Stormy weather, but not for Ima.

     As the President Lincoln continued its nine-day voyage across the Atlantic in the summer of 1907, there were more games, and teasing and camaraderie at festive dinners. There was fair weather almost all the way--until Saturday, June 29. Ima didn’t mind at all:

Until two days ago then became stormy and very cold--all happened just to my taste. I shall not try to describe the never ceasing fascination of the sea, and the moonlit nights-as well as the sun set of last evening-But I shall remember them always. No one has been sea-sick--the credit due to our perfect sailing ship. Tomorrow we expect to reach Plymouth where we shall bid a reluctant good-bye to our ship.

        

       Ima was sailing aboard a German ship, and when the United States entered World War I in 1917, the President Lincoln was seized in New York harbor and converted to a U.S. Navy troop transport ship. In May 1918 a German U-boat torpedoed the vessel, which sank in about 20 minutes with 715 people aboard. Twenty-six were lost with the ship, and the survivors in lifeboats were rescued by a U.S. destroyer.

        

       No doubt Ima Hogg was saddened by this 1918 news, remembering the pleasant summer she sailed on the President Lincoln’s maiden voyage.