Published: September 30, 2009 12:18 am      

Family chronicles

COVINGTON, Ind. — Captain Heman Kenney’s first true love was Lady Catherine, the schooner that took him from the famine-struck shores of Ireland across the open oceans to adventures in the New World. Then he met Elizabeth, and another love story started to blossom.

A century and a half later, their romance has been chronicled by the captain’s great-granddaughter, Catherine Wilcoxson of Covington, Ind., in a novel that is part history, part tribute to her colorful family tree.

“It all started when I began interviewing my mother about her life six years ago,” Wilcoxson said. “I didn’t realize I could write until then.”

Although Wilcoxson, a Nova Scotia native, initially had planned to write about her mother’s life growing up on the Alberta prairie, she had a change of heart when she learned about Captain Kenney, her father’s grandfather. “The ‘Little House on the Prairie’ had already been done, so I went to the other side of the family,” Wilcoxson said. “It took me six years to do the research. Everything had to be put back to the 1800s.”

Wilcoxson’s novel “The Adventures of Captain Heman Kenney and Lady Catherine,” starts out in Cork, Ireland, where Kenney was born, and takes the reader on a journey that spans the Irish potato famine, the end of slave trade in the West Indies, the Civil War, the Underground Railroad, the birth of Canada and, eventually, the end of the schooner era.

“The book spans a lifetime, and because there was so much going on at that time it made it really exciting,” Wilcoxson said.

The book is based on the travels of Captain Kenney, and Wilcoxson’s family history is sprinkled throughout the book. Though the plot line is largely fictitious, she said the history is accurate, something that required a lot of research.

“To know how to sail a schooner in the 1800s was the hardest part; it took a lot of research. It took months of figuring out but I think I succeeded,” she said.

“The Adventures of Captain Heman Kenney and Lady Catherine” is Wilcoxson’s first published book.

“It’s really been a family operation,” she said. “My husband and daughter have helped me with the research, and my son is my best critic.”

Wilcoxson and her husband, Paul, moved to Covington when he became minister of the Orchard Hill Church of Christ three years ago.

Wilcoxson’s book came out Sept. 3 and since then she’s been busy promoting it through readings and book signings. She’ll sign and sell books at Fourth Street Gallery Saturday in conjunction with Apple Fest.

“I think the subject is absolutely fascinating,” Debra Duncan, owner of Fourth Street Gallery, said about the book. “I love the romance of schooners and Nova Scotia. And historically speaking the book is intriguing to me because it’s a time period I don’t know a lot about, so I’m learning a lot.”

Wilcoxson said she’s getting a lot of positive feedback from people who have read the book, and she’s already working on another one.

“It’s going to be about religion,” she said. “It’s going to be called “Open Doors, Open Windows: A Journey with God,” and it’s going to be about my life.”

IF YOU GO:

Covington author Catherine Wilcoxson will sign her new book “The Adventures of Captain Heman Kenney and Lady Catherine” at Fourth Street Gallery from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EDT Saturday in conjunction with Apple Fest. The book can be purchased in most online bookstores and at: http://www.theladycatherinecompany.com.