Home-Nest Chronicles:
Ripe Berry Moon & Tales from Labrador

Pictures & Book Excerpts

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Black Bear's Quest

It was May, 1863, the season of "the planting moon."

For Tomah Nicola, it was a time to weigh new thoughts, make new plans, and embark on a new life.  Just as his body exulted in the warmth and aroma of a gently caressing spring breeze, his soul was excited and quickened by Hope's enlivening breath.

It was the end of yet one more of many days of journeying eastward toward land's end, at the Great Waters of dawn.  In a dream-like attitude of inner reflection, Tomah rested on the bank of Meduxnekeag Stream in Hodgdon, Maine, his countenance reflecting the resolve and strength he found through renewed pride in his blood heritage and through confidence that grew out of each new vision of promise.  The furrows of his brow were plowed by the cares of another day -- certainly not by this day of blessing...

Daughter Taught Mother

This photo illustrated an article in the Boston Globe, reporting
the unusual event of Dr. Maude Belyea Robinson earning her medical
degree under the instruction of her own daughter, Dr. Leda Robinson.

...At the time of the Globe article, my mother didn't realize that she was to have an equally newsworthy relationship with another one of her students -- her future husband, my Dad, Elmer Whitney...

Captain Joseph Chandler
1801-1885
painting on ivory, worn in his mother's locket until her death in 1845

A seagoing career of over half a century ended with the drowning of one son and the murder of another on an ill-fated voyage of the ship, Eureka.

...Fortunes could be quickly made and as quickly lost in the dangerous life of maritime commerce in the nineteenth century.  The Chandlers were not unaware of the risks.  Barma's grandfather was a deeply devout Christian...(he) always required as many of his ship's hands as possible to attend church services which he himself conducted every Sunday, whether in port or at sea, in fair weather or foul...