Ship Captain’s Daughter

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Growing Up on the Great Lakes

Ann M. Lewis

A moving and insightful memoir that shares the family side of Great Lakes shipping and the changing tides a young girl endured throughout the years that her father sailed the inland seas.

112 pages, 5.5 x 8.5, 60 b&w photos
Paperback: $14.95 | ISBN: 978-0-87020-730-3
Ebook: $9.99 | ISBN: 978-0-87020-731-0
Publication Date: 12/16/2015

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Ship Captain's Daughter by Ann M. Lewis book cover

Description

Ann Lewis’s childhood was marked by an unusual rhythm. Each year the thawing and freezing of the Great Lakes signaled the beginning and end of the shipping season, months of waiting that were punctuated by brief trips to various ports to meet her father, the captain. With lively storytelling and vivid details, Lewis captures the unusual life of shipping families whose days and weeks revolved around the shipping industry on the Great Lakes.

In Ship Captain's Daughter, Lewis paints an intriguing and affectionate portrait of her father, a talented pianist whose summer job aboard an ore freighter led him to a life on the water. Working his way up from deckhand to ship captain, Willis Michler became the master of thirteen ships over a span of twenty-eight years. From the age of twelve, Ann accompanied the captain to the ports of Milwaukee, Chicago, Toledo, and Cleveland on the lower Great Lakes. She describes sailing through stormy weather and starry nights, visiting the engine room, dining at the captain’s table, and wheeling the block-long ship with her father in the pilot house. Through her mother’s stories and remarks, Lewis also reveals insights into the trials and rewards of being a ship captain’s wife. The book is enhanced by the author’s vintage snapshots, depicting this bygone lifestyle.

Author Bio

Ann Michler Lewis

Ann Michler Lewis grew up in Duluth, Minnesota, on the shores of Lake Superior. She graduated from the University of Minnesota, Duluth, and then taught English at Duluth East High School, her alma mater. Since 1972, she has lived with her family in Saint Paul, Minnesota, making periodic pilgrimages back “home” to Lake Superior.

Filled with colorful remembrances of a father who loved his family and classical music, but whose passion for Great Lakes seafaring called him back every spring for nearly fifty years. Gracefully written, marvelous photos.

Davis Helberg

Former executive director of the Duluth Seaway Port Authority

“With the precision of a sailor’s knot, Ship Captain’s Daughter weaves a captivating portrait not only of the men who sailed on the giant ships of the Great Lakes but also of their families left back on shore. From the anticipation of her father’s ship departing and arriving, to sailing with him every summer as he captained a huge iron ore freighter down a moonlit path of water, to tales of rolling seas and dangerous ice, Lewis vividly captures the Great Lakes shipping era before the introduction of modern technology.”

—Marnie O. Mamminga, author of Return to Wake Robin

“Storyteller Ann M. Lewis has a way with building word images: being carried up the ship’s ladder in the curve of her father’s arms, noticing the eyes of a snake tattoo on his arm, answering ‘Ahoy, Papa!’ to the ship’s bullhorn. With these threads, she weaves a vibrant story of a Great Lakes captain’s family.”

—Warren Gerds, author of Real, Honest Sailing, and critic-at-large for WFRV-TV in Green Bay

“A nostalgic and deftly crafted personal memoir, Ship Captain's Daughter: Growing Up on the Great Lakes is a compelling and thoroughly enjoyable read from beginning to end. Very highly recommended.”

—Mary Cowper, Midwest Book Review