Facing page, the young Karl finds a way to ¡ explore the hulks ofthe four-masted schooner Bangor and the carferry Contra Costa (seen in background) in the St. Carquinez Strait.
The Great Menu Interview Karl was a very successful interviewer. He seemed to have a perfect ear for sailor dialog and seamanship terms in whatever language or accent it came in. One of his favorite interviewing techniques was to go out to lunch and interview the person while they ate. Occasionally he ' d forget to take paper and would make notes on the margins of a menu . Somewhere in the museum archives exists the 4-page menu on expensive slick paper 14 inches high which he hanqed to me when he came back from lunch. He had exhausted the margin space on all four pages and down the middle, front and back, so he had no recourse but to write down through the appetizers, the soups, the entrees, the desserts and wine also. The trick for the transcriber was to find out what the subject was, and then the words would fairly pop out on their own. MARY CLARK, Secretary to K. Kortum
Above left, Karl plots a course in the Pacific aboard the SS Octorara, wi[h his mentor Capt. Malanot. Middle, Karl and Jean in the office of the newly founded San Francisco Maritime Museum, ca. 1952. Right, Karl and Scott Newhall in the wheelhouse of the Eppleton Hall in San Francisco Bay, 1976.
of staff. I saw his kindness when he dealt with the public and with his expertsthe seafaring folk. And I saw his kindness in the attention he gave to children. Somehow his kindness was tied in with his insistence upon excellence. Everlastingly he declared that a museum was a " temple of excel Jenee. " Karl understood that excellence is not the province of"normal people," otherwise excellence would be the norm. No, excellence is rare, exceptional, and it is rare and exceptional people who produce that excellence.That is why museums are so often the refuge of individuals whom normal people regard as
eccentric. I have described to you some of what I have observed of Karl. I have not even scratched the surface of what he means to me. DAVE HULL, Chief Librarian ¡ San Francisco Maritime Nat' l Hist' l Park
The Vineyard of Good Design The Heart of the Matter How did Karl touch so many people so personally? Why did he inspire such loyalty in his friends, such animosity in his enemies? And in Walter Cronkite's statement that Karl "made the case for historic ships clear to all of us and he made it stick," just how did he make it stick? Karl had a giftfor going straight to the heart of a matter. He sliced right through all the surrounding issues-the red herrings that confuse us, the side eddies that are the refuge of cowards, the rich veins where lie self-interest. I doubt that Karl ever identfied the heart of a matter without taking a position on it, and this is where it got sticky for the rest of us. I saw hi s kindness in his management SEA HISTORY 80, WINTER 1996-97
Karl Kortum was a mighty toiler in the vineyard of good design. He cherished the beauty of boats and ships, which, for him, set a standard for the design of civi lized cities. With Jean at his side, he made the forces of light prevail over darkness. To a newspaperman, he was an unfailing source of sound judgment, courage and civic goodness. He lived for all of us on land, even as he adventured bravely on the wildness of the sea. ALLAN TEMKO, San Francisco Chronicle I became acquainted with Karl through our mutual interest in hi s pioneer heritage. Although I knew nothing about him at first, I soon gathered thar he was regarded a character. After I got to know him better ... I began to suspect that
"character" might be a bit of an understatement in describing someone who had singlehandedly bullied the City of San Francisco into formally recognizing and preserving its seagoing history. While Karl had a brilliant mind and a strong will, he also had a heart. He cared passionately about history and devoted his considerable talents to recording and preserving it. The Maritime Museum is a monument to Karl's vision and his passion, in the face of which the doubters never stood a chance. KRISTIN JOHNSON Without Karl Kortum, San Francisco's maritime past would be another myth in the storybook oflegends-in which truth and fantasy are so intertwined as to become inseparable. There would be no collective reality and little tangible evidence of the first century of the city's dominant position as an internationally known seaport. NANCY OLMSTED, dedication of At the End of Our Streets Are Spars
In April 1946 I was with the USO on my way to Tokyo and boarded the troop transport Octorara in Manila. The first night out I was assigned to the mates' table in the mess, where I met Karl Kortum, Chief Mate, and Third Mate Al Swanson. The men were good friends whose enjoyment of each other made them fun to be with. During the 10-day trip I fell in love with Al and we were married that September. It is my hope that they're now true celestial navigators, sailing among the stars, telling tales of how they helped mere mortals understand that to be a sailor and love ships is to know what heaven is all SHlRLEY H. Sw ANSON about.
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