Bravery At Its Finest

     On this date, November 20, in 1620, Peregrine White was born aboard the Mayflower.

     That gave Peregrine the distinct distinction of being the first known English child born in America.  It's too bad organizations like the Brownies, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, etc. weren't around back then because Peregrine would have gotten lots of cool stuff.  He would have had his picture in all the papers holding the title of "The Country's First Baby"  and surrounded by all the gifts donated from the local merchants.

     On March 6, 1648, Peregrine and Sara Basset were married, plus fined for having premarital sex, and about nine months later the first of their seven children was born.....some things never change......  Peregrine lived to the ripe old age of 83 years old.

     Now, the bravery......

     Peregrine's mother, Susanna, boarded the Mayflower in Plymouth, England on September 6, 1620.  She would have been approximately six months pregnant.  

     Have you ever seen a replica of the Mayflower?  It is really small.......really small.  The ship was only 100 feet in length.  There were 102 passengers aboard, along with 30-40 crew members.  To say that the conditions were a bit cramped would be an understatement.  Not only that, this was a three month journey.  A three month journey, at sea, with no bathroom.

     To make matters even worse, in the second month of the journey, they ran into some nasty weather.  The ship was being battered with high winds and high seas.  The caulking was falling out of the timbers, letting in seawater.  The conditions were ma-honkingly, for lack of a better word, unsanitary and there was not enough food to go around.  It was cold and even the beds were wet.

     I wonder how many times Susanna White had to hurl over the port or starboard side of the Mayflower?  

     The original destination for the Mayflower was the Colony of Virginia, but after many days of trying to go south, they were forced to return to Cape Cod Hook, now known as Provincetown Harbor.  It was there, anchored in the harbor, still aboard a ship that had to smell ten times worse than a bus load of young boys right after football practice, that Susanna White gave birth.

     Susanna White was a brave woman indeed.  She left the only home she had known, with her husband and an older son, to come to a new world.  She survived a dangerous trip, horrible conditions and was still able to bring forth a new life with no doctor, no epidural anesthesia.  Hopefully she at least had a piece of wood to bite.

     In the first few weeks of setting foot on this new land, she outlived half of the passengers aboard the Mayflower, due to a harsh, cold winter.  She even had to bury her husband three months later.  She remarried and went on to have five more children.

     Most of us have never heard of Susanna White.  She deserves the highest honor given for bravery.  

     We do not have a clue, if we think for one minute, that times are tough.