August Gale: A Father And Daughter's Journey Into The Storm

by Barbara Walsh

Overview

Long before "The Perfect Storm," the 1935 August Gale roared northeast. The surf raged along the New York and New Jersey shores as the gale whirled toward Newfoundland. Waves as tall as three-story houses swamped ships; monster combers broke masts in two and swept every man on deck into the raging sea. Scores of fishermen disappeared when the "divil" descended on that August evening, and one Newfoundland village would never be the same. Forty-two children in a community of three hundred lost their fathers.


In August Gale, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Barbara Walsh takes readers on two heartrending odysseys: one into a deadly Newfoundland hurricane and the lives of schooner fishermen who relied on God and the wind to carry them home; the other, into a squall stirred by a man with many secrets: a grandfather who remained a mystery until long after his death.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780762784905
Publisher:	Globe Pequot
Publication date:	01/15/2013
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Barbara Walsh is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and magazine columnist who has chased many stories during her career; her work has changed laws, lives, and affected the 1988 presidential election. She is also the author of Sammy in the Sky, a children's book illustrated by painter Jamie Wyeth. Barbara lives in Maine with her two daughters, husband, and a Tennessee coonhound.

Table of Contents

Preface viii

Walsh Family Tree x

Chapter 1 A Sudden Wind-Brooklyn, August 1935 1

Chapter 2 Lured by the Gale-Maine, February 2002 6

Chapter 3 The King of Marystown- Newfoundland, 1935 11

Chapter 4 The Family Storm Unravels- New Hampshire, 2002 23

Chapter 5 "Tis Nothing but Worry and Waiting"- Marystown, August 1935 30

Chapter 6 Victory Ships and a San Francisco Tempest- My parents' kitchen, April 2003 40

Chapter 7 Gathering a Crew-Marystown, August 1935 52

Chapter 8 The Sisters Gather-Newburyport, Mass., May 2003 67

Chapter 9 Father McGettigan's Torment- Marystown, late August 1935 76

Chapter 10 Pictures of the Past-Maine, June 2003 84

Chapter 11 A Premonition and a Dark Cloud- Marystown, August 1935 89

Chapter 12 Heading into the Storm-Newfoundland, June 2003 98

Chapter 13 Mustering Courage on Board Annie Anita and Mary Bernice-August 21,1935 104

Chapter 14 "Welcome Home"-Marystown, June 2003 110

Chapter 15 The Tempest Roars North-North Atlantic, 1935 117

Chapter 16 Chasing Ancestors-Marystown, June 2003 124

Chapter 17 "There's a Divil Corning!"-Newfoundland Fishing Grounds, August 1935 129

Chapter 18 Mountainous Waves and Mighty Men- Marystown, 2003 139

Chapter 19 Prayers and Apparitions-Marystown, August 1935 145

Chapter 20 "My Poor Daddy Was Lost"-Marystown, 2003 151

Chapter 21 Shipwrecked Schooners and Bodies Swallowed by the Sea-Newfoundland, 1935 158

Chapter 22 "The Whole Town Just Stumbled into Shock"- Marystown, 2003 165

Chapter 23 McGettigan's Grim Task-Marystown, August 1935 170

Chapter 24 A Final Voyage-Marystown, 2003 177

Chapter 25 '"Tis the Queerest Wake"-Marystown, 1935 182

Chapter 26 Ambrose Continues to Haunt-Marystown, 2003 193

Chapter 27 Digging Up the Grave-Marystown, 1935 197

Chapter 28 Graveyards and Redemption- Marystown, June 2003 206

Chapter 29 The Storm Still Lingers-Marystown, 1935 211

Chapter 30 August Thunder and Ambrose's Daughters- New Hampshire, August 2003 218

Chapter 31 "Left in a Dreamland"-Newfoundland, 1935-2005 226

Chapter 32 One Last Journey-Brooklyn and Staten Island, October 2006 236

Acknowledgments 248

Glossary of Newfoundland and Nautical Terms 252

August Gale Storm Track 256

Where Paddy and James Sailed 257

Houses of Fishermen Who Died in the Storm 258

The Walsh Tragedy Song 259

About the Author 261

Editorial Reviews

A celebration of traditional family values and reconciliation.”—Kirkus Reviews
"Like ThePerfect Storm, Barbara Walsh’s book vividly captures the fishermen who fought for their lives in an unforgiving sea. Her quest to redeem and understand her grandfather is a powerful story that will resonate with fathers, daughters and sons. August Gale is a haunting
journey that readers will long remember." – Kate Braestrup, New York Times bestselling author of Here If You Need Me.



“A wonderfully written tale of the sea and a far flung village of people surviving on the edge of the world, Barbara Walsh has plucked a historical event out of time and filled it with an emotional breadth rarely found in documentary or memoir writing.” – Jonathon King, Edgar Award-winning mystery author.



“Barbara Walsh's lyrical story of her father and their journey into the tempest is gripping, heartwarming - and memorable. A terrific read.” – Jackie MacMullan, former Sports Illustrated and Boston Globe writer and author of Magic and Bird: Basketball's Awed Couple.
 
 
 
 

From the Publisher

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Walsh (Sammy in the Sky, 2011) explores the ties that bound her own family despite death and desertion.

The author writes about the almost mythic heroism of her ancestors, tough, hard-drinking fishermen who had emigrated from Ireland to Marystown, Newfoundland. They battled fierce storms to put food on the table for their families and looked out for each other in this small community where most of the people who lived there were related. The author begins in August 1935, with the birth of her father in Brooklyn—her grandfather had come to the United States a decade earlier—which coincided with the death of more than 40 Marystown fisherman in a devastating hurricane. This is a complex tale that began for the author in 2002, when her father suggested that she write about the storm and revealed secrets about his own family history that he had found too painful to discuss before. When he was 11 years old, her father had abandoned his family, leaving his mother in dire poverty with two children to raise alone. The author learned that along with five sisters, she had American cousins whom she'd never met, and others living in Newfoundland. Walsh uses her journalistic skills to re-create the life of the Newfoundland fishing community before the gale; she recounts events during the storm and the struggle of the women and children who survived the tragedy. She and her father establish contact with his father's half-siblings and their relatives in Marystown, and she recognizes physical traits and mannerisms they hold in common. The eponymous storm provides the thread that holds the story together and serves as a metaphor for her father's stormy childhood.

A celebration of traditional family values and reconciliation.

Kirkus Reviews