Feeling Grave

WEST BROOKSVILLE - I stood back and perused all the gravestones in front of me.
Standing at Mount Rest Cemetery in West Brooksville, I could scan all the names and see various ancestors buried in all corners of this small Maine coastal town resting place.
There were not only members of the Mills family but also families named Wasson, Douglass, Farnham (or Varnum) and Jones.
As I realized how many ancestors were scattered around this small resting place, I realized that so many of the characters in my first novel, Sons and Daughters of the Ocean, were based on many of the people there.
In fact, I started to do a quick mental checklist in my head and concluded that almost all of the characters in Sons and Daughters that were based on actual people were buried there. There was one that I knew that wasn't - because he was lost at sea. But then I discovered his stone (pictured below). Though he wasn't buried here, he was at least memorialized here with all the others.
Sons and Daughters of the Ocean is a historical novel based loosely on my ancestors that lived in various parts of Brooksville. It is a coming-of-age tale of sorts about three teens growing up in a small coastal village called Brooks Harbor. The shipbuilding and sea faring is the lifeblood of the town. And there in Mount Rest Cemetery, almost all the characters are buried. It was like my novel coming to life right there before me.
I stopped by the stone of Mary Mills Tapley and her baby, whose tragic story opens my novel. She was my great grandfather's sister and Mary Miller Fuller in the book.
The real life George Miller, Albert Miller and Sarah Dyer are buried there. The Watson's and the Dyer's that play prominent roles in the story are there. So are the Fuller's, though not related, their lives were interspersed with those of my ancestors. There was the real life Lizzie, one of my favorite characters. She actually died as a teen in real life, but I liked her character enough that I didn't want her to die young like in real life. So much so that she is still alive and well in my follow-up novel Breakwater.
It dawned on me that in both of my novels, I shared the lives of so many people and told their stories. It was very powerful and a bit overwhelming to realize this.
It truly made me feel guilty, as if I had intruded on their lives and exploited them.
I felt the same feeling a week or so later. I was on the Victory Chimes anchored in Pulpit Harbor in North Haven. Not far from there is the cemetery on the island where my grandfather's first wife is buried. Her story is the basis for a character in  Breakwater, as is the life of my grandfather and many other ancestors of that generation.
Again, I felt as though I had taken advantage of them. I had used them. I felt a significant amount of responsibility in telling their stories and using their lives the way I did. I wondered if I did them justice. I wondered if I was true to who they were and what their lives were about.
None of this had come to mind when I wrote the two novels. I knew I was basing characters on the lives of these people. But - other than my grandfather -  there was no feeling of any kind of responsibility toward them or their lives.
Now I began to wonder if I had treated them carelessly and irresponsibly. I actually wondered if they'd be displeased with the work I had done.
I mulled this all over a little longer. Then came the reflections of the 911 tragedy. I knew a couple of people that were killed on that day, including a childhood friend and neighbor.
What struck me was the honor and reverence I tried to make, as did others, to the lives of the people that perished. I didn't want to mourn their tragedy. I wanted to celebrate their lives and acknowledge the impact they had on this world.
Then I realized I had done the exact same thing with these characters in my novels. I had not exploited them. I had not used them. I had taken their stories, whether tragic, historic or heroic, and shared them. I had lifted them up and kept them alive and showed how their lives impacted the world around them.
It still feels powerful and overwhelming. But I don't feel guilty. I still hope I did them justice and served them well. But I'm also excited about the fact that these people and their lives live on through my work, to some small extent.
It is still a great responsibility to feel but a rewarding one as well.

A Great Maine Writer You've Never Heard Of

At just about every one of my speaking engagements, I mention the name of one of Maine's greatest authors.
And everybody acts like they've never heard of him.
That's because most of the audiences I have spoken to have never heard of George S. Wasson.
I could say that I was related to Stephen King or E.B. White and get all kinds of oh's and ah's, but I have no connection to either of them. When I mention my link by ancestry to Wasson and his influence on my novel Sons and Daughters of the Ocean all I get are blank stares.
Wasson is part of Maine's great literary history, as was his father, yet most people have never heard of either of them. I had no idea who they were either before I began looking into my own family history.
I discovered my connection to the Wasson family in West Brooksville. My great grandmother, Sarah,  was a Douglass. Her mother, also named Sarah, was a Wasson.  The older Sarah was not only a sister to Nancy Wasson, who married into the Mills family as my great, great grandfather's second wife, but she was also the sister of David Atwood Wasson. He was a well-established Transcendentalist essayist, author and minister, whose peers were Ralph Waldo Emerson and David Thoreau.
His son George S. Wasson became an established writer as well. He wrote a handful of maritime stories. His use of dialect and his wonderful drawings that accompanied his work, made his books something unique.
One Maine magazine listed the most endearing Maine authors in its literary history. Wasson was included on the list as was poetess Celia Thaxter, another ancestor of mine.
When I began writing my first novel and chose to base it on family history and Maine's shipbuilding and merchant sailing heritage, Wasson was an obvious  part of the research. He co-authored the book Sailing Days on the Penobscot. It is probably the most complete account of the schooner industry in Penobscot Bay. I have my great grandfather's copy of that book. My first novel is loosely based on him and a character like him that ultimately goes off to sea at a teen.
Between the stories, the list of ships built along the coast, the dialect he wrote with and the historical information provided, that Wasson book was a significant foundation of my research for my novel. Reading some of his other books, like Home From The Sea and The Green Shay, gave me even more insight into that world. I subsequently used a lot of words and phrases he used in his books to bring my characters to life. Phrases like "Godfrey Mighty", "chowly and hubbily" and "a real apple-shaker" helped make my  characters feel that much more true and real.
Included in Sailing Days on the Penobscot is mention of his grandfather, David Wasson and the three-masted ship that he built. A significant part of the plot in my first novel is based on that three-master and it being the first of its kind on the Maine coast. I think he also mentions the story of George Tapley and his dying wife (my great grandfather's sister). The plot of my novel depicts a similar story based on that account.
I read a number of books that provided me great information on that age of sail, but Wasson's work was so authentic because he was there and was part of it. There was a great authenticity to his work and I feel it helped bring something similar to my writing.
There isn't a ton of information to be found about George S. Wasson or his father David Atwood Wasson. I did an online search for photos and found one of myself before I came across any for either Wasson.
A small sail boat once owned by George S. Wasson is on display at the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport,Maine You can still find George S. Wasson's books for sale at various online sites. There's also a book or two about David Atwood Wasson. Because of their age, they won't come cheap. A copy of Sailing Days on the Penobscot will run hundreds of dollars.
It is too bad the work of the Wasson's have been passed over through time. It makes me all the more pleased that their work was able to influence my own. I mentioned in a previous blog the impact the work of Michael and Jeff Shaara had on my novels. Like their work, my novels wouldn't be quite the same had it not been for the work of the Wasson's. And being able to carry on their work and write about their ancestry, as well as my own, makes it feel as though I'm keeping their legacy alive.