MA GREENE

During the golden era of the steamboat, more than eleven thousand boats paddled their way across the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. Today only a handful remains. The Delta Queen holds the distinction of being the only floating historic hotel in the United States. For many years, the steamboat has floated peacefully along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers and through the heartland of the country. The ship, with its antique furnishings and crystal chandeliers, portrays a part of American culture lost in time. The Delta Queen has passed over two million miles of waterways and has entertained countless celebrities and presidents. Today a past captain of the ship stays with it, even in death. The captain keeps watch over the vessel and is not afraid to let it be known when she disapproves of something.

Work on building the ship’s machinery began in 1924 in Dumbarton, Scotland, by William Denny & Bros. The cranks and paddlewheel shaft were created in Germany. At the time the Delta Queen was being built an identical vessel named the Delta King was built alongside it. Assembly took place at the Banner Island shipyard in Stockton, California, with both ships completed on May 20, 1927. The Delta Queen was ready for its maiden voyage.

The Delta Queen was put into regular service on June 1, 1927. It ran for the California Transportation Company of San Francisco along the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, for which it was named. It was later acquired by the United States Navy in 1940 to transport navy reservists. In the fall of 1941, the ship was sold to be an excursion boat on the Hudson River on the east coast. The fate of the ship, however, would change on December 7, 1941, with the attack on Pearl Harbor. The ship was brought back into emergency service as a hospital transport for the navy. The boat eventually went to lay up with the Reserve Fleet at Suisan Bay, California, in 1946. It was purchased by Captain Tom R. Greene on December 17 of the same year. The boat was now property of Greene Line Steamers in Cincinnati. The ship was boarded up and transported by the tug Osage across the open sea. During its voyage, the ship became the only steamboat to ever pass through the Panama Canal. After twenty-nine days and more than 5,200 miles, the tug arrived in New Orleans with the unscathed steamboat. The Delta King was left behind and is now permanently moored in Sacramento as an operating hotel. After a major overhaul, the Delta Queen went back into service on June 21, 1948, under a new captain. Her name was Mary Becker Greene, affectionately referred to as “Ma.”

Ma had always helped her husband Gordon with work around their ships from the time they founded Greene Line Steamers in 1890. She stood with her husband in the pilothouse, slowly learning how the operations of the boat worked. In 1897, she was the first woman ever licensed to pilot a steamboat in America. Greene Line Steamers enjoyed the reputation of being one of the countries most reliable steamboat companies. Ma was extremely well liked and respected for both her capabilities as a captain and her personality. Patrons boarded the ship specifically to enjoy Ma’s company. She could cook, clean and entertain with the best, but she could also make repairs on the boat, keep the books and steer her way through the inland waterways that were thick with riverboats. She was tough, having given birth to her son Tom while stuck in an ice jam aboard the side-wheeler Greenland. When her son Tom bought the Delta Queen, she was the first one to move aboard and take up residence on the ship in cabin G. Ma was a fierce backer of the temperance movement. Although the ship had a bar, no alcohol was served. She was a member of a lady’s social club, which looked down on drinking. She made it very clear that the sale or consumption of alcohol on her ships was strictly forbidden.

The boat paddled quietly over the water, with sounds of music filling its corridors and radiating to the shores it passed. During its peak of popularity, a five-night trip to Charleston, West Virginia, which included three meals a day, could be had for only eight dollars. The boat traveled to old American towns with old American names: St. Louis, Cincinnati, Louisville, New Orleans, Nashville, Memphis and Pittsburgh. Ma loved meeting and interacting with her guests. By 1946, Ma was a widow nearing eighty years old. She continued to reside in her private stateroom aboard the ship. On April Fool’s Day 1949, Ma boarded the Delta Queen for a routine trip to New Orleans. This would be her last voyage aboard the ship that she loved. On April 22, Mary Greene died in her cabin aboard the Delta Queen. She had piloted the finest steamboats for more than fifty-two years. After her death, the boat returned to Cincinnati and docked on the Ohio River. Ma Greene had spent fifty-nine years of her life in the steamboat industry, with fifty-two as a captain and pilot. She was one of the most beloved figures in the industry, and when she died a small piece of that romantic era died with her. Her son Tom died the following year of a heart attack while at the wheel of the Delta Queen.

The Delta Queen steamboat. Courtesy Joe Schneid.

Years passed, and eventually the ship was no longer owned by the Greene family. The ship changed hands several more times, including a sale to the Coca-Cola company. For years, the Delta Queen had been given special exemptions to continue operating as an overnight hotel because of its wooden hull. The last exemption ran out in October 2008. Supporters are still seeking an exemption from Congress that would enable it to once again travel the rivers as an overnight hotel.

Today, visitors and crew members report that Ma is still very much with the boat. An entertainer aboard the ship once saw a woman in a 1930s dress each night for three nights who seemed to disappear just as she looked up. She reported it to the ship’s captain, and when passing a portrait of Captain Mary she exclaimed that the woman in the portrait was the same woman she had seen. When Ma isn’t decked out in her finest, she roams the boat comfortably. Some guests have reported following a woman in a long green robe through the corridors only to have her disappear just as she turns a corner.

In 1982, First Mate Mike Williams was sleeping alone on the ship during annual repairs. He was awakened by an urgent-sounding whisper in his ear. He began hearing what sounded like a door slamming. Williams followed the sound to the engine room thinking that someone had boarded the ship. When he arrived, he discovered water pouring in from a broken intake pipe. The steamboat would have been in serious trouble if not for him being awakened by something—or someone.

During an overnight trip, Williams was contacted by a new employee who worked as a purser on the boat. She was worried about a guest, saying that an elderly woman called her to say she was feeling ill. She immediately went to seek out the help of Williams, who had medical training. Williams went to visit the stateroom and found it to be not only empty but also totally unoccupied. He returned to the purser, who had been frightened by the sight of an old woman staring at her through a window. Williams offered to walk the employee to her cabin. As they passed a painting of Captain Mary Greene, the purser became more frightened because the woman staring out of the painting was the same woman who had stared at her so disturbingly through the window. The two were later married and often tell people that Ma Greene introduced them.

Mary “Ma” Greene and her husband Gordon. Courtesy Franz Neumeier.

On another occasion, a crew was on the boat filming a documentary. The cameraman was shooting footage in the Betty Blake Lounge. In the lounge were pictures of past owners of the ship, including Mary Greene. When the cameraman zoomed in on her picture, he screamed and fell back. Worried that their colleague had suffered a heart attack, other crew members rushed to his side. He could not speak but only pointed to the camera. Later, after regaining his composure, he said that as he focused on Mary Greene’s picture, he realized that it was not a picture at all. He said that, while filming the picture, it had come to life! He refused to sleep in his cabin during the remainder of the trip.

Mary was strongly against alcohol, and it was for this reason that nobody dared to even bring up the subject while she was alive. Just after her death in 1949, construction began on a new saloon. Only days after opening the new saloon, a barge crashed into the Delta Queen, making a direct hit into the bar and destroying it. When crew members finally dislodged the barge from the steamboat, they were shocked at what they saw. The name on the barge was Mary B.

HAUNTING ACTIVITY SCALE

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Type: apparition