Join us for a discussion of the life of Mrs. William Brewster - Mary Brewster, the Matriarch of the Mayflower with Kathryn Haueisen, author of Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures.

Join us July 12 at 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. for a virtual reading and presentation by Mayflower descendant Kathryn Brewster Haueisen about her historical fiction Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures. 

She left the freelance writing world for a thirty-five-year detour as a pastor, camp director, and capital campaign consultant. However, her passion has always been writing about good people doing great things in the global village. Even before she retired in 2014, she began researching more about the story of her ancestors, Elder William and Mary Brewster. They and their two younger sons arrived in Cape Cod harbor in 1620 on the famous Mayflower. 

Several factors compelled her to research and write a historical novel about the challenges the English settlers faced and their encounters with the Indigenous people when they finally arrived in the New (to them) World. Her mother was a reference librarian and did the research to document the family’s connection to Elder William and Mary Brewster. She inherited her mother’s notes. Her studies to become a Lutheran pastor included a strong emphasis on the Protestant Reformation, which played a significant role in the settlers’ decision to leave England. One of her daughters married into a Texas family with Native American heritage, making three of her grandchildren descendants of both English Pilgrims and Native Americans.

Armed with her mother’s notes, her insights to the Native perspective through her son-in-law’s family, studies about the Reformation, and an insatiable curiosity about what really happened, she set off to Plymouth, England, and Holland to research the story. The result is a five-part book that focuses on what the journey must have been like for the women on the ship and the Native people who found them struggling to survive.

Haueisen will take us on a virtual tour of the places she visited to research the story, do a reading from the book, and summarize each of the five parts of the incredible journey that is an integral part of the foundation of modern America.

The book is available in Ebook, paperback, and audio wherever books are sold, and of course for loan from the Plymouth Public Library.

For more information, please contact Kate at 508-830-4250, ext. 217, or email kgomes@ocln.org.

About the author: Kathryn Haueisen combines her degree in journalism and her career as a pastor to write a compelling story about historical events that brought people from two different cultures together to negotiate a way to ensure people in both groups would survive against seemingly insurmountable challenges. In addition to working with congregations around the country, she’s published six books and dozens of articles in such publications as Writer’s Digest, Marriage & Family Living, House Beautiful, Highlights for Children, and a variety of faith-based and regional publications. She blogs weekly at www.HowWiseThen.com.