In our April issue celebrating 200 years of Memphis history, we told the story of Tom Lee, the river worker who rescued some 30 people in 1925 when the steamboat M.E. Norman overturned just south of Memphis.
Space prevented us from including the two images you see here. After the disaster, the Engineers Club of Memphis, which had lost so many members that day, started a fund-raising campaign to buy Lee a house at 923 North Mansfield (above). Lee lived here until his death in 1955. The house is still standing today, but boarded up and abandoned.
Lee's wife continued to live here until the 1970s, when she moved to California, and presumably died there. Lee himself was buried in Mt. Carmel Cemetery on Hernando Road. No historical marker guides visitors to his grave, but if you wander around long enough, you'll find this nice marker. As we mentioned in the story, no mention is made of the Norman tragedy. The stone carries this simple inscription:
