DETROIT — Here in the Mariners’ Church, planted in the shadow of the Renaissance Center at the corner of Woodbridge Street and Woodward Avenue, the gales of November seem to swirl in the air.

The English country gothic stone church has stood here for 176 years, welcoming sailors and grieving for them, offering prayers for shipmates setting out on the perilous waters of the Great Lakes and solace to families mourning doomed seafarers who, the Canadian balladeer Gordon Lightfoot put it, were swallowed by the waves breaking over the railing.

This is the rustic hall in Detroit where the church bell chimed 29 times, once for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.

This weekend, families of those men who learned that Lake Superior never gives up her dead will gather here to commemorate the 50th an

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