The Titanic Reenactor Who Actually Dove The Wreck and The Woman Who Was Mayor, Garbage Woman, Liquor Store Owner, Teacher, AND Member of the WAC

And we continue with our American stories. More people have ventured into outer space than have been to where the Titanic rests two and a half miles down on the ocean floor. Lowell Lytle has been one of the privileged few who has seen the Titanic firsthand. Lowell has played the part of Captain Smith at Titanic events all over the globe and has been entertaining guests at the Titanic Museum for more than 15 years. Here's Lowell Lytle to tell his story and the story of the Titanic's last hero.

How do you do? This is Lowell Lytle. I have an unusual story to tell you.

I was home minding my own business way back in 1987. And I heard about the Titanic. They've discovered it. And wouldn't you know, I got a phone call from the designer that was building an exhibit Orlando on the Titanic. He called me. He said, Lowell, we've gone through 350 actors here in Orlando.

Can't find a captain. And he said, I told these men, I know someone that can play that part. He's my next door neighbor. I used to be a lead singer in one of my rock and roll bands.

I had eight bands for 22 years touring the United States and Canada. And I went over there on a hoop just to see what was all about. And he opened the door and there was six men sitting around the table. And he said, gentlemen, here's Captain Smith. They took one look at me and they said, yep, you're it. I didn't know what the captain looked like, but an hour later I went through that souvenir shop and I saw the front page of the New York Times, 1912. Picture of Captain Smith looking right at me. And my first thought was my neighbor has taken my picture and pasted it on the front page of the New York Times.

He shouldn't do that. That's wrong. Well, I was there for about two years and then I heard they were going to dive to the Titanic. And I thought, oh, that would be nice if I could do that. So I called them and they said, no, I waited two weeks and I called them again and I said, I'd like to go down to the Titanic.

And they said, no, no, that's for archeologists and important people, wealthy people, people have climbed Mount Everest, millionaires. I waited two more weeks and I, you know, I remember Winston Churchill made a famous speech during World War II. He said, we will fight them in the air. We will fight them on land.

We will fight them at sea, but we will never surrender. I remember that he was invited to speak at Harvard University after the war. And the professor said to the students, get your pads and pens ready because when this man speaks, it's wisdom.

They flew him over from England. The old man hobbled up the microphone and he said, never give up, never, never, never, never give up. And he turned around and sat down.

I never forgot that. That was the best speech I ever heard. I called him again and I said, I'm the captain of the Titanic. I'm in front of the camera.

I'm in everyone's home. I'm the one that's talking about your exhibit. I believe if the man could say, this man's been down to see this ship, more people would be interested in what I have to say about it.

And you'll get more people there and you'll make more money. It got quiet on the other end of the phone. And the man said, I think you're right. Come along. So I actually packed up and I went to St. John's, Newfoundland. That's where you leave from. And I got there and they looked at me and they said, you're too tall. You won't fit in there. I said, I'll fit in there. I'm six foot four. I'm the tallest and the oldest that's ever been down to the Titanic.

I was 68 at the time. I said, I'll fit in there. Well, we don't have a fire suit big enough for you. Fire suit? What's this about a fire? Well, you'll be breathing 100% oxygen. It could flash to a fire like Apollo 1 did.

Well, if that's the case, I'll be burnt to a crisp in 10 seconds. What good is a suit? They said, well, your name will be written on it. It's for identification.

Identification? I'm that tall guy down there. Well, anyway, I got in the suit. That suit was a little too small, but I did get in one.

Now, when I, and I got on the academy couch, that Russian dive vessel, I noticed on the back end of one of those subs, the protective shield that went around the propeller was held together with duct tape. Now that doesn't breed a lot of confidence. And I'm thinking to myself, do I really want to do this? All I could think of is, well, I've lived a long life. I'm 68. If I die, I know where I'm going.

That's the important thing. And if I come back, I'll have a story to tell. And I came back and I've been telling that story for 21 years, all around the world. I told it in Shanghai, China for two weeks. I told it in Singapore for two weeks.

I've been in every state in the United States, every Providence in Canada, where they've had these Titanic exhibits, sometimes two or three times, different cities. One day I was eating dinner. Now there's twice as many people out there, that would like to go down, that would get a chance.

So I knew I didn't have any chance. But while I was eating, that fellow that I talked to on the phone came over to me, bent over and said to me, Lowell, you're going down in the morning. And what a unique and original voice we're listening to.

