Kingstree Woman Helped Lead Jungle Expedition

Eighty-four years ago today, two tired, haggard explorers emerged from the South American jungle of British Guiana. One of these adventurers was Kingstree native Jo Besse McElveen; the other was her husband Theodore "Ted" Waldeck, an internationally-known game hunter and expedition leader.

A newspaper photo of Jo Besse McElveen with Pehweh and Mano,

two Arawak children she met in the jungles of South America and later wrote about.

Born in Kingstree in 1902 to Robert Charles and Sallie Hardy McElveen, Jo Besse spent her early years involved in church and community activities. Her parents sent her to prep school in Montreat, NC, where she was quoted as saying, "I fear my interest was focused not so much on my studies, as on mountain climbing, tennis, and on the editing of a school paper of my own origin." After attending Winthrop, she returned to Kingstree where a job awaited her at The County Record. There, she learned all facets of newspaper work except for setting type. For four years she wrote features, obits, society news and ad copy. Lindsey Cromer, owner of The County Record, soon named Jo Besse manager of the Timmonsville Times and the Lake City News, two papers he owned in nearby communities.

By the mid-1930s, she had moved to Florence and was working as assistant advertising manager for the Florence Morning News. In 1935, after developing an interest in film, Jo Besse moved to Pasadena, CA. While she lived there only a few months, she developed an acclaimed syndicated column called "What the Stars Tell Jo Besse." During that time she interviewed Gloria Swanson, Spencer Tracey, Rosalind Russell and a host of other Hollywood stars. 

Returning to South Carolina, she took her annual trip to New York City where she met Ted Waldeck through mutual acquaintances who had been on Admiral Richard Byrd's expedition to Antarctica. When Waldeck was later asked what his first impression of Jo Besse was, he replied, "I thought, someday she will be my wife." They were married at her mother's home in Kingstree in August 1936. Following the ceremony, they sailed for New York from Charleston to begin planning a major expedition to search for missing South Carolina pilot Paul Redfern, who had been a friend of Jo Besse's before he disappeared on a solo flight from Brunswick, GA, to Brazil in the summer of 1927. By the time of their marriage, Waldeck, who had been raised by his grandfather in Europe, had led nine famous expeditions into largely unknown parts of the world. 

Paul Redfern was born in Rochester, NY, also in 1902. He moved with his family to Columbia, SC, around 1910, when his father, Dr. Frederick Redfern, accepted the position of professor of economics and history and dean at Benedict College. While a student at Columbia High School, Paul developed a love affair with air flight. Some sources say he built a working glider by the time he was 13. Buying used parts from Camp Jackson at auction, he constructed an airplane by age 16. Too young to serve in World War I, he convinced his parents to allow him to leave school and work at a factory in New Jersey, building airplanes for the military. While there, he learned more about flying them, as well as building them. 

Paul Redfern (center) with his parents, Blanche and Dr. Frederick C. Redfern.

After the war, he returned to Columbia and finished high school. In 1923, he opened Redfern Aviation at an airstrip he had constructed on Millwood Avenue, today a part of the Dreher High School campus. There was not a lot of flight business in 1920s Columbia, and Redfern eventually moved on to barnstorming and aerial advertising. He proved to be something of a daredevil, which resulted in several arrests, one in Perth Amboy, NJ, for sounding a siren as he flew just at treetop level while throwing advertising flyers out of his plane. In the mid-1920s, Redfern went to work for the US Customs Service in Savannah. His job was to fly around the area, spotting telltale smoke rising from illegal whiskey stills. 

Paul Redfern aboard his plane.

Charles Lindbergh's solo flight from New York to Paris in the spring of 1927 aroused Redfern's competitive spirit. He contemplated entering a competition to fly solo from San Francisco to Hawaii. However, when he was approached by businessmen from Brunswick, GA, about a flight to Brazil, he dropped out of the Hawaii race. Brunswick's port was in stiff competition with that of Savannah, and Brunswick businessmen felt the publicity the city would receive as the starting point for a solo flight across the Caribbean Sea would be worth the money they spent to back such a flight.

Redfern was eager to take on the challenge. The 4500-mile, 50-hour flight would be longer and was considered much more dangerous than Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic. Redfern personally supervised the building of a Stinson SM-1 Detroiter NX-773 in Detroit, MI, which he flew to Glynn Isle, now Sea Island, Georgia, to prepare for his long journey. The plane, named the Port of Brunswick, was painted green and gold, colors of the Brazilian flag.

Knowing the dangers of the flight, Redfern told his family and supporters not to be disturbed if they did not hear from him for several months, as it was possible that he could crash in the jungle. He was, he said, prepared for that possibility and would be able to survive such a crash. Despite all these precautions, he declined installing a radio in the plane. 

The Port of Brunswick about to takeoff on August 25, 1927.

