 Good morning. Welcome to Moments with Melinda, and I am your host, Melinda Moulton. And today I have Luella Bryant as my guest. Ellie, how are you doing? Hi, Melinda. I'm great. Thanks. Good. I want to thank you so much for coming on my show. I don't always have a guest back a second time within a year, but I believe you're my second... This is the second time I've interviewed you, and today we're going to talk about your new novel, Sheltering Angel, extraordinary book. But let me tell my viewers a little bit about you. For 20 years, Ellie taught high school English and a dozen years she served on the faculty of Spalding University's MFA in writing program in Louisville. She is the author of eight books, including five historical novels, a story collection, a memoir, and a biography set during the Vietnam era. Her stories, essays, and poems have won awards and are included in numerous anthologies and magazines. Currently, Ellie runs a writing workshop and works as an independent editor helping emerging writers get their ideas into the world. Thank you, Ellie, for all that you do. Now, your new book, Sheltering Angel, has just been released to raving reviews. And by the way, to my viewers, you can visit Ellie's website at Luella Bryant dot com. That's L-O-U-E-L-L-A-B-R-Y-A-N-T dot com. And I suggest you visit the website because it's beautiful and it's fascinating. And I might sign up for the newsletter, which comes out the first of every month. Which I just did today. Oh, good. Just signed up. You'll see me there. This might be my second or third time that I've signed up. So, it's grand to have you with us this morning to talk about your book, which was just recently released. So let's just jump in. Your new novel, Sheltering Angel, this is a fictionalized true story of Florence Cummings and a working class ship steward Andrew Cunningham and their serendipitous intermingled lives aboard the Titanic. Ellie, can you share with us why you chose to tell the story, which I believe is quite personal to you? Yeah, I will. I've been married to my husband for 34 years and we were together for four years before that. And since then, so 38 years ago, I started hearing from his mother about her grandmother who lived in New York City and was on board the Titanic in first class. And as, you know, the directive was women and children. First, she was put in a lifeboat. Number four, with other first class women, including Madeleine Aster and the Thayers and Mrs. Weidner and several other notable women. And the husbands had to stay on board the ship. And so she's looking for her husband and she's searching the water for him and she sees a man swimming toward her. And she recognizes him as her steward, Andrew Cunningham. And she pulls him aboard, saving his life. And my mother-in-law went around her area in, on the North Shore in Massachusetts, talking to schoolchildren about her grandmother with whom she lived when she wasn't at boarding school and showing news clippings and pictures and just generating interest. And I thought that that should really be a story. So I started writing it immediately as a young adult book. And then the more I got into it, the more it sounded like an adult book. And it's now listed on Amazon as historical literary fiction, which pleases me immensely. Oh, absolutely. So at what point did that story enter your brain to start writing this? I mean, how many years ago did you did all of a sudden in this moment where you said, boy, that's a story I want to write. And you decided to do that. When was that? How long ago? That's a really good question, Melinda. I had it in my mind to write the story for, you know, 38 years, but I started the research eight years ago. And I just immersed myself. And there's a lot of information about the Titanic and Titanic passengers. And there's still a lot, I don't know, but I researched every day for eight years to sort of unpack whatever happened on the Titanic and why it was such a disaster. And what it all means, because it's become a metaphor for life. And we can talk more about that too, if you have a question about that. A metaphor for life. Well, let me let me backtrack just for a second. So your husband, Harrison's great grandmother, was Florence Cummings. And did he ever meet his grandmother, his great grandmother? No, she died before he was born. But her youngest son inherited their place in Maine, in York, Maine. And so he visited that place several times, was able to describe it to me. So her youngest son would have been, which son would that have been? I'll show you, if you'd like to see. So this is a photograph. And the one, the woman in the middle is Florence Cummings. And on her left is John Bradley, who was the oldest son called Jackie in the book. And on her right is Wells, the middle son, and he's in the book. And then Thayer is the youngest. And when they went to, when they went on the ship to Europe, they decided to leave the boys at home with nannies or au pairs. And this is a tragic story. I think I may write also. And that is Wells, when he was 18, and graduated from boarding school, and went to the same boarding school, his brothers and his father went to, he joined the army because World War One had begun. And he was killed in his first battle in World War One. And I have a whole file of letters that his older brother, John Bradley, wrote home to their mother. And it's almost a book in itself. It's just, it's just powerful. How John Bradley went to, Wells is buried in France, in an American cemetery in France in rural, I think. And he went there and laid flowers on the grave shortly after he was buried there. So that's a compelling story