Monday, October 10, 2011
Louis A. Brennan: A Life in Full Color
BIOGRAPHY
How does one begin to recreate the life of a polymath
and many-sided friend? Once his was a household name recognized by newspaper
readers in Ossining , Croton and
Cortlandt. Today he lives on in the memories of those who knew and loved him.
But our numbers are legion.
There were several Lou Brennans. One was the author
who could create stories that laid bare the secrets of small town life or
explore the culture patterns of the Iroquois in novels.
Another was the self-taught archaeologist and teacher
who could make the past come alive for a classroom of students, for readers of
his nonfiction books or for an enraptured audience at a Rotary meeting.
Still another was the dedicated journalist who
reported on local affairs and activities without fear or favor, a fierce
fighter for principle no matter whose ox was gored. Louis Arthur Brennan, the
oldest of the five children of Edward Brennan and Gertrude Sherer Brennan was
born in Portsmouth , Ohio
It would have been difficult for a youth growing up in
the valleys of the Ohio and Scioto
rivers to remain unaware of abundant reminders of Ohio
Known as mound builders, and generally agreed among
archaeologists to have been early American Indians, they left behind countless
earthworks as forts and mounds.
Young Louis became fascinated with the mysterious
mound builders and with their descendants, the Miamis , Shawnees Ohio
After attending Holy Redeemer elementary school and
high school, he left for South Bend , Indiana , and Notre Dame University
Another honor came his way that same year. Anthologist
Edward J. O'Brien selected Lou's short story "Poisoner in Motley" for
inclusion in his annual short story collection, Best Short Stories of
1932.
Twenty-one-year-old Louis Brennan was now in
distinguished company. Among the works of the 25 authors represented was
William Faulkner's "Smoke" and Morley Callaghan's "The Red
Hat." Other well-known names included in that year's collection were Whit
Burnett, Erskine Caldwell and Manuel Komroff.
In 1932, the country was in the throes of the Great
Depression, and work of any kind was hard to find especially for an English
major. Bread lines were common, and homeless veterans sold apples for five
cents on street corners. Evictions were an everyday occurrence that left
families huddled forlornly on the street amid their possessions. Lou took what
jobs he could find. InCincinnati , Ohio Cincinnati
Lou Brennan married his childhood sweetheart, Margaret
Pirron of Portsmouth , in the chapel
of Notre Dame University
In the early 20th century, the river that had brought
commerce to Portsmouth Portsmouth constructed
a mammoth floodwall of reinforced concrete extending three miles along
the Ohio River and raised it in
stages to control a 62-foot stage of the river.
This should have been high enough--but the flood that
inundated the Ohio and Mississippi
A War Intervenes
When this country entered World War II, he joined the Navy, rising to
the rank of lieutenant and commanding a gunboat in the Pacific. After the
costly 1943 landings at Tarawa showed
the need for close fire support for troops on beachheads, the Navy designed the
LCS(L)-class gunboat. In Navy parlance, the letters stood for Landing
Craft-Support (Large).
Displacing 383 tons, with a length of 158 feet and
draft of about six feet of water, these ships provided close fire support
during assault landings. They bristled with weapons--naval guns, rockets and
machine guns. The most heavily armed vessels in the war, they boasted more
firepower per ton than any ship in the U.S. Navy.
Leading all other landing craft in an assault, they
attacked the beach in a line, firing rocket barrages at 1,000, 800 and 500
yards. Next they opened up with their 3-inch bow guns. A few hundred yards off
the beach, they turned and ran broadside, remaining close to the shore to give
withering fire support to the troops pouring ashore from infantry and tank
landing craft.
At Okinawa they
had additional duties, screening vessels at anchor from suicide boat attacks
and intercepting kamikaze planes targeting ships on radar picket duty. Because
they carried excellent fire fighting equipment, these highly maneuverable
gunboats could aid other ships damaged by enemy action.
