SKIPPER. Hers is the last stem-wheeler left on the Ohio
Old Ma’am River
BY KATE MOLINOFF
Captain Mary Greene has been piloting a riverboat for 50 years. But she still prefers sequin dresses to slacks....
FOR Captain Mary Greene, 78, equal rights for women began more than 50 years ago, when she got her captain’s license and shared watches with her husband. Today she is the only woman on the Ohio who has both a pilot’s and a master’s license. Mrs. Greene is also the owner of the Gordon Greene, survivor of the stern-wheel packet boats which used to ply the Ohio and MississippiRivers by the thousands.
“I studied three years for my pilot’s license, and another year for my master’s papers,” she relates. “My husband wanted me to have them so I could spell him.
“What did people think of it? Well, I knew I’d be talked about, so I asked the consent of both our families first. The crew gave me no trouble, even when we bought another boat and I was in command. But passengers used to climb up on the texas deck to stare at me, so I took the night watch.” Farmers along the river evidently liked “Old Ma’am River” because they used to go on her boat by preference.
Mrs. Greene has round cheeks, round blue eyes, and a trim little body which she
propels nightly around the salon dance floor in a variety of sequin-strewn dresses.
“Slacks? Oh no. I’m only a little over five feet, and too fat to wear them. And I never wear a captain’s hat. It’s too mas-cu-leyne,” she drawls in a soft, high voice.
Captain Mary brought up three sons on the boat. Of course, a nurse was shipped every trip so the skipper could do her job.
“She did the spankin’,” Captain Mary smiles. Only one boy was born on the river. It happened when the boat was tied up for 100 days by ice in Virginia.
Passengers Are a Problem
CAPTAIN GREENE’S duties are light now, for her son Tom is in command, while she supervises the 160 passengers and a crew of 62. Sometimes this is a taxing job.
“One woman came on board recently lugging an iron, pot-bellied stove she wanted as a conversation piece for her apartment, and another couldn’t resist three dozen eggs we had to take care of till she got off. But in the old days, passengers did some funny things, too. One day an excited woman asked us to make an extra stop, which we did. Her sister ran down to the landing to kiss her. I asked, ‘Is that all?’ ‘That’s all,’ she said. I backed the boat off and went on.”
Captain Mary is the only riverboater in her family, most of which seems to have hit on a landlubberly profession: a sister, three brothers and six cousins all are dentists.
Unknown Publication Abt 1946
The following were sent to us by Mary Burbach. They were published in the S&D REFLECTOR, the first in March of 1998 and the second in December of 1988. The date of the the third is unknown.
His Last Trip
“Mate, get ready down on deck,
I’m heading for the shore;
I’ll ring the bell, for I must land
This boat forevermore.”
“Say, Pilot, can you see that Light—“
“I do—where angels stand?”
“Well, hold her jackstaff hard on that,
For there, I’m going to land.”
“That looks like Death that’s hailing me
So ghastly, grim, and pale;
I’ll toll the bell—I must go in—
I never passed a hail.”
“Stop her!Let her
come in slow!
There!That will
do—no more!
The lines are fast and angels wait
To welcome me ashore.”
“Say, Pilot, I am going with them
Up yonder through that gate;
I’ll not be back—you ring the bell
And back her out—don’t wait!”
“For I have made the trip of life,
And found my landing place:
I’ll take my soul and anchor that
Fast to the Throne of Grace.”
Will S. Hays
Used by W.W. McClure for Captain Mary Becker Greene, Newport,
Ohio, at her interment in NewportCemetery on April 26, 1949.This was on letterhead for the McClure-Schafer Funeral Home in Marietta,
Ohio. Provided by William V. Torner.
