Abstract:
On a frigid February night in 1946, five-year-old Mary Creel, with her mother Lindy and two older siblings, welcomes her father home from the United States Navy. With the war’s end in September, 1945, Bud Creel narrowly escapes combat, but returns to his impoverished West Virginia farm to war with grief, guilt and alcoholism when his wife and two infant sons succumb to tuberculosis. Lindy’s favorite saying, “Someday our ship will come in,” shores Mary’s hope during Bud’s incapacitation. Institutionalized four years, Bud finally sails into safe port, returning first to God, then to his grateful family.