in itself. So Thayer would have been Harry's grandfather. No, John Bradley was. John Bradley was, okay, was his grandfather. Thayer was his great uncle. Great uncle. Okay, great. So now, Ellie, you say in your books that Florence spoke very little about the night of the when the Titanic went down. So how did you track down all of this information that you used to tell this deeply personal and engaging story? Well, first I watched the movie A Night to Remember, and then I read the book. And if you've seen that movie about, I don't know, maybe 10 minutes into it or so, there's a scene in a lifeboat where a Scottish man is holding one of his mates and he says in a Scottish accent, hold on, rescue is coming, we're almost there. And I truly believe that's Andrew Cunningham in the movie. Holding Sid. Holding Sid, right? Yeah. And that's actually in the book. The book, I think the book was written after the movie came out and that frequently happens like with Star Wars, for example. Well, the movie was, the movie was the one with Clifton Webb, right? Made back in the 1930s. It was the Clifton Webb. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. And so, Walter Lord, who wrote the script for the movie, was able to interview a lot of the survivors from the Titanic. So although this book, I think is, it says minute by minute story of the sinking. I don't know if this is fiction or nonfiction. I'm not sure, but it reads like nonfiction. And it's really well documented. We're going to get into talk about how you treat the sinking of the Titanic in your book in a minute. So Florence Cummings. Now, I don't want to tell too much about the story. I certainly don't want to give the ending away, although people know some of the ending. But Florence Cummings and Andrew Cunningham, her steward on the boat, developed a deep and meaningful friendship. And that would have been unacceptable during that period where the upper crust did not commingle with the other classes. But in this book, you cover a lot about common humanity. Can you talk about that? That actually, thank you for asking that. That's sort of a theme of all my books. And I guess because I grew up in Virginia and my parents' ancestors were moonshiners, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. And my husband, Harry, is Boston, Blue Blood, Harvard, boarding school, upper class. And so I don't know why he was attracted to me, I guess, because we're so different and yet we think alike. And so I thought, well, let's just investigate this idea of classes. And his mother is the kind of woman who befriended the guy who pumped gas at the gas station. She saw no differences among humanity. And Florence was like that as well, according to my mother-in-law. So that kind of affected me. And at the end of Sheltering Angel, Florence gets invited to the Astor Mansion for a luncheon and she brings Andrew with her. And I've read somewhere that that actually happened. There is a New York Times article that says that Florence went there. And it would make sense that she would take Andrew because he is the only person in New York who understands the depth of her sorrow and understands the incredible disaster they both went through. So I've included him there. And it feels authentic to me. The other thing about the Titanic is it reminds me very much of the Pequod in Moby Dick where you have the entire of humanity on it. So you have the richest of the rich in the upper and the first class. You have the officers, the staff of the Titanic. You have second and there's third class down in steerage. And then you have the firemen down in the boiler room where it's 160 degrees and they're filthy and shoveling coal into the furnaces. So all classes are on this ship, as well as people from all over the world who came to buy a ticket for this amazing new ship. So I thought it was a perfect example to sort of extend my idea of how when it comes to fate, that whole concept of humanity versus nature, nature really doesn't care how much money you have or how much fame you have. You're all literally in the same boat when it comes to nature and nature's decisions about what happens to you. Here, here. Ellie, talk to us a bit about your research using the 1912 Senate investigation transcripts of the Titanic tragedy where Andrew Cunningham testified. Oh, that's an interesting story too. So here's a book of the, it's a transcript. And I went through the table of contents and saw that there was a guy named Andrew Cunningham who was a steward on the Titanic. And I, so I went to his testimony and he did testify that among his passengers, for whom he was responsible, were Florence and Bradley Cummings. So that authenticated what, you know, what his, my husband's mother had been talking about. And then he goes on to talk about mostly their experience in the lifeboat. He doesn't say that she pulled him in, but we got that directly from her through Harry's mother and literally saved his life. And what, what's really amazing, and this will get to your question I'm sure about the sheltering angel, when Andrew went to see the doctor, he was asked questions like, how long were you in the water? And Andrew said about a half an hour. I swam for about a half a mile to get to this lifeboat and the doctor just shook his head and said, you shouldn't, you shouldn't have survived. Your lungs are perfectly clear. You, you get hypothermia in 28 degree water in 10 or 15 minutes. And yet he was in the water twice that length. So how in the world did he survive? And no one has the answer to that question. So actually this book was categorized on Amazon as in a, in the supernatural category, but it's absolutely