Posted on

1926: Silent Valley

by

In 1926, Kerala India, Gladys and Ken finish their honeymoon hiking in Silent Valley. (How silent? Can screams still be heard?)

Photo by J. Kenneth Pearce of their group in Silent Valley with Gladys on the chair.

1926, Gladys Gose Pearce, Kerala India

Dear Diary,

Today we finished up our honeymoon with a trip to Silent Valley, where few white men and fewer women have ever been. There was no road. We had to hike in with our camping necessities carried on coolie’s heads.

NOTE: In this context nearly one hundred years ago, coolie meant laborer. I‘m aware this term is considered insensitive now in many countries. Since this is an excerpt from an actual diary from 1926, to alter it would be to alter historical context. Gladys and Ken simply went by terms they were told to use back then, and in their minds the term simply meant a hired laborer.

I had been looking forward to some needed exercise on this trip. But word had gone ahead that Ken, the Chief Engineer Sahib, was bringing his Memsahib, so when had we arrived at the end of the road to meet the coolies, we found that the Indian Ranger had arranged to have a chair provided to carry me. Two long bamboo poles had been lashed to an office chair and four husky coolies stood by.

“Imagine me in a chair!” I snorted to Ken. “I don’t need or want a chair!”

I, Laurie, must interrupt here to note that Gladys was very athletic –a former swimmer and basketball player, and a physical education teacher (and yes, that was unusual, even in America, in the early 1900s.) She was also a very independent woman, so felt no need to have others carry her.) Now, back to Gladys:

Ken told me, “The coolies are hired and I’ll have to pay for them anyway. We might as well take them, and use the chair for crossing streams. The ranger thought he was being considerate of you.”

The servants and peons we left behind bid us a rather anxious farewell because they thought going into Silent Valley wasn’t such a good idea. Only Freddy our butler accompanied us. Ken’s Shikaris (gun-bearers and trackers) led the way, followed by Ken, me on foot, chair coolies and porter coolies, all strung out single file.

As we climbed the steep trail, the sun grew hotter. Although Ken reduced his usual long stride to that of the rest of the party, I was hot and tired. I glanced back at the chair but pride forbade my mentioning that I no longer felt it to be useless. Ken seemed to have eyes in the back of his head. He called a halt and said casually, “You might as well use the chair.”

Such welcome words! I took my place on the seat. The coolies lifted the chair poles to their shoulders and set off at a steady gate. It was not unalloyed pleasure, however. One coolie seemed a little shorter than the others, so I felt at any time I might slip from the chair and down the precipice at the edge of the path. A shift of coolies made no difference, for the path itself sloped to the outside bank. Thus the coolies on that side were lower than the two on the inside near the bank.

From Laurie: This made me giggle a bit, imagining Gladys hanging on for dear life, when she was supposed to be resting!

A Respite on a Veranda

Once we reached the summit, I was delighted to walk again, then as we next hiked downhill the going was easy. The place where we’d stay that night was a welcome sight: a little square one-room house, perched up on four iron-wood posts. The stairs led to a diminutive serambai veranda where we sat to gaze across the valley. As we rested, Freddy brought us a refreshing drink of fresh green coconut milk.

But then… (creepy crawly warning!)

The next day I made the acquaintance of the most detested denizen of the jungle, the leech. Looking like a small animated rubber band, it crawls like an inchworm up your legs or through the eyelets of your shoes, seeking a spot where the vein lies just under the skin. You do not feel it bite the tiny triangular hole through which is sucks your blood. You’re not aware of its presence until the leech drops off, distended with blood to the size of your little finger, while the hole left behind continues to ooze. For days after, whenever you bathe, the bleeding starts again.

The Indian Forest Guard who accompanied us through the deep jungle carried a little bag of damp salt on the end of stick. Whenever he spied a leech he touched it with the salt so it curled up and dropped, yet while one was being routed, another would crawl on, undetected.

I asked, “Are the leeches always this bad?”

“Oh, no, Madam; in the dry season the ticks come.”

Posted on

Adventures in the Attic

by

How a vintage suitcase, overflowing with 1920s-1930s jungle honeymoon adventures, birthed a book.

This photo includes invitations from the Maharaja of Jaipur and The Governor & Viscountess Goschen; a love letter from Ken; and letters home to Walla Walla from Gladys in Port Blair, Andaman Islands.

UPDATE! This blog post led to a Mid Day News story on May 31, 2020, by Prutha Bhosle: American Author Traces Her Ancestors Love Story Through Letters ~ A North Carolina-based author relies on a trunk full of letters from 1920s India and Google Earth to reconstruct a love story of her ancestors for an upcoming book~ Mid Day is called “India’s most engaging newspaper” with a reported 25 million page views per month. How exciting is that?!