Separated from the Navy after the war with a Bronze
Star for valor, Lou Brennan returned to the Portsmouth
Unsuccessful at getting his work published, he took
the advice of his literary agent who suggested that he "get off the farm
and do some serious writing." At the urging of his brother-in-law, Frank
Nulty, who lived in Ossining and
with whom he had roomed at Notre Dame, he headed east with wife and daughter.
To be near the New York publishing
scene, the family bought a house on Hamilton Avenue Ossining in
1948.
Journalism and a Literary Career
Lou became editor of the New Castle News, published in Chappaqua,
the following year. Only one copy of that tabloid-size weekly survives in the
archives of the Chappaqua Historical Society: Volume 6, Number 6, dated
December 1, 1950. Leverett S. Gleason, a highly successful publisher of comic
books, was the publisher of the newspaper. This issue contains 20 pages and
sold for five cents. The front and back pages are on heavier glossy stock and
the inside pages are on ordinary newsprint.
Lou Brennan desperately wanted to become a published
author, continuing to write in his spare time. In 1953, Random House published
his first novel. Titled These Items of Desire, its setting was
the small city of Riverside , Ohio --a thinly disguised Portsmouth
Reviewer M.P. McKay in Library Journal
identified it as a first novel, calling the characters "well drawn"
and the story "well told," thus assuring that the book would be
bought by librarians.
In the New York Herald Tribune Book Review, F.H.
Bullock remarked, "The materials of These Items of Desire, if
generally on the sordid side, are unfailingly interesting and human."
Writing in The New York Times Book
Review, reviewer James Kelly was unstinting in his praise: "Lavish is
the word for Louis A. Brennan's first novel. He has ransacked a full cupboard
to bring us this high-fidelity tale of love and life in a medium sized Ohio Winesburg , Ohio
After the New Castle News folded in
late 1952, Lou Brennan occupied himself with writing, and completed three
novels. The 1953 reviewer's prediction about a second novel proved true in 1955
with Masque of Virtue, also set in mythical Riverside , Ohio
Two other novels followed More Than Flesh in
1957 and Death at Flood Tide in 1958. The latter was a murder
mystery in which the Portsmouth
In 1957, he landed a job as a reporter on the Croton-Cortlandt
News. Founded in 1894 as the Croton Journal and later
named the Croton-Harmon News, the paper was purchased
impulsively in 1952 by Albert Granovsky, a successful manufacturer of furniture
and bedding. Mr. Granovsky, who immediately listed himself on the masthead as
editor and publisher, was a person of impressive accomplishments.
Born in Fall
River , Massachusetts New York City
In 1923, he started his own bedding and furniture
factory, and developed and gave the name to the studio couch and sofa bed. Joan
Yanowitch, one of Mr. Granovsky's two daughters, now living in Scarsdale Ossining .
He called the family together and said, 'I just sold my business and bought a
newspaper!'" The paper's name was soon changed to the Croton-Cortlandt
News to reflect its broader news coverage.
In Lou Brennan, the fledgling publisher had found a
seasoned professional journalist who put his stamp on the paper and made it
lively. His reportorial beat was the village of Croton and the town of Cortlandt , with occasional forays into the affairs
of Ossining when journalistically
appropriate. He was tireless in his coverage of town and village
meetings, including those of the often-overlooked planning boards and zoning
boards. Nothing happened locally that escaped his notice.
Although Lou Brennan was nominally a reporter, his
name did not appear on the masthead for many years. Bylines were not used, yet
his vast contributions to each issue are evident in news stories and editorials
written in his characteristic style.
He had many admirers among newspaper readers for his
relentless coverage of local affairs and pursuit of the truth. These same
qualities annoyed others who preferred to remain outside the harsh spotlight of
a Lou Brennan story. During his tenure, the Croton-Cortlandt News won
many awards in various categories from the New York Press Association.
