Ghost of the Southern Cross

by Nellie P. Strowbridge

  She stayed watching circles of light floating on the water shifting in lively flashes like quicksilver. She stooped and sat back on her heels, her nimble fingers digging among beach rocks. She almost lost her balance from the weight of smooth glass and stones of varied shapes and sizes in her dress pockets. She lifted a flat slate and skittered it across the water. It skimmed along like a black bird widening circles of light, fracturing them, one splash after another.

  Something far out on the high seas caught her attention. At first it was just a speck on the water; then it grew large as a bird sitting on the heaving seas under the glow of an evening sun. She knew who was coming and she held the sight of the moving object waiting for it to take a familiar form.

  The evening sun strode back shadowing the hills on its way west. Beulahland, a sixty-five-foot boat, named after her aunt and the place where she had gone, took shape, low in the gunnels. Her father stood on the deck waving.

  She turned to look up the path to her home. Soon her mother would stand in the open doorway calling that it was suppertime. She sniffed the aroma of pea soup flavoured by new carrots and generous pieces of salt beef. There’d be doughboys floating like clouds on the creamy golden soup and a thick slice of steaming buttered bread on a plate beside it. She swallowed hard anticipating the meal.

  She turned back to the beach to the sound of glass nudging pebbles. She ran to pick up a scrubbed blue bottle, a cork in its neck. Inside were scrolled papers and a pencil, its lead broken.

  Her story was just beginning.

  After Words

  Ghost of the Southern Cross was inspired by the life of my grandparents Elizabeth Emma Maley and Jacob Taylor Kennedy, and the love story of James, Elizabeth’s brother, and his intended bride, Maggie Taylor (pseudonym). James was lost on the Southern Cross leaving a grieving sweetheart.

  My grandparents Elizabeth Emma Maley and Jacob Taylor Kennedy

  This photo shows me modelling my grandmother Kennedy’s wedding dress.

  Another photo shows Great-Uncle James Maley’s painting of Titanic, a painting always displayed on Grandmother Kennedy’s wall.

  Resource material on Alice Garrigus came from my parents, who knew her well. Burton K. Janes has written extensively on this phenomenal woman. I also quoted from the King James Version of the Bible, the Common Bible, and Robert H. Schuller: “Anyone can count the seeds in an apple; only God can count the apples in a seed.” Helpful information regarding the seal hunt came from Death on the Ice by Cassie Brown, the Daily News, the Daily Mail, the Evening Herald, the Evening Telegram, the Centre for Newfoundland Studies Ship Files, Times, Tides, and Tales Volume 2, Issue 2; http://shipwrecks.nf.ca/news/news.shtml; Mail and Advocate; Rogers, T. B., “The Southern Cross: A Case Study in the Ballad as History (1982), The Canadian Journal for Traditional Music; The 1914 Sealing Disaster: Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage, “Report to Commerce of Engineering into the sealing Disaster of 1914,” SH 363 N43 1915; Rogers, T. B., “The Last Voyage of the Southern Cross”; Newfoundland Quarterly, 76:3 (1980),

  James

  “Southern Cross”; Frank Galgay and Michael McCarthy, Shipwrecks of Newfoundland and Labrador: “The disappearance of the Southern Cross” by Frank Galgay; Andrieux, J. P. 910 452 An2NR and 910453 An2 NR, Marine Disasters of Newfoundland; Ryan, Shannon, The Ice Hunters: A History of Newfoundland Sealing to 1914; Alex J. Parsons JP the Newfoundland Quarterly (summer) 1914.

  Thanks to James Maley Kennedy for the photo of the Titanic painting (below).

  Thanks to the ever-supporting Flanker Press staff and to Paul Butler, my meticulous editor, who made kind observations about my novel: “This is a very enjoyable, sweeping tapestry of interweaving narratives with lots of lovely writing.” Also, thanks to editor Annamarie Beckel, who had her own visions for my novel.

  I can be reached at

  Email: nellie_strowbridge@yahoo.com

  Website: http://nelliestrowbridge.com

  Book Club Discussion

  1. Ethel Clarke, the child of Captain Clarke of the SS Southern Cross, heard her uncle make a startling statement: “Whoever is out on the water in this weather will never be heard from ag’in.” Discuss how children may have been drawn into the tragedies that faced their families on a regular basis.