all true. So well, I also know that he swam on the boat, that he was a swimmer. And I don't know if the water in the pool was heated or if they use, you know, sea water, but he, and he was, and he was, it seems like he was an extraordinary athlete, but Ellie, would you, would you mind reading a little bit from your book, Sheltering Angel? I would read a little bit from when Florence and Bradley are at Cherbourg waiting to board the Titanic or this is how, how it came about that they were on the Titanic. They're at a hotel and they're having breakfast waiting for the Titanic to arrive, which is late for, for a couple of reasons. I allowed my gaze to wander to the window in the harbor outside. The sky is red this morning. I said, what's the saying? Bradley buzzed the saying about the red sky in the morning. Sailors take warning. He didn't bother looking up. We're scheduled to sail today in just a few hours. In fact, I'm afraid not. What do you mean? Says here in the newspaper, there's a coal strike affecting England and all of Europe. A coal strike. I hope the strike wouldn't reach New York. Worst news, darling. Most cruise ships have been docked, not enough coal to fuel the engines. Oceanic is one of those out of commission. But we have tickets for the oceanic. He folded the paper and laid it next to his plate. We may be stranded in Europe for a while. Bradley, we have to get home. There must be some way. He looked at me as faced without humor. There is one slim chance. A new white starship has been allowed enough coal for a transatlantic crossing. How new? He glanced at the article again. If you're willing to book passage on the maiden voyage, we can leave tonight. I'd heard cautions against maiden voyages. At the very least, there would be wrinkles to iron out. I didn't want to think about the very worst. Is there a risk? Folklore, flurry. Every ship has to have a first launch, and very few of them have ended up in Davy Jones' locker. His eyebrows arched with optimism. In fact, a first cruise is always a festive affair with parties and flowing champagne. And you might spot a celebrity. A maiden voyage on a white starship will win you bragging rights for years. I didn't need bragging rights. I wasn't a braggard. I just wanted to get home to our sons. What's the name of this new ship? I believe it's he ran a finger over the newsprint. RMS Titanic. Titanic, I repeated. I drew a breath and blew it out under red sky morning. Wow. I know college. Well, we know what happens. We do know what happens, Ellie. I've kind of lost my thing here. I'm trying to get myself back up here. I can talk a little bit if you like. Yeah, talk a little bit. I'm getting right back to my screen here. So, talk to me a little bit. Many of the ancestors of those on the Titanic gave their permission for you to use the names. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, I think that's really important, even especially in nonfiction, but even in fiction if somebody recognizes themselves. And it's also just a courtesy if you're writing fiction. So, I contacted all the members of the Cummings clan that I could find, all of whom gave me permission to use Bradley and Florence's real names. I was not able to find any of the descendants of Andrew Cunningham, unfortunately, and I've searched and searched. I did find the great, great, great grandson of Bradley Cummings' business partner. And he knew nothing about his ancestor and was very eager to read the book. His name is Albert Mark Wald, who was a stockbroker in New York and partnered with Bradley, just a lovely man. But I did was able to find some of Sid Sebert's relatives, great nephews and one great niece, all of whom gave me permission. And then most of the other passengers who are mentioned are in the public domain. And so I didn't bother. I did change a few names of people, passengers who I couldn't contact, whose relatives I couldn't contact. And so I changed their names because they may not appear in the best light in the book. Right. Well, I'm going to talk to you about that. So the captain of the ship, Captain Edward Smith, I felt that he received some form of forgiveness for the fatal tragedy because you state that he would have lost his job if he had not listened to J. Bruce Ismay, the owner of the cruise line, who insisted that the Titanic keep going full speed as it headed into the previously warmed ice flow. And Ismay lived through the tragedy and was considered one of the most hated men in America at the time. But I felt like you gave Captain Smith a bit of a buy that he was listening to Ismay. And if he had any, probably would have lost his job. Well, that's true. And this was his last cruise anyway, he was going to retire after this. But you have to listen to the guy who runs the company, who is his boss ultimately. But there were other reasons besides trying to win the blue ribbon, which is the award for being the fastest ship to cross the Atlantic. The other reason was because of this coal strike, they had loaded wet coal on the Titanic. And there was a fire in some of the bunkers. And Andrew saw it. And the hull of the ship had been compromised. And the fireman said, if you slow down, it will take that much more coal to get up to speed again. So they were shoveling this hot burning coal into the furnaces as fast as they could. And they had just enough to reach New York. And if they had to slow down, they might have run out of coal. And then I don't know what would have happened in that case. But you know, most ships who got ice warnings would stop completely and just drift. And then if they bumped into an iceberg, no harm would come. But starting up again takes