Hearts That Survive

Yvonne Lehman

Nashville, Tennessee

Hearts That Survive

Copyright © 2012 by Yvonne Lehman

Published in association with the Steve Laube Agency

ISBN-13: 978-1-4267-4488-4

Published by Abingdon Press, P.O. Box 801, Nashville, TN 37202
www.abingdonpress.com

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form,
stored in any retrieval system, posted on any website,
or transmitted in any form or by any means—digital,
electronic, scanning, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without
written permission from the publisher, except for brief
quotations in printed reviews and articles.

This is a work of historical fiction. Apart from the well-known
actual people, events, and locales used in the narrative, all names,
places, characters, and incidents are the products of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current
events or locales, or to living persons, is entirely coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lehman, Yvonne.

Hearts that survive : a novel of the Titanic / Yvonne Lehman.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-4267-4488-4 (trade pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Titanic (Steamship)—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3562.E43H43 2012

813'.54—dc23

2011039138

Scripture quotations from The Authorized (King James) Version.
Rights in the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom are vested
in the Crown. Reproduced by permission of the Crown's patentee,
Cambridge University Press.

Printed in the United States of America

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 / 17 16 15 14 13 12

To my dear friend Peggy Darty, a novelist who, several years ago, presented to me the idea of writing a story about the
Titanic,
enlightening me on Nova Scotia's importance and involvement in the aftermath of the great ship's sinking. She encouraged my present efforts, although it seemed
The Titanic
had already been written.
But . . . my story had not been . . . until now.

To my readers, who may want to compare my story with the book and award-winning movie, as I did when beginning this project. There is no comparison, however. That is their story. This is mine, and it is my desire, hope, and prayer that my readers enjoy this book, find it entertaining and filled with events and characters that come alive in their hearts and minds, and know what it means for a heart to survive.

First and foremost, I must mention Dr. Donn Taylor, who wrote the poem that my character John Ancell writes in the book. Donn, accompanied by his lovely wife, Mildred, participated in my writers conferences as the poetry faculty member. You simply haven't lived until you've heard him read a poem. He is poetry personified. I am deeply grateful to him.

While my story was being developed, before I had a publisher for it, I contacted Donn and gave him a brief description of my character and what I had in mind. The following are his suggestions, which helped considerably in the development of John and gave me a lesson on poetry.

This is the English adaptation of the Italian sonnet form: an eight-line octave, rhyming ABBAABBA, followed by a six-line sestet. The pure Italian form usually rhymed CDECDE or a similar pattern. The English varied the sestet by ending with a couplet that either summarized or climaxed what went before.

I'd suggest that John start out to write a simple love poem, choosing quatrains (four-line stanzas) as his form because he can develop as many of those as his developing idea requires. So he gets one quatrain, the first four lines of the poem as a simple love poem. Then maybe you should take the story somewhere else for a while. Then he finds out that Lydia is pregnant and writes the next quatrain to attest the genuineness of his love. Again, take the story somewhere else.

After the ship hits the iceberg, he converts the poem into an Italian sonnet by dashing off the last six lines.

To be completely honest, it isn't a very good poem outside the context of your novel. Just competent, at best.

Personally, I think it's wonderful. Donn even gave this bit of instruction: "For a poem written in the early twentieth century, the poet would capitalize the first letter of each line. The change to normal sentence punctuation doesn't arrive until the final decades of the century."

In serious moments of contemplation influenced by my husband's suffering with cancer, my son-in-law, Steve Wilson, wrote a poem titled "Life as a Boat." Steve doesn't claim to be a poet. The poem fits in perfectly with my character, Beau, who doesn't claim to be a poet. Nor does Steve claim to be a singer or a guitarist or a photographer, but he does all those things well. He is a graphic designer holding the position of Advertising Director at the company where he works. His greatest accomplishment (according to me) is being a wonderful husband to my lovely fun daughter Cindy (who is also my friend and reads every word I write and likes my books) and being father to Simon, who is learning to be a tennis pro.

