The Layered Life of Tok-Tokkie
About a Layered LifeTok or, its diminutive, Tokkie is the nickname by which I am known to my family. Tok-Tokkie is also Afrikaans for dung beetle. And since Tok has done a fair bit of emotional dung pushing in her 65 years, I thought it apt to introduce a little double entendre in the title of a book with stories from my life. I write about physical and emotional landscapes. I write about the places where I have lived and people I have met. I write about my role as daughter, mother, wife, teacher and writer. I write about the long road away from Calvinism and racism.
Some of these stories are posted in Bits & Pieces.
My verse forms a poetic infrastructure for many of my stories.
In March 2008 I received a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to complete the project.
Back to top... The ManuscriptThe Layered Life of Tok-Tokkie
Table of Contents:
Opening – a chronological summary of the eight major relocations which form the backdrop to the story of my life
To be Tok – growing up in Afrikaner South Africa of the 40’s and 50’s.
i – Being Benadé
ii – Skeletons and Sleeping Dogs
iii – Mimi and Bibi
iv – Life- the day they sentenced Nelson Mandela
v – Obama Bulbs for a Mandela Moment
Talking Tok – learning languages and communicating in the global village
i – A Personal History of Afrikaans
ii – Opening Doors
Teacher Tok – stories about my teaching career in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), England, Canada, Brazil, Pakistan, Indonesia and the US
i – What I thought I taught
ii – The accidental Teacher
Women’s World – tales about myself as a woman and my experiences with women and women’s issues in different cultures.
i – Vive la Canadienne – getting an Indian visa in Islamabad
ii – Local Girls and Foreign Boys – on loving and leaving
Traveling Tok – journalistic pieces about travels in Europe, North and South America, South and South-East Asia
i - Still Goan After all these Years
ii - Mysore, a primary Source
iii - To Hunza
iv - Basecamp Goegevonden
Postings – reflections on life in the diplomatic lane, including three evacuations from Pakistan
i - Packaged for Canada
Writing Tok – researching Kites of Good Fortune and Bluestocking.
i – Rags to Riches
ii - Tracking Bertha Stoneman
Textile Tok – on collecting and discovering the textiles of South and South East Asia
i – Textile Trip to Gujarat
ii – Textiles II to Cirebon
Total Wordcount: 61,370
Back to top... Posted Pieces
The following pieces from Layered Life have been posted in Bits& Pieces:
Opening - a cryptic chronology of my life
Still Goan after all these Years - meeting an aging hippie at the Anjuna craft fair
What I thought I taught - kids learn more than what is on the lesson plan
Being Benadé - how my grandmother’s Boer War stories shaped my early identity
To Hunza - an account of a visit to the Hunza and High Hunza in Pakistan
Vive la Canadienne - collecting an Indian visa in Islamabad
Life, not Death - the day they sentenced Nelson Mandela
Mimi and Bibi - a tale of adolescent friendship, the nature of God and betrayal
The Accidental Teacher - What I taught and learnt when I was seven
Obama Bulbs for a Mandela Moment - how I spent 4 November 2008
Recently I went to visit my old stamping ground, Hamilton, Ontario. My research for Bluestocking was done, I had told those who asked. But then I looked at the map and realized that to take in Lake Chautauqua in New York State would only mean a small detour on my way home to Ipswich, Massachusetts.
Lake Chautauqua is important to my novel because of Bertha Stoneman and the Chautauqua Scientific and Literary Circle.
Bertha Stoneman was an important influence on my great aunt Nell. Both feature in Bluestocking. Stoneman was born in Lakewood, a hamlet on Lake Chautauqua, and went to school in nearby Jamestown. The Stoneman family farmed at Busti (to rhyme with spy and try), to the south of the lake. Bertha’s father remained a farmer but his brothers moved west. John became a US senator and another brother, George, was a general in the Civil War and later governor of California. Kate Stoneman, Bertha’s aunt, was the first woman in the state of New York to become a lawyer. I took a picture of the historical marker in honour of Kate Stoneman on Stoneman St in Lakewood.
In 1897 the young Bertha Stoneman came to Huguenot College as head of the department of Botany, sporting a brand-new DSc in Botany from Cornell University. This, and much more, I had discovered when I examined the ‘Stoneman Papers’ in the archives at Cornell. I found Stoneman and Aunt Nell on the same graduation picture and I read Bertha’s letters to her sister. There was a slim volume of her poems and her translation of Eensaamheid, the well-known Afrikaans poem by Jan F E Celliers. Loneliness was set to music by M L de Villiers, an Afrikaans pastor best known for his setting of Die Stem van Suid-Afrika – the national anthem of the Old South Africa. I walked around the campus and imagined how it must have been for the student, Bertha Stoneman. A few months later I placed her in Wellington and Bains Kloof but at Chautauqua I could see the world of her childhood.
