Dorchester
My mother was in town last week, she lives in Phoenix. The rest of us, my three sisters and I, my Father, live in and around the DC area. So I took most of last week off. She was in town to go with my sister Ann to their Bates College Reunions.
Breaking my solemn web logging vow to be deadly, even painfully, serious at all times. To regard my little patch of stacked electrons as a tool - as Woody Gutherie regarded his guitar which was was enscribed with the words "this machine kills facists."  To attend the struggle only. But I have only events from the week I experienced to write about. So.
I saw a new book one of the days I worked called No Greater Glory: The Four Immortal Chaplains and the Sinking of the Dorchester in World War II. I knew vaguely that my grandfather, John Shaw, would refer to this sometimes, that he knew one of these men. Since my mother was around I asked her that night at dinner. It turns out that her family knew three out of the four preachers, and my grandfather knew one of them, Rev. George Fox, quite well - both being Methodist ministers from Vermont. The embarkation point was Taunton Massachusetts, which is where my mother lived at that time. The story my grandfather has is that when they got on the ship and were told they were going into the North Atlantic, Rev. Fox, who apparently thought they might be heading someplace warmer suddenly regretted leaving his winter coat back at the camp. So he arranged to call my grandfather have him pick it up and brought round to the ship right before they sailed. My grandfather was one of the last people not on the SS Dorchester to see Rev. Fox alive. I think my grandfather had been tempted to sign up as a chaplain until this incident, as he was tempted to sign on as a methodist missionary to the Philippines after the war, but my grandmother's temptations did not involve ever leaving New England.
My mother added that Taunton was a debarkation point as well for the British air force during the war. They would come through on their way to Canada all through the war for flight training. I remember seeing pictures of my mother and friends posing with Australian and Scottish soldiers on their front steps. There were letters from one of these boys mothers together with these. I never knew exactly how that had come about before. The camp where they stayed was in or near Taunton and they would come to my grandfathers church then if they had the rest of the morning free would come back to the neighborhood afterwards. My mother does not know where these pictures are know. They used to be in a victorian sewing stand that was in my sisters room, but that was twenty years ago.
11:24:49 PM  ;;
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