The history of Lake Erie has hundreds of tales of vessels in distress. Terrible storms and memorable rescues that often become folklore and, some times, legendary.
Many people who live near the great lake know at least a few details of these high seas tales. They are stories of adventure, misfortune, or ghosts, but not often flavored just for children.
Don't tell that to Dr. Phillip Morse.
Dr. Morse was a professor in the English and Education departments at SUNY Fredonia from 1972 to his retirement in 2002. After retiring, he and his wife moved to North Carolina where he can still be found in front of a classroom periodically. His focus has always been early childhood development and education and he is known for his skills as an educator and his writing on the subject but he never fancied himself a children's writer until a story about a tugboat in Dunkirk Harbor caught his attention.
"For some reason, it just really grabbed me," Morse said from his home in North Carolina. "That day, for some reason, I said to myself, 'Hmmm, this might lend itself to a children's story.' So right on the spot, in probably about 45 minutes, I just wrote the story."
The Gloria Mae was an old fishing tug that had been a fixture in the Dunkirk Harbor for years. Her skipper was Casey Moss and as Morse recalled the story, they were the only hope for fishermen who found themselves caught in a storm of epic proportions.
Morse approached the story he had read in the OBSERVER as an educator, someone who has a lifetime of experience working with students of all levels but teaching students to teach. He is also a father himself and is keenly aware of how children view the world around them.
"I had a couple of young kids of my own and when I read the story, for some reason, it really hit me that it was very similar to some of these underdog stories that you read - which really inspire kids," Morse said.
As the story goes, when the newer, flashier boats proved unable to reach the helpless fishermen out on the stormy lake, rescuers called on the Gloria Mae to try and make the rescue. The Gloria Mae ventures out through the built-up ice and bitter cold winds using her stamina and skipper's experience to bring the other boaters back to safety.
Besides the "underdog status" of an older fishing boat doing things other, prettier boats couldn't do, Morse said the boat's feminine character appealed to him.
"Guys are always the traditional hero, I made [the main character] the "heroine" of Dunkirk Harbor." he said.
Once the basic premise came to mind, Morse made fast work of his first children's tale.
"It was amazing how quickly this story rattled off," he said. "I was even surprised myself. It was one of those true moments where, I guess you could call it inspiration, where it just almost came out of me without even realizing what I was saying."
"It was really kind of a neat experience," Morse added.
While the story itself was pretty easy to complete, Morse admitted he was really nervous when he first began introducing the story to childhood audiences.
Morse found his test audiences were quick to ease his nervousness.
"They all seemed to love the story," he said, "I was very relieved about that."
While the story seemed to go over well with children, he was still lacking pictures to go along with his story to make it a true children's book.
Morse set the story aside for a while. He was trying to find an illustrator but became too busy with other projects in his life.
The story came up again when Morse happened to meet Carol Owen, a nationally recognized illustrator and handmade book artist, after moving to North Carolina. Owen read the story and agreed to illustrate it for publication.
Morse has had previous experience in publishing, having written a book on childhood development and collaborated with another author for another on conflict resolution "Does a Pigeon Bark" and "Face to Face: Communication and Conflict Resolution in the Schools" written with Allen E. Ivey, are both books designed more for educators and parents than children and available along with "Gloria Mae: The Heroine of Dunkirk Harbor" on-line at www.anteaterbooks.com.
Morse said the book was recently given to young writers who all had won awards in a writing contest in the school district where he currently resides.
"And all the libraries have it down here too," Morse added.
Locally, Morse plans to visit the Book Nook in the D&F Plaza in Dunkirk Thursday to drop off a number of copies of the book for sale. He also has a meeting with Mayor Richard Frey who has expressed an interest in the book and the connection to the region.
During his visit back to the area, Morse said he would like to try and look up information on the skipper of the Gloria Mae or the boat itself.
"It was just one of these very sudden, inspirational kinds of things," Morse said of his experience with the story. "I've never written a children's story before in my life although I had taught writing in the college."
Morse doesn't have an plans to write more children's books in the future, though it has been suggested to him on more than one occasion. Though he added that he wasn't looking to write a children's story before reading about the Gloria Mae either.
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