Doug Moe: Wayward duffel of Navy vet finds way from Maine to Madison
MARY GAGE remembers almost hanging up on the young woman, whom she presumed was selling something.
This was early last month, and Mary had just answered the phone in her home on Madison's west side.
"Hi, my name is Jennifer Doherty," her caller said. "I'm calling from Maine."
Mary didn't know anybody by that name, but she kept listening.
"Were you ever married to someone named Fred H. Gage?"
"Yes," Mary replied. She's the widow of Fred Gage, the broadcasting executive, top amateur golfer and longtime radio voice of the Wisconsin football Badgers, who died in 2003.
Now her caller said, "I have all his naval belongings."
"What?"
"Let me explain," the young woman said.
Just how a large duffel bag containing the possessions of Fred Gage from when he was a member of the U.S. Navy in the 1940s wound up with a 23-year-old woman in Maine is worth explaining.
Before he became a pioneering sports broadcaster in Madison, Fred Gage came to town from Green Bay to attend UW-Madison and play football for the Badgers. He lettered for three years -- 1938-1940 -- and shortly after graduation joined the Navy.
He was stationed for a time on California's Monterey Peninsula and would later remember getting to play 18 holes at Pebble Beach for $1. From there Gage went to officer's candidate school and eventually ended up in Panama, where he worked as a decoder.
Gage was discharged from the Navy in 1946, and it wasn't too long after that, back in Madison, that he was hired by William T. Evjue to work at The Capital Times, and then WIBA. Gage's first wife, Elinor Bagley, who died in 1969, was a niece of Mr. Evjue.
According to a bill of lading now in possession of Mary Gage, Fred Gage's Navy duffel bag was sent from Panama to a Navy shipyard in Portsmouth, N.H., in early June 1946. A couple of days later, it was forwarded, and there's the catch. This was the forwarding address:
Frederick H. Gage, C/O F. A. Richardson, School Street, Strong, Maine.
Ardine Richardson, as he was known, was a prominent, lifelong resident of Maine. He was speaker of the Maine House of Representatives in 1943-44. After unsuccessfully seeking the Republication nomination for governor, he returned to his native town of Strong, where he farmed and served (for 49 years) as the moderator of the Strong town meetings.
Richardson does not appear to have served in the Navy, nor did he have any apparent connection to Fred Gage.
Yet when Maine resident Jennifer Doherty and her husband bought what was known as the "Richardson House" not long ago, she discovered in the barn out back a duffel bag with information inside identifying it as belonging to Frederick H. Gage.
Since this is 2007, you may have guessed the Internet is going to factor in here somewhere.
Out in Maine, Jennifer Doherty was doing some research on the Web on her own family genealogy when she thought of the duffel bag and typed "Frederick H. Gage" into a search engine.
"Up popped Mary Gage," his widow was saying Thursday.
Doherty called Madison, reached Mary, and they chatted for nearly an hour. Last week a large box appeared on Mary's doorstep.
"It was so big I had to push it inside," she said.
She had some fun -- well, the moldy clothes weren't fun -- going through the contents. There was an empty wallet with the name "Freddy Gage" inscribed on it; a nice Blue Star Service flag; and a blue stocking cap with a name tag stitched inside: "F. Gage, Naval Radio Station."
There was a paperback book -- a War Department Educational Manual, titled "Modern News Reporting" -- and a U.S. Navy sewing kit inscribed "So Sew Sailor."
"No hidden treasure?" Mary was asked.
"Not a dime," she said with a smile.
Still, she's glad she has it, and grateful to Jennifer Doherty for getting in touch. Why it was originally sent to Ardine Richardson in Maine is still anyone's guess.
With no way of finding Fred Gage -- and no Internet -- Richardson presumably did what most of us would have done: He put it out in the barn.
Heard something Moe should know? Call 252-6446, write PO Box 8060, Madison, WI 53708, or e-mail dmoe@madison.com
File photo
Fred Gage
