A Whale Of A Story

Family lore had it that one of my great great grandfathers had been on a whaling ship. Really?? So when I came across two faded, onion skin papers in my cousin's attic last summer, I was thrilled to see his story written down. In 1899, he had written of his whaling years (1845-48). I picked up these fragile papers, sent photos of them to our daughters and grandchildren. Single spaced, they were almost impossible to read and I did not get much of a response.

A few months ago I was pondering how to bring some life to his remarkable and sometimes harrowing adventure. While ordering some cards from Snapfish, I thought why not create a little book with some photos of whaling boats, his itinerary and original 2 page memoir? Because the original pages were not going to be legible if transferred into a photo book, I retyped the story and took photos of sections that would be legible and fit on the pages. Voila! It worked. To enhance the story, I was able to find historical photos off the web and with help from the whaling museum in New Bedford, MA, I obtained the manifest of the ship's crew with his name on it as well as a photo of the captain's original log. Digging deeper, I became totally immersed in whaling history. (A diversion from Covid) I even added a glossary of terms so this became more than a book about my ancestor. It was wonderful to be lost in a project.

Why a photo book? As a family memoir this would have limited copies. The concept of publishing a book was daunting. Many of us are not interested in writing lengthy memoirs, but perhaps have a compelling story that should be shared with the younger generation. Maybe you have one. I used Snapfish but there are others like Shutterfly. Happy Digging!

By: Meliss Anderson