And that is of course, the voice of Lowell Lytle, who plays the part and has been playing the part of Captain Smith. When we come back, more of Lowell Lytle's story here on Our American Stories. Folks, if you love the great American stories we tell and love America like we do, we're asking you to become a part of the Our American Stories family. If you agree that America is a good and great country, please make a donation. A monthly gift of $17.76 is fast becoming a favorite option for supporters. Go to OurAmericanStories.com now and go to the donate button and help us keep the great American Stories coming.

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Simply go to Geico.com or contact your local agent today. And we continue with Our American Stories and with Lowell Lytle's story about being one of the privileged few who's seen the Titanic firsthand and who also happens to play the part of Captain Smith at Titanic events all over the globe. Let's return to Lowell Lytle and his story. Oh my goodness, my heart began to pound. I couldn't believe it. They're going to let me go down to the Titanic. Well, Fox Television followed me all around like I was an astronaut. Now, first of all, you got to take your shoes off because in the event that you pick up any oil from that mothership walking on the deck and breathing 100% oxygen, it could, if there's a spark, that would be it. So I took my shoes off, I got inside, and with my long legs, wouldn't you know, I kicked over the oxygen tank. Boy, it didn't take long before that Russian pilot came alive and straightened that thing out. Now, I got no place to sit.

I'm in a ball and six and a half feet in diameter, 19 inches thick, and there's three grown men in there. And it takes two and a half hours to get down two and a half miles to the wreck site. They turn off all the lights to conserve the batteries. Now, they turn that hatch down tight and I knew then I couldn't change my mind. I can't see anything. All I can do is think about what I'm about to see. I'm not going to see a movie. I'm going to see the real thing.

And when they turn on the lights, the Russian pilot says, we're almost there. And I didn't like what I saw. We were going too fast and we bounced off the ocean floor. Oh my goodness.

Oh my goodness. Of course, it took five minutes for all that dust to settle down. And the first thing that I noticed was the sea life. It was so strange. There's no light that far down on the ocean floor, no sun.

So the crabs are white, the starfish that 13 inches in diameter, five points, but none of them any larger than your little finger. Now, when they turn on the lights, moments later, I was right over the bow, the same spot where Jack in the movie held up his arms that I'm the king of the world. I went right over that spot. I said, take me to the captain's cabin.

James Cameron said the side was already gone. They took me there. I was five feet from the captain's bathtub for 10 minutes while they were changing film. I found a wrench down there. The mouth on it was 13 inches across, sticking straight up in the ocean floor, like some to throw a javelin. And I noticed while I was picking items up off the ocean floor, there was a hat.

It looked like a Derby hat and it was in mint condition. There's no current that far down. And I told the Russian pilot to go get that.

And he did. There are two mechanical arms on the outside of that sub and he picked it up and they pushed a button and a basket went out from underneath and he let go of it to fall into the basket and it disappeared like a cloud. The microorganisms are eating up that ship at such a tremendous rate. It's going to be an orange spot on the ocean floor within a hundred years. Now I think that hat was probably made out of felt.

Had it been made out of leather, it probably couldn't make it because those micro organisms that do not like the tannic process of leather, it repels them, their shoes and hats and bags. That's why you see those things. Found enough items that I thought to myself, I'm just going to stay focused on this and not get involved emotionally. But after an hour and a half, all I could think of was what really took place at night. 1,500 souls slipped into eternity. All of them had plans to get to New York and start a new life.

It never happened. Life can be short folks. Make sure you tell your loved one every day how much you love them. And you better know where you're going because it's going to happen to every one of us. We're all going to die one time or another. When it happens, it'll be too soon. Just remember this.

Eternity is a long time to be wrong. Get it right. In fact, there's a story about a second class passenger. His name is Reverend John Harper.

There's a book entitled the Titanic's Last Hero. It's about Reverend Harper. And he was on his way to Chicago to preach. He had a revival service before he left. And he told the people in that service, he said he was going to go to New York on that new ship called the Titanic the next week. After the service, one of his parishioners came up to him and said, Reverend, I have a bad feeling about that ship. I have an ominous feeling that something bad is going to take place.

I feel so strongly about it. I want you to go to New York, but I don't want you to get on the ship. Please take the Lusitania. I'll even pay for your ticket.

