Letter from Alma to Kay: 9/24/1929
Full size image is below.
Alma, visiting the Hakgala Botanical Garden in Sri Lanka, writes to Will's 10-year-old daughter Kay, in Atlanta, Georgia.
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1929-09-24: tour stops---images---~AUDIO~---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
1929-09-24: tour stops---images---audio---~TRANSCRIPT~---notes---links---site navigation
This is some of the paper Miss Van Doorn sent me.
5500 ft above mean sea level.
Hakgala, Ceylon
Sept. 24, 1929
Dear Pickle:
I am enclosing some tea leaves for your collection; they are from "Assam Tea" and I got them in the Botanical Gardens at Hakgala, near Nuwara Eliya (pronounced "Nū rāl' ya"). They call the tender shoot which is picked the "flush." They pick just three leaves at the tip. I have seen thousands and thousands and thousands of tea bushes. They are kept trimmed back so that they do not grow into trees but are 2-3 1/2 ft. high and about the same in diameter. Most of the tea is grown on the slopes of the mountains, often very steep slopes. Usually tall trees which cast a light shade are grown with them and are called "nurse trees." Many of the nurse trees are Acacias or some other tree with a compound leaf. (Above 4000 ft. they do not seem to need the shade of other trees.)
There is a very beautiful garden here which has many tree ferns growing every where. Tree ferns are wild here along the streams.
This morning I started to climb Hakgala Peak with a young Sinhalese apprentice from the garden. We were crossing the plain at the foot of the peak when he stopped suddenly because he heard a stick crack. We waited a few moments and then we heard a large branch crack. He said, "We must go back" and turned immediately. What do you suppose it was? I asked him and he said it was wild elephants, that nothing else could break so large a branch. They come to the lee of the cliff to get protection from the rains. The rains, the N. E. monsoon, began a week ago. It was nice and sunny this morning and he said they would be playful and would be likely to chase us. I agreed with my guide, whose name is John Brown, that it was well to retreat. I don't want an elephant to play with me. Mr. Nock, the director of the garden, said there was a wild herd which spent about half the time above the garden, between the garden and the peak and that they might be unpleasant but that there weren't known to be any rogues (vicious elephants) in the herd.
I have been collecting on the edge of the jungle but my guide is so careful of me that I haven't been allowed to venture very far in.
Mr. and Mrs. Nock have been very good to me. They invited me to have tea with them yesterday and today, and to have lunch today. I am staying in a hotel at Nuwara Eliya (6 miles away) and brought my lunch with me yesterday. I am going back to Kandy tomorrow and then to Anaradhapura Friday to see an ancient Buddhist city, chiefly buried. I am to be back in Madras a week from today. Do write and give me the news.
With much love,
Alma Stokey.
5500 ft above mean sea level.
Hakgala, Ceylon
Sept. 24, 1929
Dear Pickle:
I am enclosing some tea leaves for your collection; they are from "Assam Tea" and I got them in the Botanical Gardens at Hakgala, near Nuwara Eliya (pronounced "Nū rāl' ya"). They call the tender shoot which is picked the "flush." They pick just three leaves at the tip. I have seen thousands and thousands and thousands of tea bushes. They are kept trimmed back so that they do not grow into trees but are 2-3 1/2 ft. high and about the same in diameter. Most of the tea is grown on the slopes of the mountains, often very steep slopes. Usually tall trees which cast a light shade are grown with them and are called "nurse trees." Many of the nurse trees are Acacias or some other tree with a compound leaf. (Above 4000 ft. they do not seem to need the shade of other trees.)
There is a very beautiful garden here which has many tree ferns growing every where. Tree ferns are wild here along the streams.
This morning I started to climb Hakgala Peak with a young Sinhalese apprentice from the garden. We were crossing the plain at the foot of the peak when he stopped suddenly because he heard a stick crack. We waited a few moments and then we heard a large branch crack. He said, "We must go back" and turned immediately. What do you suppose it was? I asked him and he said it was wild elephants, that nothing else could break so large a branch. They come to the lee of the cliff to get protection from the rains. The rains, the N. E. monsoon, began a week ago. It was nice and sunny this morning and he said they would be playful and would be likely to chase us. I agreed with my guide, whose name is John Brown, that it was well to retreat. I don't want an elephant to play with me. Mr. Nock, the director of the garden, said there was a wild herd which spent about half the time above the garden, between the garden and the peak and that they might be unpleasant but that there weren't known to be any rogues (vicious elephants) in the herd.
I have been collecting on the edge of the jungle but my guide is so careful of me that I haven't been allowed to venture very far in.
Mr. and Mrs. Nock have been very good to me. They invited me to have tea with them yesterday and today, and to have lunch today. I am staying in a hotel at Nuwara Eliya (6 miles away) and brought my lunch with me yesterday. I am going back to Kandy tomorrow and then to Anaradhapura Friday to see an ancient Buddhist city, chiefly buried. I am to be back in Madras a week from today. Do write and give me the news.