  2. How might a mother, while handling her own grief, have helped a child come to terms with her father’s death during the early 1900s compared to now? Discuss ways the handling of grief by a community differs from past generations.

  3. Are we typical of William, who admitted to himself that he was good at telling someone else how to mend a broken heart while his would never be mended?

  4. Do you think it typical for women to shut men out of their grieving zone, believing they don’t understand?

  5. A single act by one person can affect the lives of one or many people at a later time. Caleb Taylor’s act resulted in Elizabeth securing a job on Bell Island, where she met Jacob. Discuss how a single act by a stranger or acquaintance changed your life.

  6. Elizabeth left a job to get married and move away from her family. Is there any comparison between the life of a working woman today and Elizabeth’s life?

  7. Elizabeth’s married lifestyle was typical for her time, but extraordinary to her great-grandchildren’s generation. Discuss.

  8. Mary Jane told Elizabeth: “Never give a man more than you’re willing to lose.” Would you consider this to be sound advice?

  9. Elizabeth told herself that it was the human condition: men rewarding themselves after a discomforting day on the water. How would a modern-day woman respond?

  10. Discuss the implications of childbirth on Elizabeth and Jacob’s relationship.

  11. How would you deal with the question William asked Maggie about letting another woman get on the lifeboats in her place if she were on Titanic?

  12. Was Jamie right in risking his future with Maggie by going on the sealing voyage?

  13. Do you think there was pressure on strong young men to prove themselves by going to the ice in the 1900s?

  14. How would you compare the economic necessity then and now?

  15. Discuss the possibility that sealers who survived their terrible ordeal of being left on the ice, fighting a war with the elements, would have suffered post-traumatic stress, much like soldiers of war. In what ways would it be different?

  16. Maggie found it difficult to move past an impossible dream. Was that fair to Ben? Should he have been able to understand?

  17. How was Elizabeth’s life similar to Maggie’s? How was it different? How did this shape their relationship?

  18. Etta Whalen told the women at the Quilting Bee: “We cut pieces of clothing belonging to each other and sew them together to make a beautiful quilt, yet we use our tongues to cut and tear each other apart.” Discuss.

  19. Was it fair for Maggie to blame Jamie for his own misfortune?

  20. What symbolism do you see in Maggie’s broken china cup? In Elizabeth’s cup of tea?

  21. Does this novel help the reader better understand the phenomenon of glossolalia—speaking in an unknown tongue for which there may or may not be an earthly interpretation; and the phenomenon of xenolalia—a language the speaker doesn’t know but people of another nationality may recognize and understand.

  22. The gift of unknown tongues frees one from the constraints of language, allowing the heart to speak to God, who understands all sound. Do you see its value in helping one communicate with God, or do you dismiss it as a religious oddity?

  23. Would you find it surprising that John Wesley’s Methodists spoke in tongues?

  24. How do you see the Pentecostal faith as having evolved since it began in Newfoundland under Alice Belle Garrigus at a time when attire, jewellery, and hairstyle played more of a role in its moral values?

 
25. Discuss the implications of leaving a medical condition to divine healing—then and now.

  26. What do you think of the practice of a doctor removing children’s tonsils in people’s homes in the mid-1900s? Have you heard of that practice?

  27. Do you see a form of symbolism in the hope of The Rapture? How does it change one’s perspective on death? How do you approach the truth of your own mortality?

  28. We live a polarized existence. We experience the juxtaposition of birth and death, darkness and light, joy and sorrow, doubt and faith, love and hate, evil and good. Do you believe, then, that the polarization of heaven and hell has legitimacy?

  29. What do you think makes a person common? Did Jacob give his son a good answer?

  30. Discuss whether the following is good advice: “No matter what you lose, and who you lose, you have yourself, and keeping that self whole is a promise you make to God, whose breath you hold.”

  31. Do you think Maggie’s daughter forgave her for leaving her in an orphanage? Do you see any significance in her calling Maggie Mother, rather than Mamma?

  32. The children on the beach and the children on cliffs faced known dangers. Discuss ways we are more alert to insidious and covert dangers our children face today.

  33. Mary Jane’s grandfather told her, “It’s a long road, gettin’ from where you is to where I is. A lot of things can happen. A lot of things do happen.” Discuss.

  34. William told his daughter, “It’s no distance from where you’re at to where I is. One long dream and you’ll be here.” Were they both right?

