It was one of those bright balmy April days in Wilmington, a time which in later years would become famous as Azalea Festival season.
The champagne bottle, gaudily festooned with official ribbons, caught the sun glints as the teenage girl from Fayetteville carefully grasped it and waited for her big moment.
Then at a signal, Jean Huske gave the bottle a hearty push toward the bulky wall of metal that loomed in front of her.
With a stupendous shattering, the bottle exploded. A photographer caught the very second when the great cloud of foam hung in the air and the ship was properly christened.
And so 65 years ago began the short and ultimately tragic career of the SS Robert Rowan, a World WarII Liberty ship bearing the name of Fayetteville’s most illustrious Patriot leader of the War of Independence.
If the vessel’s end would be tragic, its launching was an appropriately festive moment.
It was April 8, 1943, and the crowd at the launching platform in busy N.C. Shipbuilding Co. included several dozen of Fayetteville’s leading citizens.
The list counted the mayor, officials of the chamber of commerce, ladies from the Robert Rowan chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the commanding general of Fort Bragg and U.S. Rep. Bayard Clark, a Democrat from Fayetteville.
And then there was the bevy of young women taking the day off from school, designated as maids-of-honor for Miss Huske.
All were from old Fayetteville families. Miss Huske and her two younger sisters, Rosalie and Pat, were children of William O. Huske, a World War I veteran who was a champion of river improvement efforts for the Cape Fear.
Others were Betty London Wooten, Anna Parker Sutton, Kate Sutton and Lizzle Dell Sutton.

fayobserver.com


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