A Discovery of near-100-year-old Letters

My eyes adjusted to the dim walk-up attic, sun spilling through cracks between beams. I was surrounded by yet more to purge or make agonizing decisions about. But this time I was on a hunt for one battered, square, beige suitcase — about 1930s vintage. I spied it and dragged it into better light. Heavy.

I smiled at the name Winslow, scrawled in fancy letters in black marker. I’d written that myself, back when as a teen in the 70’s I thought that old suitcase “cool”. I’d claimed it to store my stuff, including an old peace-sign necklace and a mood ring. It had since been emptied, then refilled, several times. 

A stuck-on yellow note had Pearce Papers scribbled on it. I knew the suitcase was stuffed to the gills with musty documents given to Mom when her parents (Gladys Gose Pearce and J. Kenneth Pearce) passed away. However, I’d never looked at the papers closely.

A belt was wrapped tightly around the suitcase, which was fit to burst with a weak old lock. Sure enough, when I pulled hard to uncinch the belt, the lid popped open.

Poof. Dust flew out; I sneezed. My curiosity would have to duke it out with my allergies.

I pulled out handfuls of sepia-toned photos, faded newspaper articles, and certificates. I sneezed again.

Then I found a bundle of letters, tied with a string. The top one was postmarked 1926, from India. My heart beat a little faster.

It was addressed to Thomas and Mrs. Gose, Walla Walla, Wash, USA.  It struck me that that letter had traveled across the world to a small town where everyone seemed to know Thomas – no street address was needed, and no zip code.

It’s a little miraculous that the letters are in my attic. They had been moved from at least five different homes in three states before finally landing in my house, nearly a hundred years later. It’s a testament to the Pearce hoarding instincts, often criticized but in this moment appreciated.

I gently untied the string and pulled out that first letter. “Dear Mother and Father….”  And after reading a few paragraphs, I shouted, “There you are!”

By “you” I meant Gladys — her zip, her personality, her wit and humor.  Although she had graduated from high school way back in 1915, then college in 1919, I was instantly whisked back in time as I read her words.

I could now see her, hear her, as a young woman.

Jungle Honeymoon

Prior to finding the letters, I’d wrestled with something our family called ‘the book’: typed pages bound together with a black cover, which Gladys had titled Jungle Honeymoon. Gladys, an aspiring writer, had written it in midlife in the 1960s among other stories and poems. (In the 1990s she’d asked me to help her get published and be her co-author, but at that time I was still a budding writer myself.)

The settings in Jungle Honeymoon were fascinating. Gladys described the aristocracy of the British Raj era in the 1920s and 1930s, elephant-powered logging camps, and the convict colony in the Andaman Islands.  

And oh, the stories! One described how local villagers begged Grandpa Ken to shoot a tiger that had eaten their family members. I also read about that and other exciting tales in newspaper articles about the couple after they returned to America. (There are also archived documents at the University of Washington about Grandpa’s work in India.)

While growing up, I recall Grandma Gladys telling me stories over English Breakfast tea, poured from a flowered turquoise Chinese tea set, served British-style with sugar and cream. She and the teenage me wore silk Japanese kimonos she’d bought during her steamship travels. I remember trying to avoid dipping the giant square sleeves in my tea.

Later in life, armed with an enormous VHS camera, I videotaped Grandpa Ken describing how that tiger could have done him in: he’d only had one shot in his rifle. I’m glad he won — not the tiger, or I wouldn’t be here, nor my kids nor grand-babies.

Missing Pieces

One problem I found with Jungle Honeymoon is that the funny Gladys I knew was missing. In her attempt to write as she thought an author should, her words hadn’t revealed her personality adequately. Or perhaps her words were a bit stiff because too much time had passed since her immersion in her experiences. (She came home from India in 1933 and worked on Jungle Honeymoon in the 1960s.) Since her essays needed heavy editing, I considered turning them into a work of fiction based on real life, to get more personal voice back into the stories.

Hence, my discovery of her letters was monumental. There she was: real, raw, right in the midst of those experiences! Conversational, using contractions the way people actually talk. And not wasting an ounce of precious paper space on letters that would take weeks by steamship to get home to Mother. And I found more than just letters: wedding invitations from royalty and photos that now make the words in Gladys’ letters truly come alive. 

The Birth of a New Book

At long last, I found a way for Gladys and me to coauthor a book about her her experiences. In our final book (to be published soon) you will travel vicariously along with us, alternating between her perspective in the 1920s and ’30s and my own in 2020. Now nearly a century has passed since Gladys was a young woman in India, and in the meantime new technology allows us to dig deep and richly see what she experienced in a far more advanced way than we could have, had she and I partnered in this in the 1990s.