I'll even pay for your ticket. Reverend Harper thought about it. He says, no, the apostle Paul wouldn't run away from danger. If anything happened, he said, I'm ready.

And it happened. And when the Titanic started to go down, that Baptist minister ran around the deck shouting women and children and unsaved people, get aboard the lifeboats. You just can't keep these Baptist quiet. He even gave his life vest to a man that was not a Christian. His daughter, Anna, was standing right next to him. And the sister-in-law was standing next to him.

They both survived. The sister-in-law overheard the Reverend when he gave that life vest to that man. He said, here, take this. I don't need it. I'm not going down. I'm going up. He's in the water now, 28 degrees.

It feels like a thousand knives stepping in. And a man drifted by in a piece of wood and Reverend Harper shouted to the man, are you saved? The man said, no. Reverend Harper shouted, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. The man drifted off into the dark and later the current drew him back. And Reverend Harper again shouted to the man, are you saved yet?

The man said, I can't honestly say that I am. Reverend Harper's last words were, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. And with that, the Reverend slipped under the water and went to that frozen watery grave. There were 12 people pulled from the water that night. Six of them lived.

That man was one of them. And that story was told a few weeks later in Hamilton, Ontario, by that same man who said, I listened to Reverend Harper's last message and became a believer in Jesus Christ with two miles of water beneath me. Titanic's last hero, Reverend John Harper.

God bless you folks. And what a piece of storytelling by Lowell Lytle, not only his story, not only his passion for the Titanic, but telling the story of the Titanic's last hero as well as perhaps only he can do. We haven't had many better storytellers on this show and many better stories. A special thanks to Lowell Lytle for sharing his story.

He has been entertaining guests at the Titanic Museum for more than 15 years. He is also the author of the inspiring read, Diving into the Deep. Lowell Lytle's story, the story of the Titanic, here on Our American Stories.

And we return to Our American Stories. Up next, a story on the trailblazing woman who's lived her life to the fullest. Here's our own Monty Montgomery to get us started. Rebecca Cubby Hall is a firecracker. She's been mayor in the army, a teacher, and at one point owned a liquor store, which is important for some context in regards to the story she's about to tell.

Here's Cubby. My sister in St. Louis has always been religious and I went to St. Louis years ago to visit with her and they were going church and the church was a big old old building and I was shocked because I thought they'd be in one of these big fancy cathedral type things, but it wasn't. It was an old building, but it had a big congregation and the Sunday school class was on alcohol drinking and I thought, boy, I've been set up here.

And then the sermon was on selling alcohol and I knew I'd had it then and I was sitting right next to my sister and I let it go on and on. He went on and on and on and pretty soon I just stood up. I said, may I say something?

Yes, you may. Well, I wound up talking 20 minutes and I couldn't find any place to shut up. I said, you know, God says he didn't want you to mistreat your body because you belong to him. I said, look at the people in here. They're all too heavy.

Their teeth need repair. I just went on and on and on and so finally I sat down and they clapped. And the preacher thanked me for doing that. So when he finished his sermon and I sat right next to my sister and she didn't say a word and so when he was finished, I thought, well, I've got to get out of here. And I rushed back to the door, but he beat me back there and he grabbed my hand and patted it and patted it and thanked me and went on and on. And I stood right there and shook hands with every person that came out of that church. And then we went to my sister's house and I got punished there. Hubby was born in August of 1934.

It hasn't been many years ago that I had lived longer without electricity than I had lived with it. And my grandfather homesteaded and then he had brothers and sisters and my dad and they kind of cut it up and let everybody have a piece of it. And my dad, they gave the old farmhouse.

He was born in there. I was born in that farmhouse. And when I was born, my dad worked on the highway and he had a team of mules and he had to leave.

And of course he couldn't come home every night because they'd be too far with mules to come. But he always told my mother, take care of the cubbear. And that's how I got the name Cubby. And right next door, we had what we called a garage, but it had a datted butcher. And we always took the bladder of the pig and cleaned it good and blow it up and use it for, it lasts for weeks.

You use it for a volleyball and what have you. And we had chickens and we always had chicken for lunch on Sunday. And we'd go to church, but before we went to church, it was my job to get the chicken ready early. And I'd go catch a chicken and put a board across its head and pull its feet and pull its head off and hold it down and sometimes let it flop around. But I had hot water out there and scald it, you know, pluck it. And then I'd take it in the house after I got it cleaned. And after we washed it real good, mom would let it soak in salt water while we went to church. But that was always my job. And that was just, there was nothing to it.