With much love,
Alma Stokey.
1929-09-24: tour stops---images---audio---transcript---~NOTES~---links---site navigation
1.
This is some of the paper Miss Van Doorn sent me.
I don't know which of the van Doorns this Miss van Doorn was, and I don't know much about the van Doorns anyway, but I've got them in the Non-Family page on this website for Woods Hole folks.
This would have been a very nice present, given Alma's love of stationery.
2.
Dear Pickle:
Pickle was Will's younger daughter Kathleen / Kay..
3.
I am enclosing some tea leaves for your collection; they are from "Assam Tea" and I got them in the Botanical Gardens at Hakgala, near Nuwara Eliya (pronounced "Nū rāl' ya"). They call the tender shoot which is picked the "flush." They pick just three leaves at the tip.
I don't know what Kay was collecting.
Partly to make sure I had read Alma's handwriting correctly, I looked for information on the flush, and found A first flush is the first round of leaf buds coming out of the tea bush in the year.
First flushes are considered the premium harvest for most tea varieties because the tea plants have stored a whole winter’s worth of nutrient reserve to energize that first growth rush in Spring. In some tea farms specialized in premium quality, they harvest only once a year that is this first flush.
4.
The rains, the N. E. monsoon, began a week ago.
In Alma's handwriting, it looks like A.E. monsoon, but she didn't write her A's like that (see her signature), so it must be N.E. monsoon. i.e. Northeast monsoon, from October to January.
5.
Mr. Nock, the director of the garden
Again checking my interpretation of Alma's handwriting, I googled to find out who was the director of the Hakgala Botanical Garden in 1929, and the answer came back: There was no director in 1929, but James J. Nock was the curator.
6.
I have been collecting on the edge of the jungle but my guide is so careful of me that I haven't been allowed to venture very far in.
Lenette Atkinson mentioned Alma's frustration in Ceylon/Sri Lanka in her memorial for Alma:
7.
I am to be back in Madras a week from today.
Lenette Atkinson said in her memorial for Alma that Alma was in Ceylon/Sri Lanka for Michaelmas vacation.
This is some of the paper Miss Van Doorn sent me.
I don't know which of the van Doorns this Miss van Doorn was, and I don't know much about the van Doorns anyway, but I've got them in the Non-Family page on this website for Woods Hole folks.
This would have been a very nice present, given Alma's love of stationery.
2.
Dear Pickle:
Pickle was Will's younger daughter Kathleen / Kay..
3.
I am enclosing some tea leaves for your collection; they are from "Assam Tea" and I got them in the Botanical Gardens at Hakgala, near Nuwara Eliya (pronounced "Nū rāl' ya"). They call the tender shoot which is picked the "flush." They pick just three leaves at the tip.
I don't know what Kay was collecting.
Partly to make sure I had read Alma's handwriting correctly, I looked for information on the flush, and found A first flush is the first round of leaf buds coming out of the tea bush in the year.
First flushes are considered the premium harvest for most tea varieties because the tea plants have stored a whole winter’s worth of nutrient reserve to energize that first growth rush in Spring. In some tea farms specialized in premium quality, they harvest only once a year that is this first flush.
4.
The rains, the N. E. monsoon, began a week ago.
In Alma's handwriting, it looks like A.E. monsoon, but she didn't write her A's like that (see her signature), so it must be N.E. monsoon. i.e. Northeast monsoon, from October to January.
5.
Mr. Nock, the director of the garden
Again checking my interpretation of Alma's handwriting, I googled to find out who was the director of the Hakgala Botanical Garden in 1929, and the answer came back: There was no director in 1929, but James J. Nock was the curator.
6.
I have been collecting on the edge of the jungle but my guide is so careful of me that I haven't been allowed to venture very far in.
Lenette Atkinson mentioned Alma's frustration in Ceylon/Sri Lanka in her memorial for Alma:
7.
I am to be back in Madras a week from today.
Lenette Atkinson said in her memorial for Alma that Alma was in Ceylon/Sri Lanka for Michaelmas vacation.
1929-09-24: tour stops---images---audio---transcript---notes---~LINKS~---site navigation
DOCUMENT LISTS FOR PEOPLE:
- ALMA: DOCUMENTS ----- Outgoing
- THE NEXT GENERATION: DOCUMENTS ----- Kay
- NON-FAMILY: WOODS HOLE FOLKS ----- Miss van Doorn
OTHER DOCUMENT LISTS:
- DOCUMENTS SORTED BY WHERE THEY WERE WRITTEN ----- Sri Lanka
- DOCUMENTS SORTED BY SOURCE ----- Barbara
- AUDIO READINGS OF THE DOCUMENTS: 1920-1929
OTHER RELATED DOCUMENTS/PAGES:
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