For example, with tools like Google Earth and YouTube, together we can all pretend we are in 1920s India. Research is literally at my fingertips. While reading about a royal wedding Gladys and Ken attended, within seconds I pulled up photos from that wedding via Google. I could visualize my grandparents there, in that very room in the photos. On YouTube I can listen to music they listened to, or watch a silent film seconds after reading a 1930s letter about a “new film” Gladys recommended her mother see.

To read more fun stories, click HERE or the Jungle Diaries tab!

To not miss future stories from Gladys’s century-old diaries, Subscribe to this blog via email or Follow via WordPress Reader (if you’re logged into WordPress).

ALSO, feel free to comment with any questions or thoughts these posts provoke, and I’ll try to respond. I’d love to hear your thoughts! Let me know what country you are from, and if you also have a blog.

I hope you’ll enjoy on this blog my excerpts from some of the 100+ funny, poignant and adventurous stories from the new book by me and Gladys. You can begin with reading One Less Crocodile, 1923: Ken in the Raj, A Naughty Baby Elephant, and 1929: New Motherhood in Ooty.

Laurie

P.S. I hope you’ll join me at my Facebook Page, Laurie Winslow Sargent, Author for Readers, Writers, and the Eternally Curious to share your own thoughts about stories in vintage family memorabilia.

Posted on

1929: New Motherhood in Ooty

by

In 1929, expat Gladys sent this sweet note on motherhood from Ooty, South India to her mother in Walla Walla, Washington.

Baby in a teddy bear suit.
Photo by Brytny.com on Unsplash

Today, I (Laurie) in 2020 had the delight of Skyping with my daughter and grand-babies. In this modern age of motherhood and grandmotherhood, I can see them instantly. I can even capture video or screenshots of them while we video-chat! My oldest granddaughter, 2 1/2 years old, is so accustomed to this she is mystified when we have a regular phone call. “Grandmama? Grandmama? I can’t see you!”

But nearly a century ago, news from Gladys to her mother about her babies took ages to arrive. Letters and photos traveled via very long, slow steamships from India to America.

She and her husband Ken, a forestry expert from Seattle, were living at Ootacamund Hill Station among British officers (and occasional royalty) during the British Raj era.

Gladys, who loved to write, used sweet prose to describe her newborn:

Braemar, Ootacamund Hill Station

7 May, 1929

Dear Mother and Dad,

I’ve just tucked Pamela, now seven weeks old, in her little bed. She is a fascinating little miss. The last I saw, she had both little hands flying back and forth and she was agoo-ing for all she was worth. Not a whimper when I left and the light went off. Her little bed is alongside ours so I know what she is doing. 

She is getting so plump — little dimples in her elbows and back and one below her little mouth at one corner. The other day, three children came to see her and she cooed and “talked” to them in the cunningest way I’ve ever seen. Babies seem to speak to other children in a language we do not understand.

Pamela as yet refuses to let us know what color her hair is, and whether it is to be straight or curly. Her first hair was brown and decidedly straight. Now her little head is covered with a fine down that at times looks yellow and at other times brown with auburn lights.

She has very keen eyes. When she awakens they just shine and she reminds me of a little bird. Her mouth is an adorable rosebud and she is just finding her tongue and loves making gurgling noises, and then looks so surprised and delighted. She is now placing the direction from which sounds come, like approaching footsteps. Most gratifying of all, she knows me.

The monsoon has come early. We have heavy rain every afternoon and evening. Tonight it simply pelted down. There was some hail in it. 

There are beautiful walks out from Braemar. Now the rain has settled the dust, it is nicer than ever. Sunday home mail brought by the last ship was a tremendous success: I got 11 letters. I scarcely know where to begin answering them.

I am knitting a pull-on teddy bear suit for baby for travel. Pamela sends a kiss to each of her grandparents, and says tell you she will be coming home to you soon for home leave. I also send love and much of it.

Your daughter, Gladys

From Laurie: Isn’t it funny that teddy bear outfits are still considered cute on babies? My own grand-babies have a few sweater hoods with bear ears!

Posted on

Quiz: Your Child’s Got Personality!

by

Here’s a fun little quiz to help you appreciate your child’s strongest personality traits. (Excerpt from: Delight in Your Child’s Design)

Delight in Your Child's Design book cover image

Today, in honor of Mother’s Day, I’m momentarily departing from my current history/writing blogging themes. As a parenting author too, it’s hard to resist sharing this previously published book of mine, with its gorgeous cover created by Kendall Roderick. Because of course, all books are labors of love! They are our other “babies”.

I promise that with my next posts, I’ll get back to Gladys and her 1920s jungle adventures, with more stories like One Less Crocodile, A Naughty Baby Elephant and 1923: Ken in the Raj. But if you are a parent or grandparent, you may find this fun:

Regarding your child’s character traits, do you ever wonder: “Why does my child act this way?”