The paper sold for ten cents and appeared every
Thursday. Of a page-size called "broadsheet," it was printed on a
flatbed press at the County Press Riverside Avenue
The change turned out to be a mixed blessing. Although
through traffic bypassed Croton, the new highway effectively gutted and
destroyed Croton's commercial center known as the "Lower Village
Archaeology
Besides his work as a journalist and novelist, Lou Brennan continued
his interest in archaeology, conducting "digs" at local Indian sites
his practiced eye spotted easily. In 1956, he published his first
archaeological report, "Two Possible Coeval Lamokoid Sites near Ossining ." Over the next 26 years, 53 other
meticulous articles of professional quality would be published.
His first popular book about archaeology, No
Stone Unturned: An Almanac of American Pre-history, appeared in 1959.
In it, Lou Brennan undertook to demolish the once-standard belief that man was
a very late comer to the Americas --Mongolian
offshoots who traveled via the Aleutians and
arrived here in much the same condition in which the first European arrivals
found them.
Supported by new carbon-dating techniques, the Brennan
thesis was that man indeed had crossed by the Aleutian chain, but early enough
to hunt mammoths and avoid the short-faced bear. Any accomplishments in
weapons, pottery and weaving were of local invention and occurred on this
continent as early as anywhere else.
Writing in The New York Times Book
Review, George Gaylord Simpson, a respected paleontologist, recorded,
"Brennan's book on prehistoric man in America
British archaeologist Ronald Jessup's review in The
Saturday Review of Literature commented, "It is far from easy
reading despite touches of dry humor, but it is well worth the effort.
Brennan's theories are carefully presented, though the diffusion-by-migration
experts will not like him at all. But, as the author rightly says, archaeology
is not a case of mere argument. We dig to look and learn."
In 1959, Lou Brennan assumed the unpaid editorship of
the New York State Archaeological Bulletin, transforming
it from a mimeographed newsletter into a respected scientific journal. He would
continue as editor until the day he died. In those 24 years, he produced three
issues a year without missing a single deadline.
Teaching
In 1962, Lou Brennan began teaching archaeology at Briarcliff College Pace University
Later renamed the Museum and Laboratory for
Archaeology (MALFA), the Center moved to the restored Hopkins mansion
at Muscoot Park Nature Center
To fill a gap in the literature of archaeology for
young adults, Lou Brennan wrote The Buried Treasure of
Archaeology, which appeared in 1964. Praising it in The New
York Times Book Review, E.B. Garside wrote, "Though designed
mainly for young people this book can be read with enjoyment and profit by
adults." Enthusiastic' best describes Mr. Brennan's evocations. The
author, having a genuine passion for his subject, is able, to a considerable
degree, to humanize his remote peoples. A book of solid quality." He
called it "a survey of the key historic finds written with a force and
assurance out of a fund of knowledge."
Lou Brennan was named editorial chairman of the Bulletin
of the Eastern States Archaeological Federation in 1969. It bothered
him that the organization had no professional journal to match the quality
of American Antiquity. Published by the Society for American
Archaeology, the publication tended to favor the American Southwest, Mexico and Central
America . Four years later, the first issue of Archaeology
of Eastern North America, or AENA, appeared
under his editorship. He was working on the eleventh annual issue when he died
in his sleep during the night of March 17, 1983, at the age of 72.
He was survived by his wife, Margaret
("Peg," to her friends), a daughter, Ann Calam, of Cortlandt, two
sons, Edward, of Gardiner, N.Y., and Matthew, of Ridgefield , Conn.
Archaeological societies have not forgotten him. In
1984, the Lower Hudson Chapter of the New York State Archaeological Association
honored him by changing its name to the Louis A. Brennan Lower Hudson Chapter.
In 1998, the Eastern States Archaeological Federation created the Louis A.
Brennan Publications Award, a monetary grant for publishing special reports,
monographs or journals in archaeology. When the award program was announced,
one member remarked, "Lou really saved ESAF by setting up AENA."
Editor's note: This is the first of a two-part series
on Lou Brennan.
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