Letters from Karen Marisa Phillips

Karen on her trip to South Africa: 'Emblazoned' in her memory

Sydney, Karen and Marie Phillips

I was in Matumi and looking through some old photo albums and saw pictures of a family member I had never met. She must have been about the same age as me at the time, a bit younger perhaps. She was pretty, with long wavy hair and a sweet smile and I wondered what the connection was:

Karen

Dear Philip,

I am the second and youngest daughter of Nola's brother Sydney Cecil Phillips and Marie Phillips, and was looking on the Internet for my South African relatives and extended family. I rather spontaneously plugged in "Nola Hall" into Google this morning, and came up with your wonderful website about your parents Tony and Eve Hall. I can remember our getting letters from them when I was a child, and hearing about their travels and I remember hearing about them being in India.

I grew up overseas in Belgium and Turkey, and only came to South Africa once when I was 10, in Christmas 1971. I met your parents on at least one occasion, but it may have been in Europe...I'm not sure if I met your father when I came to South Africa -- I think I met "Little John" as well as his young children and did meet a number of second cousins.

I'm sorry my memory is not better but it was a wonderful and vivid experience that has stayed with me all of my life. We stayed with Nola and John on the grounds at the Lido. I enjoyed your article about her. She and my uncle John were colorful and major people in my life as well. They used to visit us quite often while we were in Brussels and also we met them a number of times in England when they were on their yacht.

My last visit with them was in 1983 or so, when I was in college, shortly before I married, and they came to visit us where my parents had retired in the U.S. I was around 23. After that, uncle John became ill and we stayed in touch by letter and phone, and then we heard about his death. M y father and mother stayed in touch with Nola, but there was some confusion about how she was doing, I remember, and I remember my mother trying to contact family in both South Africa and David Hall in California to get more news. My last letter from Nola was dated 1990. Reading it this morning is what prompted me to do a search.

My father died May 26th, 1994, at age 82, rather suddenly, still very vibrant and enjoying his life. My mother never fully got over his loss, as they were a deeply bonded couple, and were very much a team. I identified with what you said about being egalitarian and not deferential as they were more that way in their marriage. She lived on for 13 more years and died May 4th, 2007, just a few weeks shy of her 90th birthday.

I was close to them both, and miss them very much. I do not have much family left on my mother's side and finding more extended family is very welcome. My mother did speak with my half-sister Michele Van Reenen after my father died but then lost touch as she became ill around 1996 and struggled with various health problems after that.

I have not been able to locate my half-sister on the Internet and make contact with her. I did not know her very well growing up but she did come to visit my parents in the late 80's or early 90's, before my father's death, and I was in another part of the country and did not see her at that time.

I would like more information about Nola's final years, and her death, I would much appreciate it. I remember hearing from my parents that she had suffered an accident and had to go live in an assisted living home. I got the impression she had a head injury, or perhaps had suffered a stroke, and then after my father's death, my mother was trying to find out more about her and how she was, and had not gotten a response.

I currently live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina (near Raleigh, North Carolina) and work as a children's therapist and a social worker. I would love to hear more about you and your family.


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I wonder if the girl you describe in the photos you saw was Muriel McPhillips. That is a relative from the Australian side of the family that I think both Aunt Nola and my father knew. I grew up knowing her somewhat and she used to send me koala toys and all sorts of books about Australia and New Zealand.

Or another thought: It might be my father's first wife (not sure of name?) and I believe she and Auntie Nola were very close friends as young women. I am currently 49 and was around 10 when I visited South Africa and met my second cousins and extended family there. My parents had married a bit later in life, and I believe Michele his daughter from the previous marriage is about 15 years older than me.

I'm going to type out the letter I found from 1990 just this morning as I thought you might like to read something of hers, and also it mentions some friends from her girlhood. I think there are a few others from Nola that Mother had in the early 90's but I am still going through all her papers.

She died in May of 2007 and I have boxes to go through still. I was so sorry to hear about your parents Eve and Tony's deaths from your website and that is such a wonderful website you've created. It was so exciting to find it! When I looked at their younger photos from the 1960's and early 70's that you shared they looked familiar to me, so I am sure we had photos of them in the house, and I think they did exchange some letters with my parents. It would be great if I can eventually find some old letters from when your parents were young.