Just grab that chicken and take care of it. And off we'd go until Sunday school then. But I wasn't the only one. Everybody around here did the same thing. And we went to town on Saturdays, but you let it snow. But we went to town on Saturday because in town, in Neosho, they had a truck with a big wire barrel on it. And they had everybody's name in it.

And they'd pull out a name and they got a hundred dollars bill from the merchants in town. So we never did miss Saturday, but we never did get a hundred dollars either. But we always, mom always packed a lunch and we went in the Big Spring Park to eat.

It was, it was a good life. But I will have to say, I was always a straight F student. Grade school, a straight F student. Grade school through high school.

And I mean F. I was real bashful, couldn't talk or anything. But when I started high school, freshman year here at Neosho, I had a teacher, Mrs. Dorothy Fall, who realized that I wasn't just a moron. And she asked me if I would come in on my study hall period and clean her room and she would tutor me while I was doing that.

Well, I was happy and she had the cleanest room in school cause I knew how to clean. But anyway, later on, after I got old, I ran for the city council and really won. And Bob Hayes ran that same year. And when our first council meeting, they elected me Mayor Pro Tem and Bob was mayor. And then Bob, I'm sorry to say, had the audacity to have a heart attack that night and could not be on the council anymore.

So I automatically became mayor of Neosho. And then after the first term, I was elected mayor the second time. And that's when we had that big tornado. And my teacher, Dorothy Fall, whom I loved, she and her mother lived at the corner of Kodiak and Norway, and they were both killed in that tornado as it came through there. And I was always so proud that she lived to see me become mayor because she brought me out of the dust, I'll tell you. She was a wonderful woman.

And that's probably the most exciting thing I ever did. And you've been listening to Rebecca Cubby Hall tell her story. Born in 1934, lived a long part of her life without electricity.

Give you a context that there was life before us here in this great country. Take care of the cub bear, her father would say to her mother. That's how Cubby became her nickname and it stuck. And by the way, when asked to go get the chicken before church, it did not entail a trip to Kroger or Piggly Wiggly or Ralph's.

It meant get the chicken. And anyone who lives a rural life knows what that means back then. When we come back, more of this unique and original voice, but not so unique to you who live out in parts of this great country that live like this and live in the rural parts of the country especially. More with Cubby Hall's story. Trailblazing woman here on Our American Story. And we return to Our American Stories and our story with Rebecca Cubby Hall. When we last left off, Cubby was telling us about her upbringing, about how terrible a student she'd been, straight F's, she said. And also told the story about how one teacher changed her life and that teacher, Miss Dorothy Fall, would ultimately lose her life to a tornado. But thanks to that teacher's intervention, well, Cubby would one day become mayor of Neosha. Something she was glad that her teacher got to see before that tragedy.

Let's turn just a bit back further to her teenage years. Here again is Cubby Hall. I had a paper route in Kemp Crowder. Crowder was in full swing, about 70,000 men over there and women over there. And that's why I joined the Army, because I saw those WACs.

I didn't know any of them, never spoke to one, but I liked the way they looked. And that was the Women's Army Corps. There was no women's army then.

Nobody now even knows what WAC stands for. But Rebecca's mother wasn't too fond of the idea of her daughter joining the Army. Oh, I wanted to go so badly. And by her not wanting me to, probably made me want to do it more. But my dad never did say, yes, go ahead. My mother never did say, no, you can't do it.

So I did. I joined the Army. And my dad, my mother wouldn't even tell me goodbye.

She wouldn't go with me to Kansas City. My dad took me in. I caught the bus.

I think it was about 1030 or 11 at night, Greyhound bus. And my dad said, now Cub, don't ever do anything that when it gets down to the nitty gritty, you can't tell your ma and me. I think about that all the time. I think that's the best advice anybody could ever have given a kid. But anyway, I went in the Army, loved it. I was stationed the whole time at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. And there, my commanding officer sent me to Fort Slocum, New York, to what they called Troop Information Education School. And that's where I became a teacher. And I taught, among other things, I taught how to take an M1 apart and clean it, put it back together. I taught P.E. and I taught the history of the military and chemical warfare, of which I remembered none of it now. But I didn't have any way to go to town ever because of my job.

The buses didn't run. After I got off work, I went to work late and got off really late. And so that just bought me a motorcycle. I had never, ever been close to a motorcycle in my whole life.

