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Page 9 "CITY OF MILWAUKEE" and "A GREAT LAKES ICON" by HOWARD H. PETERSON More than 55 years had passed since my traveling companion of the day last set foot on the decks of the Grand Trunk car ferry City of Milwaukee. This past June 7,1997 Robert C. Olsen and I motored to Elberta/ Frankfort to participate in an "open ship" that the "Society for the Preservation of the City of Milwaukee" (S.P.C.M.) held on the boat for members enjoyment and work bee, The summer-like day was beautiful as we leisurely drove from Muskegon northward along the eastern blue-water shore of Lake Michigan to our ultimate destination on Betsie Lake at Elberta where the retired ship is berthed. Olsen might well be considered a lower lake icon of his time as it was in 1937 that he first signed aboard the Grand Trunk car ferry Grand Rapids, as an ordinary seaman, running out of Muskegon to Milwaukee. Bob sailed until the outbreak of WWII when he joined the Merchant Marine in 1942 sailing the Atlantic until the war's end in 1945, never to sail again. The closer we got to Elberta the more talkative we both became. Olsen's stories ever so interesting as he related how he worked his way up from coal passer, sleeping in the flicker, to purser sleeping in an oak paneled cabin. His comical story about "the only reason he was promoted to purser was because he was the only one who could type" brought hearty laughs. Though Olsen was regularly assigned to the Grand Rapids he also served occasionally as relief on the other two GT boats, the Madison and City of Milwaukee. He hadn't been aboard the latter since 1942. I shared in his excitement as we approached Elberta. As we rounded the curve in the road at Elberta and the great ship came into view I could almost hear my three children hollering out "here comes a GT, here comes a GT" as they once did when the boats came into view from our living room window overlooking Muskegon Lake. The large white wet noodle designed GT, painted so prominently on the CITY OF MILWAUKEE at Elberta on June 7, 1997 Author's Collection