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 Rozemaryn van der Horst is the Illustrator of the rare, out of print cookbook "Pitcairn Island" sold at Kona Stories for $35.00 for a fund-raiser for the people on the Pitcairn Island. Below is her story about how she and Irma Christian met and wrote the book.
"My father went to sea on a sailing ship when he was 14 years old, because they thought he had TB and the doctor said the sea air might cure him. His first trip was from Rotterdam to the U.S. where they picked up oil from Pennsylvania which they took to Japan. But no Panama Canal as yet and they went around the Horn. On the way they stopped at Pitcairn Island to get fresh vegetables (remember scurfy?). When I was little he used to tell me stories about his seafaring days and that included his visit to Pitcairn. There was a lady in Sausalito, California, who organized trips on sailboats all over the world in the 1980's. So I heard about it that she intended to have a trip to Pitcairn from Tahiti. And I went and stayed on Pitcairn for several weeks. My hosts were Irma and Ben Christian. Later Ben and Irma came to Hawaii and stayed with me. The cookbook was my idea, because thought it gave Irma a chance to sell something to visiting tourists from cruise ships, besides the lauhala things she made.Because she was the radio operator on Pitcairn, she knew Morse code and I did also, she dictated the recipes and stories over the ham radio in Morse code. I recorded that and played it with a dimmer switch in between to slow it down so I could transcribe it. For the rest I did all the work."
Irma Christian's Pitcairn Island Cookbook, translated from morse code by Rozemaryn sold at Kona Stories for $35.00 (fund-raiser for the Pitcairn Islands)
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