Dinner Origins
The basis of the following illustrated short story is true-life events of the ship named Ruth Palmer (1875-1894) built in Dorchester, New Brunswick, Canada. Honestly this book started out as a bit of idle conversation at ‘Sunday Dinner’. I surmised that I could find a ship story for almost any name. We knew the neighbors at the lake might have shipbuilding ancestors so I selected their last name to conduct a search for a possible ship. Sure enough, there was a ship called the Palmer, in fact there were several ships called Palmer. So, I researched each and then selected one to write-up a short illustrated history.

Specially Included...
For the sake of the neighbors, I tried to make sure there were aspects of story to appeal to all of them. There are some conspicuous baseball references in the story for Kim Palmer’s sake, there is a childhood hero in the story for Morgan, Rylee and Madison. Garth...I really did try to find some fire onboard the Ruth Palmer, but it just wasn’t in the cards. I guess they always practiced good fire safety. If its any consolation there was the fire incident in the warehouses after they unloaded the cargo of the steamship Lady Palmer.

Note About the Story
I deliberately depicted the barque Ruth Palmer with four sails per mast rather than five as a reminder that this is a representation of her ship story. Some details such as her haunting by the Bonnie Ives and the connection to the other Ruth Palmers may just be coincidences, but for the sake of the story, I have connected these true-life events together into one coherent saga.