Milwaukee fisherfolk dry their nets in 1910s.
August Budzisz had been fishing the lake for over 40 years by the time he loaded up his little tug Mayflower on the nondescript morning of June 11, 1925. He had gotten his start on Jones Island, where he was raised, but was forced to move when the city took over the land to build the wastewater treatment plant. He and his family of 11 now lived in the small fishing neighborhood at Hanover (now South Third) and Beecher streets. He ran the Mayflower with his 18-year-old son, Raymond and a 17-year-old neighborhood kid named Barney Kuchowski. They headed out a little later than usual that day. At 10 a.m., the tug Smith Brothers saw the three-man crew raising their nets and preparing to get underway. It was the last time anyone would see the men alive.
Three hours later, about 10 miles off shore, the tug Alice came upon a terrible sight. The Mayflower was engulfed in flames. The tug eased alongside the burning boat while its crew tried to see if anyone was still aboard. The pilot house had burned away and the hull had roasted nearly down to the water line. There was no sign of life—former or present—on board. The Alice roared back to port and sounded an emergency signal with her whistle. The families of the shoreside fishing communities heard the call and tensed. It was an all-too-regular drill. A few more tugs and a Coast Guard boat joined the Alice and headed out to search the area for stranded men… or bodies.
The prevailing theory on shore, one that was never refuted, was that lightning had struck the Mayflower and ignited her gas tank, causing an explosion that doomed the ship. After an exhaustive search of the area around the burned-out Mayflower turned up nothing, hopes were very low for ever recovering the men alive. Even more boats joined in the rescue effort the next day, but found nothing.
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At home, Mrs. Budzisz was resigned to the terrible likelihood that her husband and son were lost. She felt that her boys would have preferred to drown than face a death by fire. “That would have been their way,” she said. “It seems cruel that the lake would finally take them but such things cannot be foretold.” She recalled that her husband often said that dying on the water would be his preferred way to go, as it had been the lake that given him his livelihood.
Five days later, with Milwaukee’s fishing community showing the official signs of mourning in half-masted flags and black armbands, two bodies were found near Port Washington, cinched to a makeshift raft made from fishing crates. A passing vessel carried the bodies back to Milwaukee, where they were identified as August Budzisz and Barney Kuchowski. Young Raymond would never be found. It was determined that the men had been able to abandon ship, but succumb to exposure as they drifted helplessly northward.
Back at the Budzisz home, August’s widow took the news stoically. “Grief for her husband was expressed not in tears,” the Milwaukee Journal wrote. “But in the manner in which most wives of fisherman express it—in silence.”