In some ways, determining your child’s personality is an inexact science. She is likely a blend of more than one personality type, and a child’s relationships and experiences also influence behavior.

This fun little quiz, written by Kim Miller (one of my superb former editors at Tyndale), was originally posted at my Parenting by Faith site. It has nine questions — after question 2, click Read More to see the rest of the quiz.

By answering these questions, can you can discern a pattern in your child’s behavior? That may help you understand and identify some of his or her strongest personality traits:

1. You can truthfully say, “I’d be a millionaire if only I could bottle and sell my child’s . . .”

a. optimism.
b. persistence.
c. kindness.
d. confidence.

2. Your son keeps you up until 2 a.m. the night before his school’s science fair because:

a. though he’s been talking for days about his great plans, he casually mentions over dinner that he hasn’t actually started his project yet.
b. he refuses to go to bed until you help him make sure that each planet in his model of the solar system is exactly to scale.
c. he spent so much time helping his best friend finish his project that he’s starting his own late.
d. he’s willing to sacrifice sleep in order to be sure his complicated and innovative project is better than anyone else’s—and will win the blue ribbon.

3. When you take your daughter to her first overnight camp, you are impressed because she:

a. charms her counselor and makes five new friends before she’s unpacked her bags.
b. completes all five levels of the Red Cross swimming safety course in just one week.
c. is able to restore peace to her cabin after one camper unfairly accuses another of swiping a CD.
d. organizes and emcees the final night’s camper talent show.

4. Your daughter comes home from school crying because:

a. a boy drew laughs after school by mimicking her enthusiastic cheering during the previous day’s football game.
b. despite carefully following all her teacher’s detailed directions, she received a C on her art project.
c. she watched another child being mercilessly teased on the bus ride home and was unable to stop the bullies from picking on that classmate.
d. she lost her class’s election for a seat on the student council.

5. When your child’s teacher tells you how much she enjoys having your son in class, it is most likely because:

a. he’s creative, cheerful, and comes up with great new ideas.
b. he doesn’t quit but keeps working on a project until it’s done right.
c. he listens calmly and intently in class and does everything he can to please his teachers.
d. he catches on to material quickly and enjoys teaching other kids what he knows.

6. At age four, your child likes playing in the big sandbox at the park because:

a. it is the best place to find a new friend to play with or someone else to talk to.
b. he loves to use his forty-eight-piece sand-castle kit to build intricate buildings.
c. he can see you sitting on the nearby bench at all times and knows you’ll step in to help if an older child tries to steal his toys.
d. he has a captive audience and can tell everyone else what to build.

7. Your child’s excuse for not cleaning her room on Saturday morning is that:

a. she wants to tell you all about your neighbor’s new puppy first.
b. there’s nothing to clean. You walk in her room and find out she’s right—everything is already clean and neatly organized.
c. she’s unsure where to start.
d. she shouldn’t have to clean her room until you start cleaning the rest of the house.

8. When you ask your child whether he’d like to return to your family’s favorite vacation spot or take a sightseeing tour to New York City this summer, here is his reaction:

a. New York City! Maybe he’ll actually run into celebrities when your family walks down Broadway. In fact, maybe one of them will even invite him to a casting call!
b. He’d prefer to return to the same resort, where he knows the schedule and what to expect each day of the week.
c. He’d choose your family’s traditional spot; it holds warm memories for him.
d. He would pick New York City. It will be a new adventure, and he can already tell you the four sites your family must not miss.

9. Other people are always remarking on your child’s:

a. energy and enthusiasm.
b. attention to detail.
c. thoughtfulness.
d. leadership ability.

If you circled mostly a’s, your child is likely to be primarily interested in being with other people and having fun.

If you circled mostly b’s, your child is probably tends to focus most on getting things just right.

If you circled mostly c’s, your child most likely cares deeply about others’ feelings.

If you circled mostly d’s, your child probably most values adventure and being the leader.

Note: Many children have several characteristics from several of these types.

For loads of tips and ideas for encouraging a child’s positive personality traits and dealing with parent-child personality conflicts, check out the book Delight in Your Child’s Design.

Also, don’t forget to subscribe to Writing Tips and History Tidbits (subscriber form, top right) if you’re a fan of quirky, fun posts — including those history related — and enjoy creative nonfiction writing tips.

SPECIAL GIFT!

By the way, I’m offering something special to my readers to help celebrate Mother’s Day everyday in May. If you download the Kindle version of this book, I’d be pleased to mail you a signed first edition paperback (published by Tyndale/Focus on the Family) for free. (Free shipping to US addresses only.)

Use my Contact form here at CrossConnectMedia.com to send me your mailing address (or that of a mom friend or teacher) with details about your Kindle purchase. I can even gift wrap the paperback if you like.

Laurie Winslow Sargent