I discipline churchgoers with godly lessons and sharp words if they do not change their ways. My goal is to open their hearts so that they seek forgiveness. (William Brewster) William and Mary Brewster are my great x 12 grandparents. While doing research for the two historical novels I wrote with them as the main characters, I spent as much time in the 16th and 17th centuries as I did in the 21st one. The […]
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Armistice Day
In 2018, on Armistice Day (now known as Veterans Day), I was sailing toward New York on the Queen Mary 2. So much has happened since then. We’ve changed presidents and struggled through a global pandemic that is still infecting people. We’ve watched in horror as Putin invaded Ukraine and now Hammas has started the war between Gaza and Israel that is claiming thousands of innocent lives. Armistice Day 2018 marked the 100th anniversary of a […]
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Labor Day in 1620
Welcome to an end-of-summer rerun of the “Labor Day 1620” article I ran a few years ago. As you read this, I’m in New England preparing to finally meet up with a group of Brewster descendants for my first attendance at their triennial Elder William Brewster family reunion. I hope to come home with many new Brewster relatives in my contacts list and more stories to share with you about the history beyond this fascinating […]
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The Brewster Trail
I recently sort of met a Brewster cousin, Luke Anderson. He is 13 generations removed from William and Mary Brewster making us very long-distance cousins. He posted photos on Facebook of his recent trip along the trail taken by Elder William and Mary Brewster. He got into places I was unable to see on my research trip along that same trail. With his permission, I am posting a couple of his photos, along with the […]
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Mary Brewster’s Love Life
I knew little about this remarkable woman until I started researching the Brewsters and their role in the Mayflower story for Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures. She has been largely ignored by those who have researched in great detail the life of her more famous husband, Elder William Brewster. Toward the end of the second decade of the 17th century, he and other exiled English Separatists living in the more tolerant Netherlands, made the daring […]
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