a great deal of coal to get back up to speed. Well, the man at the wheel of the Titanic when it hit the iceberg was quartermaster Robert Hitchens. And he was accused of refusing to return to rescue passengers after taking charge of a lifeboat. Talk to us a little bit about Robert Hitchens. Yeah, I don't know a lot about him, but I know that he, I think the Duff Gordon's were in that lifeboat. And there's some controversy about whether Duff Gordon paid the rowers not to pick up people or whether they just didn't realize they were supposed to pick up people. But in any event, we know that Mr. Duff Gordon paid these rowers once they got on the rescue ship. Now, whether he paid them to help them get their lives started or whether he paid them as the favor for not picking up people in the water is unclear. If you read, there's a novel out about the Duff Gordon's and that book tends to look at them favorably. My research shows they were really not very nice people. Well, here on that, I'll stand with you on that. So now you, you also have in your book, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, we all know about there was a play made about her in a movie, and she helped to raise money for the second class survivors who were mostly women and children and whose husbands went down with the ship. And I love the way you cover it. You don't cover a lot in the book, but I love the fact that that bit of history is in your book. Yeah. Margaret Brown was, you know, she was sort of a rough, rough edged woman. She didn't, you know, really know all the etiquette that you were supposed to use on the Titanic in first class. But she had a way of getting things done. And she didn't care what people thought about her. She was who she was. And I admired that about her. So here's a woman who, you know, has, who's transcended the whole concept of class and come into first class and been accepted, maybe because she has money, but also because of her, her interior strength. She was an incredibly strong woman who stood up for the lower classes. And I admired that about her. Thomas Andrew was the architect of the Titanic. 2,224 people were on board and the boat sank within two hours and 40 minutes. 1,500 people died making it the deadliest peacetime maritime disaster ever in history. Right? And that's why there's been so many extraordinary books, yours being, I think, the most recent and one of the most extraordinary. There were at least six warnings of sea ice on the 14th of April and the ship was traveling at 22 knots. You do an extraordinary job taking the reader from the events on the evening of April 14th through the ensuing realities of this tragedy. Talk to us about how writing this impacted you, because for me, you placed us all in that moment and you're writing so captures every detail in such a way that I was very so emotionally moved. I mean, chills and weeping. This must have been a deeply emotional book for you to write. Well, it was. I mean, you know, one of the first books in Harry's mom gave me this book, The Girl Who Came Home, which is a book that begins. It's about a steward. It's not my steward. And I think it's based on a true story, but it begins right as they're boarding the Titanic. But I wanted people to get to know these characters before they got on the ship. So you can actually feel the loss. You can actually feel what's what's at stake for them. So the book starts out when Andrew and Florence are both young adults and they fall in love and they're a couple of with other people. They fall in love with other people. Thank you. Yeah, because he's in he's in England and she's in Boston first and then New York. And so you get to know them and you get to know their characters a little bit. And there are a lot of similarities between them. They both work for to help people. Florence works in the shelter houses in the inner city, making sure that women can read, especially immigrant women and prostitutes, making sure they have health coverage and sanitation and baths and and trying to get them legitimate jobs. And Andrew, of course, his whole life is about service. And where Bradley went to boarding school at St. George's School service was the most important thing you can do in life. And I stress that at the very end of the book. And so Florence was very much like that. And when she died in 1947, I think it was 47, she left money to several charities, including orphanages for for homeless children. And at the end of the book, you go you go back and you highlight a lot of the characters and what happened to them and what their lives were like and and when they died and how they died, which is so fascinating, you you take it from beginning to end, which I love. Now so much has been written about the Titanic and several movies have been made. Your book is one of deep and rich dialogue. It's almost a script. It's almost a script. And the descriptions are so vivid, colorful and masterfully drawn on every page. I definitely could see a your book Sheltering Angel as a movie. Do you see this? As I think somebody could take this book and turn it into a script quite easily. Well, let that be James Cameron, please. I don't know. I know. I can see I would I would love to see Ridley Scott or or who's the wonderful man who did the who did the new Pinocchio cartoon. I mean, I can see other. I mean, Cameron had his chance and he made he did the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio, right? What's interesting about James Cameron and I found research on this is that he still has all the models of the Titanic that were used in that movie. And the largest model, which was scaled, it was huge. The only