  35. What symbolism do you see in the blue bottle with the broken pencil lead? Can you imagine what was in the bottle?

  Nellie P. Strowbridge is one of Newfoundland and Labrador’s most beloved, prolific, and respected authors. She is the winner of provincial and national awards and has been published nationally and internationally. Her work is capsuled in the National Archives as Newfoundland’s winner in Canada’s Stamp of Approval Award for a letter written to Canada 2117.

  Strowbridge, a former columnist and editorial writer, an essayist and an award-winning poet, is a seventeen-time winner in the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Awards. She has been Writer in the Library, a mentor to young writers, an adjudicator in the Provincial Arts and Letters Awards, an assessor on the Newfoundland and Labrador Grants Committee, and a judge on the Newfoundland and Labrador Alliance Book Awards. She has held school workshops in Canada and Ireland and also hosted a Seminar/Gabfest for International Women’s Day in Cobh, Ireland, where she was writer-in-residence. The Canadian Embassy in Dublin also sponsored a reading and reception. She has also read from her work during a bus tour in Scotland.

  Nellie is a member of The Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador, The Writers’ Union of Canada, The League of Canadian Poets (Newfoundland and Nova Scotia Representative 2009), and Page One.

  Previous books: Widdershins: Stories of a Fisherman’s Daughter; Doors Held Ajar (tri-author with Isabel Brown and Peggy Krachun); Shadows of the Heart; Dancing on Ochre Sands (shortlisted for the Newfoundland and Labrador E. J. Pratt Award, 2005, and Relit Long List); Far from Home: Dr. Grenfell’s Little Orphan (a bestseller, shortlisted for the Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage and History Award, 2006); The Gift of Christmas (reviewed by the Aurora as a Newfoundland and Labrador classic); The Newfoundland Tongue (a bestseller); Catherine Snow (a bestseller); and Maiden from the Sea, a favourite of many readers.

  Also by Nellie P. Strowbridge

  Finalist for the 2006 Heritage and History Award

  Clarissa, eleven, has been orphaned by a disease that has kept her far from home for as long as she can remember. Despite the many inmates in Dr. Grenfell’s Children’s Home on Newfoundland’s northern tip, she lives a lonely life. She longs to be able to do something as simple as pushing her feet into boots in a blink and skipping down the road holding hands with Cora, her best friend.

  Will Clarissa get to go home? If so, what will she discover about her past that will help her understand why she spent her childhood at the orphanage? There are times when she is not sure if she wants to go home. What if she doesn’t like anyone there? Worse—what if no one likes her?

  The story begins in 1924 at St. Anthony, with flashbacks to earlier times. One bright memory is folded in a blue handkerchief, which is given to her by a kind nurse and carried to the end like a security blanket.

  Also By Nellie P. Strowbridge

  Maiden from the Sea is a breathtaking journey into the life and troubled mindscape of a servant girl from seventeenth-century France. While travelling to destinations unknown, Genevieve Laurier is tossed from the deck of an itinerant vessel and becomes stranded on an island in the middle of the stormy Atlantic. Frightened, she struggles to survive on the dark and mysterious coastline, her only company the two Irish fishermen who rescued her from the deep, a Beothuk warrior who provides her with food and clothing against his tribe’s wishes, and the women who inhabit her dreams.

  Genevieve finds comfort in the arms of Nasook, the Beothuk warrior . . . but when she gives birth to his child, the law of man gives chase. Genevieve must take her family and escape these abusive shores—and her increasingly disturbing dreams. But just as she makes her last desperate attempt to elude her pursuers, Genevieve Laurier’s past, present, and future collide in a single revelatory moment that could spell tragedy for her and all that she holds dear.

  Also By Nellie P. Strowbridge

  You think you’ve heard everything about Newfoundland and Labrador, but . . .

  Have you had a meal of padre?

  Have you ever seen a shalandi?

  Have you heard of basket soup?

  Would you find the term dry dough offensive?

  You’ve tried figgy duff, but have you eaten cod sounds?

  Work your tongue through conversational one-liners and much more! This book is a tribute to Newfoundland’s unique culture and way of life. It explores the province’s history and folklore, placing a particular emphasis on traditional language, speech, expressions, and dialect. Read, and experience Newfoundland’s Old English and Irish roots as they come to the fore!