The Begats

If you read the prior post, you know what the Captain wanted, how he wanted his life recorded, and how I attempted to do it his way. Your book is on its way (or not, if you didn't order one). You pick it up, open it, and say: "A Granny Book?" "What the hell is a Granny Book?"

A Granny Book is a book written by somebody’s Granny. In this case, me. It is a gift to the future. A labor of love like the hand knitted sweater or crocheted afghan with an occasional dropped stitch or skipped row or mismatched yarn. This Granny Book tells a tale, sometimes awkwardly, that could forever go untold as more generations pile up on the Captain’s descendants list. It is a seed packet, too. Each little fact has the potential to become a garden of stories. It is a trail of breadcrumbs to lead a yet unborn historian to some now-hidden truths when the information superhighway reaches more hidden places where the golden Easter eggs of history are shrouded today.

A friend Stockton Springs coined the term ‘Begats’ for the three chapters. He said ‘Once you get past the Begats, it isn’t bad’. From a Mainer, I take that as “it’s pretty good”. That’s what the Captain wanted. He wanted you to know his roots. His 'Begats'. That’s what I give you.

For most of the book, almost everyone, except perhaps Chris Appleton, will need to have a map of the world or a globe handy – or a phone to ask Siri or Google “Where is Surabaya?” If I had mapped and explained every one of the places our Captain and his brother James sailed, I would have needed a second volume just to explain the references to oceans and port cities. 



The Captain's Hometown
[(c) 2015 Google Landsat Imagery]

 

Except for the Tory commanders at Fort Pownall, every one of the families in the early chapters will show up again in the Captain’s life, and not necessarily back home in Maine.

See those two crystal balls on my desk? At times, they were my portals, my access to the Captain’s thoughts. Strapped for ideas or frustrated with my progress, I gaze at them and ask “Where to next?” “What am I missing?” “Why the blazes did I even start this?” “Is it good enough?” “Should I quit now or go on?” The answer was always that I would forever regret a failure to finish that which was already begun.

Captain Nickels was born in 1836. Just sixty years after the Declaration of Independence, forty-nine years after the US Constitution was ratified, and sixteen years after Maine separated from Massachusetts. He died about two years after the end of the First World War, probably never giving a thought to the possibility there would be a Second World War for his great grandchildren to fight. To him, it was simply the World War.

His life as a newly minted Master of Sail, and as a young husband and father during the Civil War, gives a different view of that conflict – that of a merchant mariner, and of some real living breathing people trying to live their lives during an awfully trying time.

Bye for now,

Monica