Herman Aberg
Herman Aberg was the Fourth Officer on the Valencia. When the last raft to leave the ship was picked up by the Topeka at 1pm on January 24th, the barely alive survivors reported who was still alive on the Valencia. When they left the Valencia on the raft at about 10:30am they estimated 60 to 75 people still on board and Herman Aberg was one of them. Other survivors mentioned included: Captain Johnson, Holmes, Downing, Hopkins, Campbell, Wilkins, Hughes and stewardess Musgrove. It would be discovered later that all the remaining survivors on the Valencia were hit by a huge wave and thrown into the ocean and killed soon after the rafts departed the crumbling ship. On the 5th of February several bodies were recovered and Aberg’s body was identified as one of them. The body of a man wearing a blue sweater and wearing a ring with “AA” monogrammed on it. Survivors of the Valencia identified the body as that of A. Aberg.
The San Francisco Examiner ran an article on January 24th, 1906, the same day the Valencia collapsed into the sea and Herman Aberg lost his life. The article recounts the tragic story of Herman Aberg. A gypsy fortune teller had ominously predicted to Aberg's wife that her husband would be shipwrecked and not return alive from his next sea voyage. Aberg, a fearless sailor, had previously survived a perilous voyage on the City of Puebla, where he heroically assisted in a rescue operation. Despite the gypsy's warning and his wife's pleas, Aberg joined the Valencia for its next trip. When news of the Valencia's grounding reached Mrs. Aberg, she was overwhelmed with grief, recalling the gypsy's prophecy and her failed attempts to dissuade her husband from sailing. The article concludes with uncertainty about Aberg’s fate, hoping he survives to disprove the fortune teller's grim prediction.
MAN'S FATE PREDICTED BY GYPSY
Wife of Valencia's Fourth Officer Was Told Her Husband Would Never Return Alive.
Into the story of the wreck of the good ship Valencia on the jagged rocks of Vancouver Island there creeps the romance of mysticism: the baneful predictions of a gypsy fortune teller, who, writing on the wall, as it were, forecasted the doom of the man who would go down to his grave in the icy waters when the ship struck.
Herman Aberg, fourth officer of the Valencia, is the man whom the gypsy marked. Aberg follows the sea for a livelihood, and those who are acquainted with him say that he knows not what fear is. He was fourth officer of the City of Puebla when that ill-fated craft, with broken propeller shaft and deranged machinery, was battered and buffeted about the mouth of the Columbia River during the closing days of last year, and was finally picked up and towed into this port after a most tempestuous voyage and after hope of rescue had almost died.
Aberg, the man, showed his mettle during the eventful voyage of the City of Puebla. When that ship was drifting in the trough of the great seas off Tillamook rock it was Aberg who accompanied First Officer P. Neilsen in a small boat to take a running line to the Chehalis, the steam schooner that stood by to lend aid to the distressed ship. Neilsen and Aberg, although aware that they were taking their lives in their hands when they faced the seas in the open boat, thought only of duty and amid the cheers of the passengers and crews of both ships, succeeded in passing the line.
GYPSY FORETOLD DISASTER.
It was while the City of Puebla was creeping against the head winds to this, her home, port, that the old and weakened gypsy came to the door of the Aberg home, at 1922 Powell Street, and offered to tell the fortune of Mrs. Aberg. As a matter of amusement Mrs. Aberg gave to the gypsy the small sum demanded and admitted the seer into her room.
Kneeling on the floor with a deck of ancient and grease-covered cards spread before him, his turbaned head bobbing up and down as he drew from his colored pasteboard the mysteries of the future, his palsied hand raised in warning, the gypsy poured forth his predictions.
"Your husband is shipwrecked now," he said. "He will come back to you safe. He will go out again to the sea. He will again be shipwrecked. Yes, on his very next trip his ship will meet with disaster. Madam, you are soon to become a widow."
Thus was the story told.
Mrs. Aberg, not given to belief in the mysteries, laughed lightly at the words of the gypsy. A day or so later the news came of the disaster to the City of Puebla. With a force that struck her dumb the words of the gypsy came back to her. Anxiously she sought news of the City of Puebla and breathed a prayer when she learned that all were safe.
PLEADED WITH HUSBAND.
When the City of Puebla was laid out for repairs and the Valencia was put in her place, they called on Herman Aberg to act as fourth officer. Again, the words of the seer came back to Mrs. Aberg and she pleaded with her husband to stop over. Fate stepped in, and Aberg failed to connect with the Valencia on her first trip. The Valencia went out and returned safely and Aberg twitted his wife about her fears.
Last Saturday the Valencia sailed again, and although Mrs. Aberg was beset with misgivings, she could not persuade her husband to give up the trip. Aberg went out with his ship like a true sailor.
When Mrs. Aberg was told of the grounding of the Valencia last night, she gave way to paroxysms of grief.
"My God, my God!" she moaned. "He will never come back to me. I did not want him to go. I begged him not to. I know that something has happened to him. He would not listen to me; he only laughed."
Oh, if he only comes back, I'll never, never again let him go to sea."
Whether or not Herman Aberg, fourth officer of the Valencia, is alive or dead remains to be seen when the lists of saved and lost are completed. May it be that he lives and will return to his weeping wife to scoff at the fortune teller who marked him as dead if he sailed on the Valencia.
