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Thai
edition published December
2007
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Preface
My mother used to hold her dinner guests
spellbound as she told dramatic tales of her early years in Siam,
as Thailand was then called. We lived in Trang in the Malay Peninsula
near the border. My father ran the Presbyterian Mission hospital
- one of only three doctors in the whole peninsula. Mother had gone
to Siam in 1903, three years after she graduated from high school,
to work in a missionary girls' school. Through the next 31 years
and the reigns of five Siamese kings Siam was her home. She married
Father in 1910. They had seven children - I was number six - and
Siam was our home.
About 30 years after Mother's death in 1962 I learned that my brother
Dwight had Mother's old trunk. In it was a manuscript she had written
about her early years in Siam. I decided to enter it into my computer
and print it out for an impending family reunion. A friend at church,
Dawn Groves - author, computer instructor and yoga teacher - formatted
those 22 chapters plus a final story, "Jungle Grandma"
which Dwight had written about Mother's return to Thailand in 1947
to 1950. I had these printed for family members and made extra copies
of the chapter "Epidemic" which I sent to a number of
friends
Somehow Lynn Moen - a published author, former bookstore owner and
desktop editor - saw a copy, read it and offered to put it into
publishable form, which I readily agreed to. When working together,
we realized that Mother's manuscript was incomplete. There was very
little about Father or us seven children. But the trunk also held
a treasure trove of letters sent to Father's family which had been
returned to her, and her notes and early drafts. I found more intriguing
stories that cried out to be included. I also gathered some perspectives
we children had about growing up in the Orient, and I changed the
title from "Siam Was My Home" to "Siam was Our Home."
In editing Mother's manuscript I have used her language as much
as possible to reflect the tone of her era. Occasionally her words
would not be considered "politically correct" but I thought
they should stand as written. Siamese words - and others - are italicized
in the text and are defined in brackets the first time they appear,
and/or in the Glossary/Index in the Appendix. We learned that the
spelling of some place names have changed over the years - we used
the old names. I accept full responsibility for any errors or inconsistencies
in the book. Some of the old pictures were in poor shape. We did
what we could with computer technology, then included them anyhow.
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