Redfern took off from Glynn Isle on the afternoon of August 25, 1927. Five hours later, he was spotted flying over the Bahamas, and the next day, a Norwegian steamer in the Caribbean had contact with him as Redfern dropped a canister with a note enclosed, asking for the direction of the nearest landmass and that the crew wave a handkerchief once for every 100 miles to land. The captain of the steamer positioned it to point toward Venezuela, and the crew waved a handkerchief twice to indicate a distance of some 200 miles. Many say that was the last time anyone saw Redfern. There are, however, reports that the plane was later seen over Ciudad Bolivar deep in the interior of Venezuela with a line of black smoke trailing from it. Crowds had gathered in Rio de Janeiro to greet the "Lindbergh of South America," but as the hours crept by, and Redfern didn't appear, their jubilation turned to consternation.

Over the next 10 years, there were many rumors that Redfern had been spotted alive in the jungles of British Guiana, Venezuela and/or Brazil. In 1933, newspaper headlines trumpeted that Redfern, who had been crippled in the crash, was alive and held hostage by natives who worshipped him as the great white god who fell from the sky. Redfern's wife, parents and sister all held on to hope that he had survived the crash.

And so, in 1936, explorer Ted Waldeck and his wife Jo Besse McElveen decided to form an expedition to look for Jo Besse's friend. They started out with big plans. They would not only look for Redfern, but they would also take along scientists to map the jungle and bring back specimens of flora and fauna for further study. They would shoot a feature film, as well. Redfern's wife and nephew were expected to accompany them. Funding apparently proved to be much more difficult to obtain than they had anticipated, so that by the time the explorers headed to British Guiana in December 1937, the expedition included only the Waldecks; Dr. Frederick J. Fox, a dermatologist; and sportsman William Astor Chanler. They took along four longboats, each manned by 20 native porters. Funding for the expedition was largely provided by the Redfern family and by Dr. Fox's wife. This was the 13th expedition launched to look for Paul Redfern.

William Astor Chanler

Problems began in early January 1938 when Waldeck and the porters accompanying them quarreled over how the expedition was being run. The porters deserted, taking the boats and most of their supplies with them. They did notify authorities once they got back to Georgetown, the capital of British Guiana, that they had left the explorers at Devil's Isle Hole, on a small island in the upper Cuyani River about 150 miles from Georgetown. The adventurers were marooned there for 33 days. 

Ironically, the day before the world found out that the search party was marooned, a court in Michigan had declared Paul Redfern dead on a petition filed by his wife, Gertrude.

During the 33 days the expedition was marooned, Dr. Frederick Fox became ill with jungle fever and died. Waldeck buried him on the island. William Astor Chanler also became ill, and when the boat finally arrived to rescue them, he was taken back to Georgetown where he recuperated, while the Waldecks were taken to an area where they could enter the jungle to continue their search. The Waldecks succeeded in making friends with an Arawak tribe while in the jungle, and when they emerged in late April, Ted Waldeck cabled the Redferns that he had found the crash site of the Port of Brunswick, and he could state that Paul Redfern was dead. However, the last part of the cable was in code and was never publicly revealed. Waldeck told reporters he could not give them details until after he talked to Redfern's father. When they emerged from the jungle, Jo Besse has also been ill for three weeks after eating canned food that had spoiled.

At first Dr. Redfern appeared to believe the report, but then changed his mind. Redfern's sister, Ruth Sanders of Sumter, later told reporters that Waldeck never actually saw the plane.

Jo Besse McElveen, 1950

Source: The State Magazine

The Waldeks later returned to the jungle, eventually spending a total of close to two years with the Arawak tribe. Ever the writer, Jo Besse turned her adventures in the jungle into a children's book, Little Jungle Village. This was followed by three more books, including Jungle Journey, Little Lost Monkey, and Exploring the Jungle. Two of these books were chosen as Junior Literary Guild selections.

Paul Redfern, though he didn't live to celebrate it, did become the first person to fly solo across the Caribbean Sea and was also the first person to fly from North America to South America.

Jo Besse McElveen lived in New York for a number of years before retiring to the mountains of North Carolina to be near her older sister, Wista, who had worked in the Williamsburg County schools and also served for many, many years as Director of Christian Education at Williamsburg Presbyterian Church, and her younger sister, Carolyn, called Callie, who once ran a bookstore in Aiken, but is remembered as the member of Aiken's Pilot Club who invited Ophelia Colley to perform at the 1939 Pilot Club Convention in Aiken and thus gave Minnie Pearl her start in show business. Callie McElveen and Ophelia Colley decided that Minnie should have a costume and together went shopping for the yellow organdy dress, black Mary Janes, white cotton stockings, and $2.98 straw hat with flowers on it that "Minnie" wore that evening and would again wear the next year in her first appearance at the Grand Ole Opry. In 1957, Callie McElveen appeared on the television program This is Your Life, when it celebrated the life of Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon, better known as Minnie Pearl.

There is one other unrelated tie Kingstree has to the Paul Redfern saga. Mr. Ernest Reeves' middle name was Redfern. Last week I asked his son Ernest Redfern "Jay" Reeves, Jr., if there was any connection. Jay says his grandfather, Ernest Reuben Reeves, who was about the same age as Paul Redfern, was fascinated by the story of the aviator and his disappearance so that when Mr. Reeves' son was born a seven months after Paul Redfern's disappearance, he chose Redfern as his middle name to honor the lost flyer. Jay noted that the Redfern name lives on in himself and in his son, Ernest Redfern "Rudy" Reeves, III.