Torkild Rieber Interview - Torkild Rieber Interview [part 1 of 8]

Owens- This is an interview with Captain Rieber in his office in Rockefeller Plaza, New York City.

I'd like for you to give me your full name, sir.

Rieber- My full name is Torkild Rieber.

It is spelled T-O-R-K-I-L-D R-I-E-B-E-R.

O.- That's an unusual name. How did you come by it?

R.- Well, I was born in Norway and the first name, of course, is the name, supposedly, of an old Viking king, son of the Thor, god of Thunder.

O.- Yes.

R.- The second name Is Scandinavian in origin, probably, as best we know, originating in Denmark in a town called Riebe, R-I-E-B-E,

which is known for its cathedral and supposedly trained the preachers of the Gospel to go out in other parts of the Scandinavian countries and teach Christianity.

Teach Christianity.

O.- Do you suppose your people came to Norway then as preachers?

R.- My original forebears came to Norway in the capacity of a minister of the Gospel.

O.- Can you tell me something about your parents?

R.- Well, my parents both were born in little villages on the Hardanger Fjord, one of the great beauty spots of the world.

My father was an industrialist in a small way using the power from the waterfall and starting with taking in the wool,

turning it into cloth and turning it back again to the farmers in that form.

My father, together with a few other men, older and simple folks of the mountains of Norway,

organized a woolen manufacture industry for the purpose of, of first turning wool into finished cloth as I described,

and second for the purpose of providing power to create electricity in the little valley where, the village where I was born, Blanet (?).

On my mother's side, to the best of my knowledge, the, one branch of the family were farmers;

another branch were seafaring people.

Bering Strait is named after one of my mother's tribe who went into the services of the then Tsar of Russia and in the course of his exploration trips, you might say,

the Bering Strait was first discovered and opened for navigation.

O.- What was her maiden name?

R. - Her name, maiden name was Helland, H-E-L-L-A-N-D.

O.- What village were you born in?

R.- I was born in a village by the name of Voss, V-0-S-S.

O.- What year? R.- In 1882, in March, 1882.

O.- The exact day of March.

R.- Thirteenth of March.

O.- 1882. R.- That's right.

O.- What about your education then?

R.- Well, my education was in a small private school carried on by some of the good women in the village.

O.- Yes

R.- It was not a private school in the sense of expensive schools that we have in this country. O.- Yes.

R.- It was merely a private school that had been created for the education purposes of some of us who lived in the little town proper.

Whereas schools were scattered but available and compulsory for all of the people in various parts, not only of this particular valley where I was born,

but all over the country very much the same as is the case in the rural country of the United States.

Communications, of course, in those days, were somewhat primitive by present standards, but everybody was brought to school one way or another.

To some extent, perhaps on a cooperative basis, one farmer would carry the children together and bring them back and forth one week and another farmer would do the following and so forth.

The fundamental schooling in the old country was very good as I'm looking back on it. O. Yes.

They dealt more with fundamentals than they did with, with details, the theory being that some total education in fundamentals was in the end better than a great deal of superficial information about many things. O.- Yes.

R. - As for an instance, grammar.

The basic teaching of grammar that I had I can look back on and find it has been very helpful to me in learning other languages or in learning something about other languages.

Later on, after I went to sea when I was about fifteen, in the sailing ship days after being out for three years,

I came back again to Norway to the old country and then went to the nautical academy in the, one of the principal coastal trading cities in the country by the name of Bergen, B-E-R-G-E-N.

And having passed my examination there I went to sea again and sailed under various flags until in 1902

I came to this country as second officer on the British ship which was carrying heavy equipment- rail, steel, timber, locomotives,

all sorts of heavy equipment that it took to build the ports of Tampico, Vera Cruz, and Coatzacoalcos, now called Port of Mexico,

when Dictator Porfirio Diaz was in the course of developing Mexico from a very primitive country to a country with modern harbors

and with a railroad across the peninsula of Tehuantepec between the two ports of Coatzacoalcos, now Port of Mexico, on the Atlantic side, to Salina Cruz on the Pacific side.

About this time (long pause) the oil business here in Texas had originated through the Lucas discovery well on the outskirts of Beaumont, Texas, Spindletop, in the latter part of 1901.

There were two problems in connection with that oil discovery.

First, to make use of the oil at all because it was in its inhabitant (means inherent?) quality, very heavy and had no kerosene content to speak of.

Kerosene, sometimes in those days called lamp oil, was the only petroleum product that there was actually a market for,

that and mineral lubricating oils which Spindletop crude did not contain.

It was evident that the use of the Spindletop crude could only be used in a commercial way and in quantity as fuel,

and I think it is fair to say that the revolution in fuel took place through the Spindletop discovery.

The second problem, it having been determined that fuel was the logical outlet for Spindletop crude, was one of transportation,

and a pipeline was laid in 1902 from Spindletop and through the marshes south and east to Sabine,

the Port Arthur ship canal at that time being in the promotional stages.

The advent of oil in Texas had a sensational effect, as I recall it, all over the country and being young and interested in everything that was going on,

particularly in shipping which was rather inconsequential in those days so far as American tonnage was concerned, by which I mean ocean-going tonnage under the American flag.

Water transportation in this country at that time having been largely confined to the rivers and the lakes

with a few coastal lines running between Boston and New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Norfolk, Jacksonville, New Orleans and Galveston-

O.- Yes.

R.- --with freight and passengers.

The companies very well known at that time were the Morgan Line, the Mallory Line, the Savannah Line, and the Clyde Line.

However, with oil in Texas it was evident that something entirely new in transportation was in the making

and the first oil taken out of Texas was loaded at Sabine in tankers that had been converted from cargo ships with fairly limited reconstruction,

consisting of longitudinal as well as transverse bulkheads to keep the cargo confined so as to make the ship seaworthy.

It was through the establishment or creation of a fleet of three converted tankers

originally built to carry grain from the Great Lakes and to Europe by way of the St. Lawrence River

by a firm known as the Northwestern Steamship Company with headquarters in Chicago,

managed by a prominent shipping firm in New York known as James W. Elwenn & Company...

O.- How do you spell that last name? R. - E-L-W-E-N-N.

...that I entered the oil business Elwenn & Company being agents for the shipping firm for which I'd worked previously,

Elwenn & Company knew that I was in the course of becoming an American citizen.

They had some difficulty in getting personnel for these early tankers because it was something new and

oil was supposed to be not only inflammable but also explosive

and the regular seagoing personnel here at that time which was not very great,

preferred to find employment on the conventional type of ship, passenger ships, cargo ships of various types.

And I immediately seized the opportunity when it was proposed to me to go into the employ of James W. Elwenn & Company,

and as I recall it, it was in 1903, perhaps 1904.

O.- When did you first come to this country, Mr.- -R.- Well,

that is all fairly, I'm not quite-1903 or '04, that I joined one of the converted tankers, the Northtown as quartermaster.

And when, in 1905, I became an American citizen and at the same time passed my examination for what this country calls a master's degree,

meaning that having a license to be captain of a ship,

it was in 1905 that I went through successive promotions and from second officer to first officer and finally captain in one,

in these various ships operated by James W. Elwenn Company.

You asked me when I first came to this country.

Well, the first time I came to the United States was in 1899 as a very young man on board of a sailing ship

loaded with coal from Newcastle upon Tyne to San Francisco,

where, after having discharged our cargo of coal in the city of San Francisco,

we proceeded up the Sacramento River to what was then a great wheat loading port called Port Costa

and there we loaded wheat in sacks, proceeded again around the Horn and delivered the cargo in Limerick, Ireland.

It was at that time, leaving San Francisco, and I had in my boyish way determined that I wanted to come back to this country and become an American citizen.

So you might say in a way that I drifted into the oil business merely as a sailor of fortune. [End of tape]