To my wonderful editor at Abingdon, Ramona Richards, who said after reading my book proposal, "I like it." I am deeply grateful to Abingdon for being receptive to the late inquiry and working with me on this and having confidence in my ability to write a T-I-T-A-N-I-C novel.

Thanks to agent Steve Laube for his invaluable advice. He's the one who handles the business side of writing, freeing me for the creative side. He also found the answer to my question of whether a corked champagne bottle could be in the ocean for many years,
decades
in fact, and still be intact.

Among several accounts that Steve found, this is a "sweet" one. In 1914, British World War I soldier Private Thomas Hughes tossed a green ginger beer bottle containing a letter to his wife into the English Channel. He was killed two days later fighting in France. In 1999, fisherman Steve Gowan dredged up the bottle in the River Thames. Although the intended recipient of the letter had died in 1979, it was delivered in 1999 to Private Hughes's eighty-six-year-old daughter living in New Zealand.

Many thanks to Elma Schemenauer and Janet Sketchley, who led me to Janet Burrill. Janet B and I shared e-mails almost daily due to my questions about Nova Scotia. She found where my character might live and sent pictures. She offered information, answered difficult questions—even the seemingly trite one-word ones, such as my characters' Bedford Basin home—would they live "in, at, on, by, around, or near" Bedford Basin? She told me where my characters should honeymoon, suggested I mention Rappie Pie, and sent the recipe. She said my book would not be authentic without my mentioning the 1917 Halifax Explosion that so devastated the city. Her book,
Dark Clouds of the Morning,
is set around the Halifax Explosion, which was caused by two ships colliding in the harbor. One of the ships carried tons of munitions, setting off the worst man-made explosion prior to the atom bomb. Thousands were killed or injured. She is working on a sequel,
Sunrise Over the Harbour,
covering the recovery period following the disaster.

Anyone traveling to Halifax might be interested in staying at her daughter's Blue Forest Lane Bed and Breakfast, situated in the country in a beautiful neighborhood tucked into a forested area (
www.blueforest.ca
.)

Janet provided much more material than I have used. I am sorry if I made mistakes about Nova Scotia. If so, it's not Janet's fault but my own.

I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge Dr. Dennis Hensley, writer, teacher, editor, director of the professional writing major at Taylor University, for his friendship and writing expertise and his participation in my writers conferences for more than twenty-five years. But here, I will confine it to his offering his opinions and suggestions. Thanks to him for putting me in touch with Kate Gutierrez, who graduated from Taylor University Fort Wayne with a B.A. in Professional Writing and a Minor in Christian Education. I appreciate her organizing ability and her outline of the fifty years of Nova Scotia history that corresponds with the time span of my novel.

Eva Marie Everson suggested Ramona Richards as a good editor for my work. Thanks to others for their comments, prayers, advice, listening ears; and thanks particularly to my son, David Lehman, for sharing his invaluable insights. The experience of my character David is based on my David's witnessing to his schoolroom class at age six, after having accepted Jesus into his heart. And when I was on a tight deadline, my writer/friend Debbie Presnell brought me a dinner of her homemade lasagna, breadsticks, and an amazing cake, so I could write without having to cook or starve.

Thanks to my writers group and friends for their encouragement and prayers.

When anyone asks me how I can best describe my experience in nearly forty years at sea, I merely say, uneventful. Of course there have been winter gales, and storms and fog and the like. But in all my experience, I have never been in any accident . . . or any sort worth speaking about. I have seen but one vessel in distress in all my years at sea. I never saw a wreck and never have been wrecked nor was I ever in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort.

Edward J. Smith, 1907

Captain, RMS Titanic

"Isn't that an iceberg on the horizon, Captain?"
"Yes, Madam."
"What if we get in a collision with it?"
"The iceberg, Madam, will move right along as though
nothing had happened."

Carl Sandburg,
The People, Yes,
1936