NORFOLK, VA - Lean cruising years with young children helped Waterway Guide News Editor Lisa Suhay build a deep understanding of gratitude which she drew on to create a new Thanksgiving children’s book that merges Virginia history with the importance of giving thanks.

The book, “America the Grateful. Where Thanksgiving really began,” may have only been released on Amazon last week, but its sentiment was many cruising years in the making.

Nearly 25 years ago a pregnant Lisa Suhay sat with her husband and first son, then just 10 months old, aboard their Columbia 38 yawl as they waited out a storm. Several other boats shared the cove to ride out a Thanksgiving tropical depression in the ICW off Jekyll Island, Georgia.

“We were cruising from Long Beach Island, New Jersey to Pine Island, Florida. Like several other cruisers, we thought we could beat the storm to port,” she says. “Instead we ended up formulating a plan with a group of total strangers to pool our resources and have a Thanksgiving smorgasbord that ranged from canned ham cooked on a grill to beer bread I made in the pressure cooker.”

When she was asked by a member of the Virginia Thanksgiving Festival to craft a children’s book to reclaim the First English-Speaking Thanksgiving for the State of Virginia as part of the run-up to the state’s 400th legislative anniversary in 2019, that long-ago Thanksgiving and the cruising spirit guided the story.

Suhay took on the dual roles of Author and Project Director for the book which is her 10th title. Because the First English-Speaking Thanksgiving didn’t include many of the iconic things we associate with the holiday today, the author chose to focus on the common threads of gratitude, community and freedom.

“We lived aboard for nearly six years, with two children,” she recalls. “There was never any money. Our community was diverse. We often fished for our suppers. One year the Christmas gifts for the boys all appeared on our deck in the morning because other boaters played Secret Santa. We are grateful to this day for that open, giving, spirit of the ICW cruising community.”

Thanksgiving Facts Rebooted

• It wasn’t in Plymouth, Mass. The first English-speaking Thanksgiving in the new world took place in Berkeley, Virginia.

• It wasn’t in November. Virginia’s Thanksgiving took place on December 4, 1619, nearly two years before the one at Plymouth, Mass. The Pilgrims celebrated a three-day harvest festival, an English tradition, from Sept. 21-Nov. 11, 1621.

• Turkey wasn’t on the table. They ate ham, oysters and anything they were able.

• No Native people were at the Virginia Thanksgiving ceremony which was first and foremost a religious ceremony to give thanks to God for safe passage to the New World.

The book was launched last week at the Virginia Thanksgiving Festival at Berkeley Plantation where over 5,000 visitors were in attendance. Illustrations are by Savyra Meyer-Lippold of Cape Town, South Africa.

The book is now available for $12 on Amazon as a soft cover and for $2.99 on Kindle for tablet and iPad.

American Humanities Scholar Clay Jenkinson wrote the Afterword for the book. Suhay will be a guest the Thomas Jefferson Hour (TJH) on Tuesday, November 20th to discuss the book. The program airs in Virginia at 1 p.m. on National Public Radio (NPR) in an episode entitled "Gratitude." Check the TJH website for other states.

Happy Thanksgiving.