Summer Journal: Gloucester

I'm here now. : ) Welcome to Wild Peace.

This is the first in a series of "Summer Journal" posts, as I have a whole lot of photos I want to put up from our summer days. Then, in the coming weeks, I intend to get back to more frequent posting (I know, I've said this many times before. Why do my best intentions often provide the worst results?). If you have followed me here and are still reading, thank you for bearing with me, my friend.

Gloucester is a half hour drive from our house and full of history and natural beauty. It's one of our favorite places to spend a few hours in any season. There is nothing quite like the summer-blue sky in New England.

Fishermen's Memorial Monument: "They That Go Down To The Sea In Ships, That Do Business In Great Waters; These See The Works Of The Lord, And His Wonders In The Deep." (from the 107th Psalm)

The Fishermen's Wives Memorial, unveiled in August of 2001.  The idea for the Memorial had been around since at least the 1930s. It was a long time in coming. Several designs and inscriptions were rejected. From Poetry of Places in Essex County: 

Leonard Craske, creator of the Gloucester Fishermen's Memorial, envisioned a sculpture of a woman as a companion piece. His model, displayed at the Cape Ann Museum, shows a woman clutching a bundled child, her gesture reminiscent of a ship's figurehead. Craske's proposed inscription was, "They also serve who only stand and wait." Years later, the renowned sculptor Richard Rechia (husband of Dogtown poet Kitty Parsons) designed a sculpture called, "The Widow of the Fisherman," a melancholy figure of a woman stooping to lay a wreath of flowers in the sea.

The Gloucester Fishermen's Wives Association was not interested in either characterization of the role of women in the fishing industry.  Seeing themselves as doing everything but sitting around waiting, the Wives determined to commemorate their contributions, both in the past and in the future they work so hard to secure.  In 1996, sculptor Morgan Faulds Pike, the winner of the GFWA's international design competition, signed a contract to build her vision of The Gloucester Fishermen's Wives Memorial - a woman holding a small child in her left arm with her right hand on the shoulder of a standing child...The inscription around the base of the sculpture reads: "The wives, mothers, daughters and sisters of Gloucester fishermen honor the wives and families of fishermen and mariners everywhere for their faith, diligence, and fortitude."

Common Eiders

 Cressy's Beach at Stage Fort Park (lair of the famous Gloucester (Essex) Sea Serpent. A funny story: I picked up the bestselling book, The Essex Serpent this summer because I thought it was about our serpent. It wasn't. It was about a serpent in Essex, England!

Skate egg or mermaid's purse.

Love and roses,

Sue ♥