Returning an Overdue Book

During Christmas break 2005, I visited my favorite thrift store near my in-laws in Southern California. What I discovered was a treasure that meant as much as any gift I’d received beneath the tree.

There on a dusty bookshelf was a slender antique volume entitled “Nearer My God to Thee.” That old hymn reminded me of the Titanic’s tragic voyage. As you may have read, while the famous ship was sinking, the band remained on deck playing that poignant melody.

I opened the fly leaf of the book and noticed a handwritten inscription. The beautiful script acknowledged the 8th birthday of Francis Griset and the date of his birth. July 14, 1911. It was signed by one of Francis’ grandmothers. Because I was already thinking of the Titanic, it struck me that this young boy was born just nine months before the infamous vessel struck an iceberg on April 14, 1912. As I held the book and focused on the personal inscription, I felt as if I had found buried treasure. And to top it off, my find was only 99 cents.

For the past nineteen years that little treasure has been a valued part of my collection of Titanic memorabilia that includes a plastic model of the ship and several books that document the disaster. I have displayed the book as an illustration whenever I have preached one of my favorite sermons: “Spiritual Lessons from a Sinking Ship.” In a newspaper column I wrote three months ago referring to the Titanic, I referenced my antique book including a photo.

Upon my return to the States from three months in Switzerland, I was retrieving a boatload of voicemails on my landline. One message stopped me in my tracks. It was from a man by the name of Jim Griset. His brief message indicated that someone had sent him one of my newspaper columns. He went on to say that it was an article about a book I’d found in a thrift store inscribed to a Francis Griset. In his recorded message he informed me that Francis was his father. I was stunned.

Returning his call, I thanked Jim for reaching out to me. He told me about his dad who had died in 2005. Upon asking more about his father, I discovered that Francis was only nine months old when his twenty-four year old mother died (ironically on the same day the Titanic went down).

Jim told me it was Francis’ maternal grandmother who inscribed the book to him on his eighth birthday. Quite conceivably she gave the boy the book because of what it represented. It’s quite possible the hymn and the book were meaningful to her because of its connection to the Titanic story. After all, she lost her daughter (Francis’ mother) to death on the same day 1,500 lives were lost in the North Atlantic.

In our conversation I was fascinated to learn that Jim’s father and my wife’s parents (although they never met) lived in the same community and both attended Presbyterians churches. I told Jim that my in-laws were career missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators started by William Cameron Townsend. He told me that his dad was actually related to the Townsend family. Another small world connection!

Jim related to me that as his dad grew older, he would often play hymns for his father on the piano. Ironically it was the very piano given to Francis’ mother before he was born by the same grandmother who gave him the book. Jim told me his dad loved it when he played “Nearer My God to Thee.”  What he’d received as a child had taken root deep in his young heart. And for good reason.

As Jim continued to share information about his dad, something else dawned on me. Francis received the book from his grandmother in the summer of 1919 during the Spanish Flu pandemic when people were dying throughout the nation. That beloved hymn must have offered comfort to young Francis just as they had to the grieving woman who had given the book to him.

When Jim and I finished our conversation, it was clear what I had to do. With joy I mailed the book to its rightful owner.