1
USS ELIZABETH CITY Id–4984 Coastal Freighter
001
HOW MAKE BELIEVE WORKS Make believe just has more heft—it gets to you more, it feels like more—the more detail there is to make the world in the story feel real. These worlds live or die, their success or their failure depends, on these details, on how believable they are, how precisely chosen.
002
003
004
I LOVED IT. THIS WASN’T JUST A GAME. THIS WAS– THIS WAS LIFE. JOE Age: 4 Nightwatch Joe took his job seriously and kept a logbook that he updated almost every half-hour.
005
There are 12 kids in the Steinfels family, and
The ship that they worked on, it was not at
they grew up in the 1980s in a very unusual
sea. It was not moving. It was stationed in the
situation. They all worked on a ship. Their
driveway of their house in suburban Chicago.
dad, Jim, had been in the Navy. They
The idea to build a ship in the driveway
swabbed the decks. They served food in
came from Elizabeth. She was five; Joe was
the chow line. They wore uniforms—white
four. The big sister. Joe said yes.
sailor hats, black neckerchiefs.
006
So Elizabeth dragged a couple boxes into their backyard and started to pull together materials. As the months went on, the ship grew more and more elaborate. Their dad started using masonite and plywood. He put in a wheelhouse and an engine room. Eventually the ship was about 24 feet long and painted battleship gray. He outfitted the ship with guns that shot ping-pong balls and missiles made from spray-painted deodorant sticks. He picked up life jackets at a Navy surplus store. He installed an intercom. He attached the motor from a blender to a wall.
ELIZABETH Age: 5 Big Sister I think I asked my father if I could have some two-by-fours to make the deck with. And then, of course, he got involved, deciding that he was going to take it up a level.
007
IT WAS THE USS ELIZABETH CITY
008
009
The kids would play on the USS Elizabeth City all summer long, sometimes on 24-hour shifts. Think of what genius parenting that is if you have a dozen kids. There was a whole world their dad created around the USS Elizabeth City—a history and a mission statement, and a strict set of rules and responsibilities. His wife Joan typed up a pamphlet just like the ones the Navy handed out. In this case, the port was their neighborhood, Park Ridge.
MARION Age: 6 Hospital Corpsman I took that very seriously. I was very proud that I had that job.
010
WHAT MADE THEIR DAD SO GOOD AT MAKEBELIEVE IS HOW REAL HE MADE IT.
011
012
ELIZABETH Age: 5 Chief Storekeeper I don’t know that it always was fun. I liked that I had a defined character and everything— grumpy old storekeeper.
013
Their dad, Jim, had been in the Navy for about
Other kids on the ship had positions like gun-
a decade. In his 30s, he married Joan. They
ner’s mate, radio men, master-at-arms, and
eventually ran an architecture firm together
culinary specialist. And each of these involve
out of their basement. They didn’t make
some paperwork, real US Navy paperwork,
much money. They spent most of their time
forms that their dad saved from his time in
designing youth centers in low-income neigh-
the service or picked up from local recruit-
borhoods throughout Chicago.
ment offices.
He was idealistic, and also incredibly practi-
Elizabeth, who was the chief storekeeper, says
cal. He made stuff fun. They all talked about
she spent many hours putting her signature
that. But he also had an intense work ethic
on supply requisitions.
and thrived on discipline and teamwork. her dad assigned each of them a specific job.
IF YOU HAVE TIME TO LEAN YOU HAVE TIME TO CLEAN 014
015
Of course, with so many kids, there were arguments and disagreements on the ship. And so to deal with that, their dad created a chain of command, an entire rank structure. He gave himself one of the lower positions, the boatswain’s mate. That way the kids would have to work out problems on their own. The highest-ranking position, commanding officer, that went to his oldest child, Jane. She was in charge of posting a plan of the day. That included chores, meals, and watch times for her brothers and sisters. If they all did their jobs, their dad would take them for doughnuts at the end of the week. Any kid who slacked off would ruin it for everyone. I asked them all, why did they keep playing along with this? So many rules. So much cleaning.
JANE If I was in charge and I didn’t think your brass belt buckle was shined adequtely, that might be a source of tension.
016
They lived so fully in the world of the ship, their lives were so devoted to it, that the kids never really stopped to think about how someone from the outside world might view it. All the Steinfels kids, they eventually reached an age—usually around middle school—when they started wanting to spend more time off the ship than on it.
017
DAVID If you wanted to take liberty, you’d have to fill out a yellow slip and then put where you were going.
IT WAS SOMEWHERE BETWEEN WORK AND PLAY. ELIZABETH
018
Jane, the oldest, is 41 now. The youngest,
The ship their dad build is still around. It’s in
Samuel, is 20. And you can’t help but notice
the garage at their mom’s house. And every
how much the Steinfels kids’ lives seem to
once in a while, when the kids are home
be shaped by their time on the ship.
visiting, they’ll pull it back into their yard. Sometimes they’ll climb back on it, though it’s
Elizabeth, the master chief storekeeper, she
tough to get through the portholes and doors
now runs her own clothing store. John, the
now. And then they’ll stand on the deck and
culinary specialist, he manages the kitchen at
watch their own children play on it.
a Chicago restaurant. Samuel’s training to be an officer at the Naval Academy right now. Jane went there, too. Four of the other boys, they ended up in the Marine Corps. David enlisted right after high school. He’s been deployed to Asia and Yemen.
JOAN
JOE
MARION
And of course, Park Ridge is totally surrounded by land.
We would push this 24-foot-long ship out into Cumberland Avenue, and one of us would be actually steering the wheel of the ship.
Not everyone had ships in their backyards.
019
020
021
THE SHIP THEIR DAD BUILT IS STILL AROUND Jim Steinfels was 71 when he died from cancer. He wanted his kids to be competent and industrious and serve something bigger than themselves, lessons they say they learned on the ship. Right after he died, Marion said they couldn’t stop thinking about how he would have hated anyone wasting a good day of work.
This book was made by Patricia Witt in the Fall of 2016 for Capstone in Design: Form and Function. The story is taken directly from the podcast This American Life #566: The Land of Make Believe published on September 11, 2015. The typefaces used are PT Serif and Univers Condensed.