By John Johnston
The Cincinnati Enquirer

PHOTO GALLERY

Photos of THE COLONEL

ABOARD THE COLONEL - Sunshine bathes the pilothouse of this stately triple-deck paddle-wheeler as it glides up the Ohio River toward the Tall Stacks Music, Arts & Heritage Festival.

"It's nice to be able to see this mornin'," says Capt. Joy Manthey, whose 1,720-mile journey from Galveston, Texas, to Cincinnati - the longest distance traveled by any Tall Stacks boat - has been slowed on occasion by fog.

The captain, who is also a nun, keeps prayer books and a rosary within arm's reach, but there's no need to pray for good weather this day. Besides, it would take more than fog to cloud the spirits of this exuberant 46-year-old native of New Orleans (which she pronounces N'awlins).

"It's great when you have a job, and you love it so much," she says.

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It's even better when you can combine two loves in life. For Manthey, that means serving God full-time as a riverboat chaplain, and piloting big boats whenever she gets the chance.

She'll be at The Colonel's wheel for daily Tall Stacks cruises, Wednesday through Sunday. The Enquirer hitched a ride with her last week as The Colonel left Carrollton, Ky., on the final leg of its 13-day journey.

Manthey's life also has been a journey.

As a senior in high school, she felt called toward ministry.

"But I was like, 'Look, God, you're barking up the wrong tree. Go elsewhere, leave me alone,'" she said.

Riverboats, on the other hand, she embraced immediately.

Her great-great-grandfather, John Streckfus, in 1884 built and operated the first excursion boat on the Mississippi. Her great-uncle, Verne Streckfus, hired a trumpeter named Louis Armstrong to play on Streckfus boats, helping spread jazz to northern cities.

Manthey was 10 when she began cleaning the popcorn machine on the Streckfus-owned Steamer President in New Orleans. Soon she was regularly riding another Streckfus boat, the Mark Twain, and when the captain ate lunch, he let her steer. "I had to stand on milk crates," she says, "because I couldn't see over the wheel."

By age 21, she had earned a license to pilot 100-ton riverboats. Two years later, she was licensed to handle any vessel on U.S. inland waterways. Through the 1980s and 1990s, she made her living piloting excursion boats, including floating casinos. Her dream, though, was to pilot towboats, the hard-working vessels that transport commodity-laden barges.

"For 16 years I knocked on doors, trying to get a towboat job," she says.

Nobody wanted a female pilot.

"We're not hiring any cooks," they'd tell her, derisively.

In 1995, still feeling called to ministry, she spent an introductory weekend with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille, a congregation of about 150 sisters with headquarters in Cincinnati.

"I kept telling all the sisters, 'I'm just getting God off my back. I don't plan on making vows,'" she said.

Two months later, a company hired her as a towboat pilot. She spent a year and a half pushing barges loaded with petroleum and chemical products. She saw firsthand the inner pain and loneliness faced by towboat crews, who are away from home for as long as 30 days at a time.

By 2000, she was ready to make her first vows. She knew where she wanted to focus her ministry: on towboat crews. Seamen's Church Institute, a New York City-based organization, hired her as a chaplain for its Ministry on the River program.

These days, she works mainly on the lower Mississippi, but also on the Ohio, the Intracoastal Waterway (from Florida to the Gulf of Mexico) and wherever God calls her.

"On a daily basis I'll go out to the boats, to the shipyards," she says. "Sometimes I'll jump on a boat and ride from Baton Rouge halfway to New Orleans, then jump on another boat with 30 barges and go back up river, then jump on another and come back down. I may catch 15 boats a month."

Sister Eleanor Bernstein, vice president of the Sisters of St. Joseph, says Manthey's knowledge of riverboating gives her a built-in advantage. Also, "her friendliness and ability to reach out to people and make them feel at ease ... come very naturally to her," she says.

Seven years ago, Manthey heard a towboat captain make a plea over the radio: Could another pilot fill in for him so he could attend his daughter's high school graduation?

She radioed back to Brian Badeaux: "Hey, Cap, I'd be more than happy to ride for you."

"I never knew her from Adam," says Badeaux, who is 48 and lives in Marroro, La., just across the river from New Orleans. They have since become good friends. She's helped him move closer to his Catholic faith.

"She's definitely made a difference in my life," Badeaux says.

Last month, he called her a couple of days before she was to leave for Tall Stacks. He was in a Houston intensive care unit, hemorrhaging blood, a result of a bleeding ulcer. Manthey flew to Houston the next day.

"She prayed with me that day before she left for Tall Stacks," Badeaux says.

She does a lot of praying. And listening, and consoling and whatever else towboaters need.

Unusual work schedules sometimes make it difficult for them to start meaningful relationships, or to hold onto existing ones. Cell phones can be a curse, because family members call "when little Johnny comes home with a 'D,' when the hamster dies, when the aunt twice removed breaks her hip, all this stuff," Manthey says. "And the guys on the boat can't do anything about it."

Each time she visits a boat, she hands out business cards with her toll-free number. She ministers to all, regardless of their religious affiliation. Call anytime, she tells crews. And they do.

Last February, a new pilot phoned at 2 a.m. He was on the frozen Illinois River, his boat surrounded by ice.

"He literally thought the boat was going to crack up and sink," Manthey says. She helped calm him, staying on the line for an hour and a half.

Wives and girlfriends of towboaters also call. A woman in Tampa kept phoning her husband, saying she wanted him home. Call me instead if you want to cry, Manthey said. The woman did, regularly, for four months.

Manthey gets calls when a towboater is dealing with sickness in the family, or a death. She gets calls when somebody's trying to quit smoking. She once received a late-night call when a captain needed an emergency shipment of Mountain Dew for a crewmate. (Yes, she delivered.)

She figures she's tending not only to spiritual needs, but also doing her part for maritime safety. A deckhand worried about his home probably isn't focused on his work.

Manthey has been focused the past couple of weeks on bringing The Colonel to Tall Stacks, sharing piloting duties with Capt. Joe Baer and Capt. Joe Murello. While she looks forward to her third Tall Stacks festival, she says half the fun is getting there.

"I tell the sisters when I go out (on the river), it's like a 30-day retreat. You get the sunrises, the sunsets. Up here (in the pilothouse), it's quiet. It's so conducive to praying."

Which is why a rosary hangs by the radar screen, always within arm's reach.

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E-mail jjohnston@enquirer.com