About Us
About The Author
My name is Gerald Francis Ames Galuza. I go by Gerry most of the time. My father’s father’s name was Jerry Galuza and my mother’s father’s name was Francis Ames. My mother’s people were from the British Isles but Ames is mostly from Scotland. On her side she goes back to the Mayflower with her heritage. On my father’s side it is Lithuanian, Polish, and Russian. I know less about my mother’s people then my father’s. This story is a true story about my father’s mother Melvina Maximovich as a girl in 1892 in the village of Vilnius, which is now the capital of Lithuania. I grew up on a small family farm on the inner bays of the Atlantic Ocean in Woolwich, Maine. When I was young, my family would collect clams, crabs, lobsters, and many different kinds of fish. I also learned to hunt and trap land animals. I was born in 1951 and had four older sisters. My mother gave my father the boy that he wanted, I think. My sister Yvonne closest in age to me and we have been the best of friends for 73 years. 67 My father was a professional lumberjack. He was born in Mexico, Maine in 1916. My mother was born in Skowhegan, Maine in 1921. I was taught how to be a small-time farmer and professional logger. At 3 years old, my father took me into his blacksmith shop. He was working on some logging and horse equipment. I had been fighting with some of my sisters so mom said to him, “Why don’t you take him with you for a while?”
In the shop he said to me while he was working, “Turn that handle onthat blower for me.” It was a very hard job for a 3-year-old. I was a very big boy. I fell in love with the fire and the pounding on the anvil that day. As I got older and was outside playing, I would sneak into the small blacksmith shop, get dad’s hammer, and start pounding on the anvil in secret, or so I thought. When I would get a good tune started someone would stick their head out of the kitchen door and yell, “Gerry, you get out of the blacksmith shop and stop hitting that anvil, you hear me!” So, I would sneak off until my next opportunity. The opportunity came and I made a lifetime career 68 out of it. I worked in the Bath Iron Works as a ship builder in Bath, Maine. I became a professional welder. It helped in my blacksmith shop. My wife and I worked on a lot of big sailing ships. Some went around the world. The first one was the Mayflower in Plymouth, Massachusetts. We also did a lot of architectural work that was made from iron or steel. It was referred to as wrought iron which means it was hammered. We had a small art gallery for a while but the location was not good. It lasted for about five years but when the economy took a dive we closed it for good. I had a lot of art that was left over. We also had other people’s art as well. My education was deplorable. In the sixth grade, I quit school. In eighth grade a seventh grader taught me how to read properly. Since he was helping me and we were talking, I got him in trouble almost every day. Brian and I would get slapped on both sides of our face and were told we had to stay after school. He would sit there with his hands folded and was always praying and crying. I had hardened my heart from years of abuse from the school system. I would not cry for anyone at all. When the teacher 69 used to walk away I would pick up my book and start reading. When I would come to a word that I did not know I would reach over and tap Brian on his shoulder and put the book over to him with my finger pointing at the word. The he would tell me what the word was. I never asked him if it was okay or not! But my friend never refused me his help. He would tell me about every book that he was reading. So, even though I knew the story I read every book that he read. One day, I walked over to the bookshelf and picked out a book of my own for the first time in my life. Since that day I have read millions of words. That’s what got me through high school! I have wanted to write stories for a very long time. What held me back was my spelling. My wife tried getting me a spell-checker but that did not work for me. Then I got a cellphone with spell-checker which did the trick for me. So, with the phone in my left hand and a pencil in my right, my journey began! Since then I started writing my true short stories. I started writing earnestly about 70 five years ago. I feel compelled to write the stories down. A lot of them are about my family. In 73 years, I have done a lot of different things. I have worked as a blacksmith, welder, fabricator, machinist, truck driver, heavy equipment operator, sawyer at a sawmill, millwright, carpenter, farmer, horse breeder of Belgians and Percherons, teamster, farrier, wheelwright, artist working with steel, wood, copper, brass, ivory, antlers, bone, and scrimshaw jewelry-making, and a lot more! One of the best things I ever did was marry my wife Beverlyann. We are now working on 48 years together.
