgar T Brown Collection. VBPL Digital Archives - VBPL Digital Archives (oclc.org)
The headstone of Johanne and Carl Jorgensen at Norfolk’s Elmwood Cemetery. (Photo by James F. Lee)
