Dave Wood

Years ago, my cousin Elsie sent me a copy of our genealogical past. First it seemed like a lot of folderol, with too many dates and funny names like Ezra and Ezekiel. But I kept at it, admiring Elsie’s work which required association with Mormons, who keep a record of everyone in the world with hopes of converting these lost souls. 

I found out that Mormons hadn’t succeeded in their bids for conversion and that William Wood came to the New World as real estate agent and published poems about some really good property deals. Who knew I was related to a real-life entrepreneur? And later I found out we were also descended from Mayflower ticket holders including one William Bradford, who would become Governor of Plymouth Colony.

Wowser! This sent Ruth and me to Massachusetts to visit the re-creation of the original colony, where actors, having researched the original pilgrims, speak in 17th century English dialect and knew enough about the characters they were portraying to answer almost any question we asked. It began to rain so we took shelter in William Bradford’s home which was smoke-filled, dirt-floored and tended to by two neighbor ladies, while Bradford was out trying to convert the natives. We asked about our ancestor, and the women said that he was very bossy and that Anglicans who came along with the Puritan majority were a lazy lot and refused to work on Sunday and actually celebrated something called “Christmas,” which isn’t even mentioned in the Bible. Disappointed, we bade them adieu and examined Bradford’s cornfield. His mature corn was barely three feet tall.

Before leaving, we chatted with a Native American actor who was playing Squanto and tending a modest fire, shoving hot embers bare-footed and mumbling about Whiteys.

So much for William Bradford, or so we thought, until last week when I jumped on the chance to watch a flick called “Plymouth Adventure,” figuring it might refer to my great-great-great-great-great uncle, William Bradford.

Sure enough, William was in this MGM flop and turned out to be played by British actor Leo Genn who ranks right up there alongside Sir Ralph Richardson often called “the single glass eye in the forehead of English acting.” Apparently, MGM’s new boss Dore Schary figured the real Pilgrim trip too boring, so he jazzed it up with SEX and miscasting. Like Van Johnson as “speak-for-yourself” John Alden, the aforementioned Leo Genn as Bradford’s wife Dorothy, that glorious sexpot Gene Tierney, she of the smoldering eyes and magnificent overbite.

Wisconsin’s Spencer Tracy does a creditable Mayflower captain, a drunken misfit, who calls Bradford “a dough-faced psalm-singer” then falls in love with Bradford’s wife, kisses her passionately on screen and only God knows what off-screen, obviously something of great import, because Dorothy feels so guilty she jumps into the Atlantic and drowns when Bradford is onshore recruiting Native Americans like Squanto to help the religious troupe put in their first corn crop. When he learns of the drowning, he forgives his dead wife and the ship captain, who casts aside his misanthropic views and resolves to join this earnest band of psalm-singers as soon as he returns the Mayflower to Southampton and begin his new life ashore. 

So I guess all’s well that ends well. As for me, I have ceased forever my search for the REAL William Bradford.   

Postscript to Dore Schary: According to Wikipedia, Dorothy didn’t jump into the Atlantic; she fell.