place he could find to store it was in a huge warehouse in Italy. It's still there. And then some of the smaller models that that he used for for filming are in warehouses in California. So why would he hold on to these unless he was thinking maybe he'd find a use for them again? Oh, maybe maybe a number two. But I found that the Leonardo DiCaprio movie, there was something. I mean, I was not a big fan of that movie. I I see your your book as being very easily to script and turn into a into a powerful film. And so anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I as a person who's you know, been in a movie making, I think somebody should look into that. Now, your book Sheltering Angel is a love story. It's a testimony to friendship, courage, endurance, class struggle, female bonding, unearthly loss and sorrow. And it touches on all of our human senses. Andrew Cunningham is the steward on the ship who befriends Florie Cummings. I believe I believe she is his sheltering angel. But then maybe Andrew is her sheltering angel. Where do we land on this, Ellie? I you know, I want to shoot that question back to you actually, because I came across the quote, which begins the book about the the Celtic blessing about the sheltering angel. And then the sheltering angel appears to Andrew while he's in the water. And he's losing his energy and he's starting to feel numb. And then he hears that blessing. And he takes off and starts swimming, not only is he swimming, but he's dragging his mate Sid with him. And Sid, of course, is pulled into the lifeboat as well. So, you know, I'd like to leave that interpretation about who was sheltering whom up to the reader. I think we need to leave some space for the reader to enter, you know, those those book groups to say who they thought was the sheltering angel. Well, I believe they both were. I think they both were one in the same. They were both the angel that somehow took the two of them and brought their souls together because she certainly he would not have lived without her. And I don't think he would have lived without him. And I love the fact that they continued to see each other, not in a love relationship. Although in today's world, who knows if either one of them had not been married, they might have ended up, you know, being married and having a family together. But back in those days, that didn't happen because of class. But I think that they both sheltered each other in a way that helped them to survive. And they saw each other going forward any time he was in New York and saw her, which that friendship endured. And so it's so beautiful and it's so rich. And so I would just say one thing about that. And this may be the fault of my writing, but a lot of people didn't get that at the very end when Andrew says goodbye to Flory, he says the same words that Bradley said to her. And he feels a familiarity. He uses her pet name, Flory, with her. And my idea was that he is channeling her husband coming through Andrew to get back to his wife. And I guess I didn't make that clear enough because a lot of people didn't get that. But to me, that was one of the reasons that that Florence and Andrew remained friends because, you know, and the other thing that's amazing about this, and that I think I think I also mentioned in the book is that Andrew's clan, Scottish clan, and Bradley's ancient Scottish clan of his ancestors were, they were friends and allies against Robert the Bruce. And there's another book I have to write. But because they were actually there's a sheaf of wheat on each of their shields to represent the close friendship between them. So one of my ideas that I probably could have emphasized a little better is that Bradley coming through Andrew to get back to the woman he most loved in his life. Yeah, I didn't get that. What I got was that in that moment of him going to her house and meeting the boys that he felt now that the class distinction had gone away, that what they had been through had made them equals and he was no longer her steward. He was a man who who held great love and affection for her. And so he he then said, flory, you know, my darling. And I mean, it was and I just felt that he finally felt that he had the liberty because even and he was, you know, he had a beautiful marriage, you know, 40 year marriage and, you know, with his wife and everything. But I think there was this love connection between them, even from the very beginning when they met, just it could have been a soul connection. And that then when he shows up in New York, and he's invited into her house that it all just they just they just give it all up. And he's showing his his affection for her. But I'll go I'll go with, you know, her husband spirit coming through him. But I just want to tell you, to my viewers out there, Luella Bryant has written an extraordinary book. And you can get it in all of your and all the local bookstores. You can get it online too. But, you know, support our local bookstores. And Ellie, until we meet again, thank you for giving the world this book. And I do hope it's made into a movie because I think it's richer and more deeply profoundly important than and it goes back to the 1930 Clifton Web story, which was so powerful. And I think that we need another story about the Titanic that has that kind of depth and beauty. So I hope someday this is made into a movie, my friend. Thank you so much for your time, Ellie. Thank you, Melinda. It's always a pleasure. It's always a pleasure to see you. And to my viewers, I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving. And I'm wishing you a happy holiday. And I will see you shortly. Take care, everybody.