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Edmund Fitzgerald Memorial Swim

Sat July 26 - Wed August 27, 2025 Paradise, MI 49768 US
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Fundraiser

Sheila Fitzgerald
In memory of my mother; for the love of the Great Lakes

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$2,270

Raised of $2,500

$0
$2,500

For Jean Fitzgerald and the love of the Great Lakes

In August 2025, I’ll join a 30-mile relay with three others, swimming from the mouth of Lake Huron down the length of the St Clair River in my home state, Michigan. It’s a part of a 411-mile swim relay marking the tragic loss of the ship Edmund Fitzgerald and her 29 crew members in Lake Superior 50 years ago.  

I’d deeply appreciate your support, whether via a financial contribution – none is too small – or your simple encouragement. Donations will help preserve a historic lighthouse to help keep Great Lakes mariners safe.

As friends know, I’m not a fast or particularly athletic swimmer, but I’m determined — and this event felt too personal to pass up. My mother and the Edmund Fitzgerald who was namesake of the freighter had common ancestors: an Irish immigrant couple who settled on the St Clair River in 1837 and raised six sons who all became Great Lakes ship captains and builders — a tradition that continued for generations.

My mother’s father, also named Edmund Fitzgerald, ran a ship dry dock in Port Huron. Jean loved growing up beside the St Clair River and Lake Huron – and she swam in them every chance she got. As a girl in the ‘30s, when her parents forbid her from swimming in the cold, fast-running river after the ice melted in spring, she paid her brother to push her in!

Our family’s connection to the freighter is a bit eerie: my first cousin Edmund Fitzgerald was born in 1958 within a week (and mere miles) of the Mighty Fitz’s launch in Detroit; the ship foundered on November 10, our grandfather Edmund's birthdate.

My mother would have been 100 this year, and I can’t imagine a more fitting tribute to her than to commemorate the heroes of the Edmund Fitzgerald and to help keep mariners safe. Donations will help preserve historic Whitefish Point Light Station — the most important beacon for vessels in Lake Superior — via donations to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society (US tax deductible status).

Thank you for reading — and for your kind support. I appreciate it truly, madly, deeply. 

Recognitions

$625
$1,250
$1,875
$2,500

Top Donors

$2,270 Raised By 26 Donors

$300 on behalf of Sarah Fortna
$250 on behalf of Jean, Sheila, & the Great Lakes
$200 in memory of Jim & Pat Fitzgerald and Christie Smith, they would love that you are doing this Sheila and not THEM! xoxo
$100 on behalf of Edmund James Fitzgerald, my great-grandfather, James Edmund Fitzgerald, my grandfather and in honor of Sheila Fitzgerald!
$100 on behalf of Janet Lawson
$100 in memory of Jean Fitzgerald, always swimming
$100 on behalf of Kelly Evans
$100 in support of L Karl Johnson
$100 on behalf of Maureen Kilgallon
$100 on behalf of Mike Lysaght
$100 on behalf of Sheila!!!!
$100 in support of the indomitable Sheila Fitzgerald and all those she loves.
$100 in memory of The indomitable spirit of Jean Fitzgerald
$50 on behalf of Beth Feresten
$50 on behalf of Drew Wilson
$50 in memory of Jean Fitzgerald
$50 in memory of Jean Fitzgerald
$50 on behalf of Jean, Sheila, and all the Fitzgeralds dear to our hearts.
$50 on behalf of Marianne Hunt
$50 in memory of My grandparents involvement with the Great Lakes in Canada
$50 in memory of Pamela Lawson
$50 on behalf of The Tassie "blue tits" swimmers
$30 on behalf of Thomas Grauzer
$25 in support of my St. Bede buddy...
$10 in support of Sheila Fitzgerald
$5 in memory of Marge Butera

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