The Chautauqua detour was a concept rather than a plan: a map, a bed at the Jamestown Holiday Inn and a willingness to be led by intuition. That afternoon I walked into an art dealership to ask about the 19th century architecture of the town. Casually I enquired:
“Is there perhaps a local museum where I can get more information?”
“Oh, yes, they have stuff at the Fenton History Center. A little difficult to explain how to get there but you can see it from here.”
I note the roof of a building barely visible on the wooded embankment to the south. Bravely I venture into a labyrinth of one-way streets. Under the Erie Railway Bridge, a forced turn in the wrong direction, continue until I can reverse direction and park at the Center just before three. Closing time is four o’clock.
The first person I meet is the part-time curator of collections, who just happens to have come to work late.
“I’m looking for information about the Stoneman family, specifically Bertha Stoneman?”
My question seems to astound him.
“Bertha Stoneman? I know everything about Bertha Stoneman. I’ve written a paper on Bertha Stoneman!
But he has not been to South Africa and is brimming with curiosity about Wellington. He shows me a collection of anecdotes on the Lakewood of bygone days. I only have an hour to take in as much as possible. He chats, I read, I tell, he chats some more, I tell, I read some more. He tells me that it just so happens that the Busti Historical Society is having a picnic that evening. They know everything about Bertha Stoneman from his angle; would I mind telling them why she interests me? He is appealing to one of my favourite aspects - that of author. Fine, but it will be off the top of my head. My notes are at home. That evening I take my turn while the local country band take a break. There are about thirty people, mostly grey like me but happy to hear how thrilled I was to be exploring the childhood territory of Bertha Stoneman. What a contrast the mountains of the Western Cape must have been! I speculate on the images of this landscape she may stored in the ‘inward eye’ to remind her of home. The early morning sunshine filtered through the leaves of oak and elm, The clouds that come sailing at noon or the sudden view of the lake below as one comes over the hill from Busti: shining ink, hemmed by emerald, saturated and motionless at dusk.
Before dark I find the graveyard where many Stonemans are buried. At her request, Bertha’s ashes were shipped from South Africa and placed beside her mother. Thus the ‘exile’ returned ‘dwelling in loneliness no longer’ and, perhaps, ‘on His bosom at peace.’
The next morning I set off for the Chautauqua Institute, a little further west along the lake. My host at the Busti picnic had already arranged for me to visit the Institute’s archives. A pass, parking as well as a knowledgeable assistant were provided courtesy of the establishment. What I really wanted to see were the support materials for the study courses of the Chautauqua Science and Literary Circle.
The CSLC developed as a complement to the Sunday School Assembly, a lakeside summer school for Sunday school (mostly Methodist) teachers started in 1874. The four-year reading course of the CSLC was open to all. One could say it was the first Open University.
Each Circle had a leader to guide the reading, discussion and answers to twelve set books per year. The books provided general knowledge of a wide variety of topics: Modern and Classical History, Literature, Astronomy, Biology and, of course, spiritual and religious matters. (A quick google of ‘CSLC booklist’ will give you an idea of the variety of books prescribed). On completion of the four-year course graduates received a diploma with a sticker for every book studied. Top centre of the diploma was a space for a sticker in the shape of a golden crown. The golden crown was only to those who had read the whole Bible, begats and all!
In the archives I also looked at some editions of the Chautauquan, a monthly magazine filled with supplementary reading on subjects currently being studied. These magazines must have been an invaluable source in small towns without libraries. Each Chautauquan had a ‘Sunday Reading’ section. This makes complete sense to those of us who were accustomed to the habits of the Sabbath – academic reading would have been considered ‘work’ and absolutely forbidden on the Day of the Lord.
Huguenot Seminary, and then College, had its own CSLC. Perhaps there were watered down versions in smaller Cape Colony towns also. That is enough for my lively imagination. Don’t be surprised to find some clever farmer’s daughter (trapped by tradition, determined to battle brain death, poor thing) somewhere in a loft with a pile of Chautauquans.
The few hours spent at the Chautauqua Institute just whetted my appetite. Next time I want to immerse myself in the many activities still happening there today. You’ll see what I mean if you look at http://www.ciweb.org
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