Ann Wilson - Kicking & Dreaming: A Story of Heart, Soul, and Rock & Roll

The secret family history of kidnapping, scalping, and revenge killing, and those pesky, annoying, irrelevant Women who Rock questions....

NANCY WILSON

In the four decades that Ann and I have been in music, weve been asked countless times what its like to be a woman in rock. This question is asked in virtually every interview we do, by men and by women. We sit politely and try to come up with an answer we hope will encourage others. But what I really want to do is scream questions in reply, like Whats it like to be a human being in rock? Whats it like to be a human being on the planet?

In forty years, weve never come up with the perfect answer to the woman in rock question or the other common question: Why did you first think women could rock? We have no perfect answer for the simple reason that we never thought gender was a barrier to picking up guitars. We started playing because we loved music. If we would have known how difficult it would be to be women fronting a band, it might have stopped us. But probably we would have done it anyway.

Yet there is a secret chapter in our family history that might explain our urge to fight against the norm, so to speak. The story itself is in American history textbooks, but our connection to it has never been revealed. It has long been part of our family lore, passed down to us. Ive since passed the story on to my children, as has Ann, and my other sister Lynn. It is a story of murder, kidnapping, and revenge, with enough gruesome details to make any Behind the Music episode look tame. So imagine an alternative world, where Ann and I are sitting down with an interviewer who asks: Why did you think you could be a woman in rock?

Our answer: Because we are descended from a notorious woman who murdered men with a hatchet, scalped them, and later sold their scalps for a reward.

My bad joke inside the Heart tour bus has long been that I am not the first family member to slay people with an axe. The original axe slayer was Hannah Dustin, our great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother. Dustin was our mothers maiden name.

I first heard Hannahs tale from my mother when I was five. Before I picked up a guitar, I must have heard the story a hundred times. Family gatherings were always important to the Dustins, and the tale would have slightly different shading whether an aunt, or uncle, or my mom was telling it. The basic framework was always the same, though, and always horrific and shocking. In some strange way, because Hannahs actions were so unexpected, and so rare for a woman, I always felt secretly proud of murderous Hannah.

Her infamy began in March 1697 in Haverhill, Massachusetts, not far from Salem. During King Williams War, French emissaries bribed the Abenaki tribe to attack an English settlement. Twenty-seven colonists were killed and thirteen taken hostage. Hannahs husband escaped with eight of their children, but she and her newborn daughter Martha were kidnapped. The hostages were marched toward Quebec. On the way the Indians killed six-day-old Martha by smashing her head against a tree. Hannah had to watch as her newborn was murdered in front of her.

Six weeks later, Hannah was still being held hostage on an island in the Merrimack River. One night while her captors slept, she loosened the rope used to tie her wrists, grabbed a tomahawk, and killed one of the men who was watching guard over her. Seeing Hannahs actions, another hostage killed the other guard. Hannah then used her bloody hatchet to kill two Indian women and six of their children.

Hannah and the hostages climbed into canoes and began to head down the river, away from the carnage. But before they went far, Hannah had second thoughtsthere was more venom in her. She went back to the island to scalp her victims. Holding the gory scalps, she climbed back into the canoe and escaped. It took her several days to reach Haverhill and her family.

Heres where the tale always really amazed me as a child: Once Hannah was back in civilization, she turned the scalps in for a reward. The Massachusetts General Court awarded her the princely sum of twenty-five pounds for the scalps. They paid her for her bloody act of murderous revenge.

I am not making this up.

Cotton Mather, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and others wrote about Hannahs story. In 1879, a bronze statute of Hannah was erected in Haverhill showing her holding a tomahawk and scalps. It is thought to be the first statue honoring a woman in the United States. In 1997, my sister Lynn and our mother traveled back to Haverhill to see Hannahs statue. Our mother was a voracious reader of history, and she really enjoyed this trip.

In 2008, I traveled there, too. I had my picture taken holding a guitar in the same pose as the statue of Hannah Dustin holding the axe. I went inside Hannahs house, which is now a museum. Some of the pictures of Hannah showed black cats in the corner. Because Hannahs acts were so outrageous, and so unusual for a woman, there has always been intrigue around her, and there have been suggestions that she was a witch. Some of the same things have been said about Ann and me!

Hannah had incredible pluck. There was a fire in Hannahs belly that we share. She went outside the norm of what people expected a woman to do. Ann was born with the same pluck, and Ive got a bit of it, as well. Ann and I have also gone out on adventures into the unknown, but weve used guitars not tomahawks. Weve tried to make ours a message of love, but sometimes there has been anger, and people have been wasted along the way. There are even chapters when revenge is part of the story.

At the museum in Haverhill, I bought a Hannah Dustin bobble head in the gift shop. I mentioned to the woman behind the counter that I was a descendant of Hannah. She leaned over, and whispered in my ear, What do you think really happened?

Its all true, I said. Every word is true.

ANN WILSON

Hannah Dustin was not the only warrior in our background. On the Wilson side, we come from a long line of Marine officers. Their service, honor, and valor are also part of our legacy. If Lynn, Nancy, or I had been male, the family would have expected us to join the Marine Corps, and we would have probably ended up in Vietnam.

Our grandfather, John Bushrod Wilson Sr., was a decorated brigadier general. His unit of Marines was the first U.S. force in Europe during World War II. In July 1941, they were sent to Iceland to prevent Hitler from establishing a U-boat base. He brought back heavy arctic sleeping bags that our mom made into quilts. We slept under those quilts growing up. General Wilson was later in the Pacific, where he fought in key battles in Guam, Bougainville, and Iwo Jima. He earned two Bronze Stars, and a Legion of Merit.

The general was married to Beatrice Lamoureaux. Nancys French middle name comes from that side of the family (we are also part Scottish, Celt, Irish, German, and Italian). Beatrices first child was James Phillip, who would eventually go into the Marines and become an officer.

Our father, John Bushrod Wilson Jr., was born at the naval shipyard hospital in Bremerton, Washington, on April 8, 1922. During my dads youth, the family traveled from post to post, and spent many years in Taiwan and the Philippines. Our dad was a peaceful soul and a gentle man. He grew to be six-foot-three and dashingly good-looking, and girls adored him. He was funny and smart, and he hoped to become a teacher. He never told me this, but my guess is that although he knew Marine service was expected of him, he probably hoped a war wouldnt be going on during his time in the family business.