Never seen one other than just it driving by. But I bought a 1947 Harley-Davidson. When I bought my motorcycle, I went into this shop.

I just happened to see it when I got off the bus. And I told him, I want the best bargain you have in this place. And he said, well, it's that one right over there. It was a 1947. I can't remember. It wasn't a great big one, but it was $200. So I paid him cash for it.

He gave me a receipt. And I said, now if you'll show me how to ride it, I'll leave. And he said, if I had have known that you didn't know to ride, I wouldn't have sold it to you.

But he had a big field out behind his shop. So we went out there, and he showed me how you had to change gears with your foot. And I rode round and round and across and across that field and around it.

But I wasn't confident. And I left it for about two weeks. And every opportunity I got, I went out and rode that motorcycle. Of course, we weren't allowed to wear pants.

We had dresses and bobby socks. I just took that old dress out of me. And one day, I was out there riding.

It took about two weeks. I just rode out the gate and kept going. It was kind of scary at first. But I got used to it and loved it.

And if I could afford it now and were younger, I'd buy a motorcycle right now. It was neat. But the only problem I ever had with them were the guys in my office. There were 40 men that worked in my office. And they were always wanting to borrow my motorcycle.

And I lent some of them, and some of them I wouldn't. And I got out. My time was up, reenlisted. And they made me get out because I got married.

Women cannot be married and be in the service. And then we came back here and went to college to get my bachelor's degree to be an elementary teacher. And it only took me nine years because I had jobs in between. And the first school I taught in was a one-room school.

I had 28 students, boys and girls, first grade through eighth grade. Loved every minute of it. Did my own janitor work. And we had two outside toilets, boys and girls. And my contract read that I would scrub the outside toilets with hot soapy water every Friday night.

We didn't even have running water. It was a fun time. And I hardly ever got to sleep because I was so busy getting lesson plans and looking up and doing. And we had a set of world books.

That's how we looked things up. And to make copies, I had a hectograph machine that was like a wooden book. You open it up and it had jelly in it. And then you wash that jelly. And then you used an indelible pencil to write on paper.

And you write that and you wet the jelly, put your paper on there and rub it. Then take your paper up and then put a clean sheet of paper on it. And that would make one copy. Then you had to do that all again until you got enough copies for however many students you had. And so I was constantly making copies and I couldn't let the students do it because they'd see the test.

If it were a worksheet, I did let them do it. And Rebecca would have her son Doug in the middle of the school year. Becoming a mother didn't slow her down though. Doug was born in November. And I, well, I started to school and then I realized, well, I can't do this.

So I turned around and went to the hospital. And Doug was born on Thursday. And I took him to school with me on Monday in a clothes basket.

So he started pretty young. And the younger kids, even boys, would want to hold him while he was asleep. The older girls, which they'd crucify me for now, but everybody there lived on farms and they belonged to 4-H and everything. The older, the seventh and eighth grade girls, would take care of Doug during the day. If he went to sleep, we'd let one of the little girls or little boys hold him while he slept.

They didn't care if we brought him as long as they had school. I did eight years in a one-room schoolhouse. And we had real, slight blackboards. You could really clean them. It should come as no surprise, given her penchant for doing the dirty work, so to speak, that Rebecca also worked as a garbage woman. She had a unique way of handling the job because she couldn't lift the heavy bins by hand. I ran house to house and I would get the trash can ready because there's always trash around them. Pick it up and put it in the can. And then after the guys would dump it in the truck, they just throw the can down on the ground and all the trash that's left in it comes out. So I would pick all that up and put the lid back on it. And people actually came out and they'd bring lemonade and cookies and ice cream and stuff.

It'd be easy to gain weight on a trash route. She never stopped teaching though, even in her work around the city. I got a grant from the government to get 12 high school boys that were in trouble with the law and needed their GED and took them around with me.

And I would sing the multiplication tables for their GED because there was no way you're going to make those boys sit down and work for their GED. And one of them actually became the superintendent of the streets in Yosho after that. Those boys were a pleasure to work with, really a pleasure we never had any problems at all. I ain't afraid of anybody or anything.

I've done it all. And a special thanks to Katrina Hein and Monty Montgomery for the work on that story. And a special thanks to Cubby Hall. The story of Rebecca Cubby Hall, trailblazing woman here on Our American Story.