Children of Hope. Sandra Rowoldt Shell

      Acknowledgments

      This book has been several years in the making, and along the way there have been countless people who have offered valuable help and encouragement. The topic intrigued and enticed many, and I have appreciated their interest and enthusiasm. The staff of the Cory Library at Rhodes University have always evinced a special interest in the project, knowing that it was there it all began. After all, my first inkling of the existence of these Oromo children came in the form of brief entries on cards in the Cory Library’s manuscript catalog. I am grateful to Dr. Cornelius Thomas, Liz de Wet, Zweli Vena, Sally Poole, Louisa Verwey, and all the Cory Library staff, past and present, who went the extra mile with their professional assistance. Thank you for your encouragement, kindness, friendship, and laughter over the years.

      In Cape Town, I thank all the staff, past and present, in Special Collections at University of Cape Town (hereafter UCT) Libraries, particularly Bev Angus, Busi Khangala, Allegra Louw, Sue Ogterop, and Belinda Southgate. Thank you for your professionalism, encouragement, and humor in equal measures. Thank you to Dr. Colin Darch for his personal insights into past and present Ethiopia and for the loan of precious items from his personal library. I am grateful to the staff in Manuscripts and Archives for access to the James Stewart Papers and the Monica and Godfrey Wilson Papers, particularly Lesley Hart, Clive Kirkwood, and Isaac Ntabankulu. That the James Stewart Papers were deposited in Manuscripts and Archives at the University of Cape Town instead of in the Lovedale Archives in the Cory Library has been, for the purposes of this study, a most useful anomaly. I applaud the unfailing efficiency of all those in UCT Libraries’ Inter Library Loans section who speedily located countless obscure sources for me over the years. My warm thanks to them for their efficient, friendly, and enthusiastic support.

      I am profoundly grateful to Nicholas Lindenberg and Thomas Slingsby of the GIS lab at the UCT for their interest in and assistance with this project. I thank them for their patience, the many afternoons spent in their lab, for the generation of countless maps from my data, and for their unflagging enthusiasm. I am similarly grateful to Professor Roddy Fox of the Department of Geography at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, who skillfully created an additional map from a subset of data.

      The National Library of South Africa has been a favorite haunt since the early 1970s, so spending much time in the Reading Room and Special Collections was, as ever, a pleasurable and fruitful experience. My special thanks go to Melanie Geustyn and her staff in Special Collections for helping in innumerable ways, as well as to the ever-helpful and cheery Reading Room staff.

      Similarly, the staff of the Western Cape Archives and Records Service—particularly Thembile Ndabeni, Jaco van der Merwe, and Erika le Roux—have offered strong support and assistance. I remain ever grateful for their knowledge and expertise, equaled only by their friendly helpfulness. I thank, too, all the tireless stack attendants who endlessly retrieved box after box and volume after volume.

      In the Library of Parliament, Lila Komnick kindly supplied me with Lovedale and Oromo photographs from their collection. She also gave generously of her time and I am grateful to her. I am beholden to the staff of the Kimberley Africana Museum for locating details in their collections on some of the Oromo who settled in their city. Cecilia Blight, formerly an archivist in the National English Literary Museum (NELM) in Grahamstown, expressed strong interest in this project. I would like to thank her most warmly for that interest, in particular for discovering and sending valuable information relating to Gilo Kashe, one of the Oromo boys.

      Alison Metcalfe in the National Library of Scotland went way beyond the call of duty with all her help and support. Thank you, Alison, for your friendly, professional expertise and for easing the way over the years. I am ever grateful. My warm thanks also go to Dr. Sheila Brock—also in Edinburgh—for her generous help in acquiring copies of material and for her collegiality and friendship. Captain Eberhard Stoetzner, archivist of the Deutsche Ost-Afrika Linie in Hamburg, Germany, graciously responded to my requests for information about the Kronprinz and the Deutsche Ost-Afrika Linie in general, and supplied photographs. Similarly, I am grateful to Philip Short and George Hendrie of the Cape Town branch of the Ship Society of South Africa for sharing their knowledge of shipping around the South African coast. Professor William Patch of Princeton University gave generously of his time and expertise and I extend my sincere gratitude to him. The staff of the National Maritime Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum, both in London, earned my deep respect and gratitude for their efficient, friendly assistance.

      I am profoundly grateful to my longtime friend Brian Willan for his constant encouragement over the years and for his ever-generous assistance in retrieving material and securing copies of significant documents for me at Kew and in the British Library. Similarly, I am grateful to Matthew Hopper, who was able to supply copies of material he had located for his own research among the India Office records that he believed might be of interest in relation to the Oromo children after landing at Aden. When all my appeals for travel and research funding were turned down time and again, I was gratified that so many professionals, scholars, and friends in distant parts were willing to help.

      I am grateful to several medical doctors who advised on various illnesses and conditions the Oromo children experienced, in particular Dr. Andrew McKenzie, Dr. Stephen Craven, and Dr. Louis Botha for their observations on the illnesses assailing the Oromo children. Professor Chris van der Merwe helped with insights into trauma experienced by children through the course of history, and offered suggestions for further reading. Special thanks go to Professor Howard Phillips for his unfailing encouragement, which helped me through some of the darkest moments.

      I am deeply indebted to Professor Mekuria Bulcha, a leading Oromo scholar and professor emeritus of Mälardalen University, Uppsala, Sweden. I thank him for his elucidations about the Oromo people and their past and for his constant support. I thank the many Oromo people in Oromia and in the diaspora for responding to a BBC web posting about my research, initiated by Martin Plaut in London—who has given generously of his steadfast support, advice, and friendship over the years—and three Voice of America broadcast interviews with Jalene Gemeda in Washington. Similarly, I have valued the unwavering encouragement and friendship of international journalist and author Bryan Rostron. I am indebted to each of these respected journalists for their interest in the Oromo children, for their enthusiasm and support, and for spreading the word. In response, e-mails and social media messages of support have flooded in from all over the world, from Cambodia to Canada. I thank, in particular, the descendants of one of the Oromo boys, Tolassa Wayessa: grandson Berouk Terefe in Canada, his niece Rediet Feleke Wiebel in England, and cousin Doe-e Berhanu in Ethiopia. I thank them and all the descendants of Tolassa Wayessa for sharing their memories, family documents, and genealogical tracings.

      In particular, I wish to express my gratitude and to pay tribute to the late Dr. Neville Alexander, who, with patience and grace, gave many hours of his time to share his memories and family links back to his Oromo grandmother, Bisho Jarsa. I was privileged to have known him and to have had the opportunity for these interactions. We are the poorer for his death in August 2012.

      Professor Christopher Saunders has been a skilled, intuitive reader and valued mentor for many years. I am supremely grateful for his knowledgeable, careful, and thoughtful reading of my texts, for his sage advice, and for his steadfast support and friendship across the decades.

      Finally, my most profound thanks go to the late Robert Shell, my husband,

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