Here is the letter Auntie Nola wrote my father. She and the South African branch of the family called him Cecil, but I think he preferred Sydney from his local friends. I knew him with both his names. She and my mother and father used to write each other regularly and I can remember those pale blue air mail letters that are lighter weight paper, and where they would fill every space with writing, perhaps it was the same with your memories? When they were older and my father had retired they also spoke on the phone, but that older generation were great correspondents.

I'm not super experienced at scanning and then sending it on to someone but I could try with you, I just don't know how to make it a smaller file is the problem. But here is a transcript:

My mother made an annotation above this typed letter and put "June 1990" in her own handwriting. Most of the letter is typed with a few lines of Auntie Nola's handwriting at the bottom. She used to write me too, for my birthday and special occasions.

"Dearest Cecil,


I hope you have not come to the conclusion that I have forgotten your request for me to check on the Godfreys, but some how the days just slip by and nothing gets done.


However, here it is. I could not find any Godfreys in the phone book and I just could not remember Sylvia's married name, nor her daughter Diane's. So one day when I was playing golf at Royal Johannesburg when I pass very near Dunottar street, I made a point of driving past the old home at 60 Dunottar Street, Sydenham 2192. It was quite nostalgic in that it had not changed at all. I could quite easily remember Mum and I walking down the winding front garden path on to the veranda. It had a very large Beware of the dog on a padlocked front garden gate, so I was not going to take any chances and push my way in. So when I got home I wrote to the Occupier of that address and I enclosed a stamped addressed envelope to myself, and thought I must just wait and see what happens. I did remember that Joy had married Cosmo Whitehead and looked up the address in the phone book. Only one C. Whitehead and when I got through they knew of no Cosmo or Joy. So I gave up that. Then suddenly one Sunday at lunch time the phone rang and when I answered, it was Sylvia ! She had got my note, and this was her reply. Her married name, she reminded me was Hayden Thomas and when I checked in the JB phone book, the tel. no. is 640-3421. When I spoke about Joy, she told me Cosmo had died 6 years ago, and Joy was now in the phone book under her own name, tel. no. 640-5962 (my mother circled this and the other phone number) and the address is 1551 Kent Ave. Sandringham 2192. It was one of the friendliest chats I have ever had with Sylvia, and she made me promise to come and have tea with them when next I go to Royal JB. Yvonne is still well and alive and they are both very much retired now. [this next part handwritten by her at the bottom] So there you are. Hope this is what you wanted.

Yours Nola"

I thought you might like these and feel free to forward them to the other cousins or nephews...I'm not sure quite what the relationship is, but I think we are second cousins, as your father was my father's nephew. What I am still confused about and if you don't mind my asking, my impression was that there were sons from uncle John's first marriage? I think auntie Nola may have been married before as well when she was younger. I know they had several children, but was not sure which were both of theirs. As you said, she was very colorful and I remember her telling me all about their love and romance and marriage.

There were many photos taken from the South Africa visit but I don't know there they are. My parents then took two weeks more after we left the Lido and went to Kruger National Park (which to this day is emblazoned in my memory as a glorious "once in a lifetime" trip through my father's experienced tutelage!) and Swaziland and also up to Pretoria where they both grew up. In my memory I saw the house they had grown up in but it's a bit hazy.

My father told me stories of their growing up years all through my childhood. It's unfortunate that in the photo of their last visit to us, it was uncle John who took the photo, so alas, he is not in it. I am the girl with long dark hair. My father is facing the camera and my mother is next to auntie Nola. It turns out my dates were a bit off, we were in South Africa in 1972, and the visit from Nola and John was in 1981.

The photo you included of them on their bicycles is so familiar and I think we must have gotten that article that was written about them also. I can remember hearing about their bicycling trips and I think they wrote us postcards from some of the European ones they did. I also have been on both their first yacht and the Autumn Venture. We were on the first one several times as a family, and then Mother and I took a trip together to meet them on the Autumn Venture. I am so glad you put the name as I could not remember.

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That is fine if you wish to put it in your blog -- I'm honored. I will send on a few more photos of my parents and me. They show their spirit and personalities really well, and Dad was such a wonderful traveler and diplomat (he was a mining engineer but he often had to be a diplomat with sticky or dangerous situations!).
He was also a wonderful storyteller and had a great sense of humour. We used to joke that he lived only 3.5 years in Belgium to our 7 as he traveled so much for work. Both my parents loved to travel and I feel very fortunate that they took me with them and gave me such an education, and that we lived overseas. The one photo from him in China is from 1979. In his last project after he had officially retired he was asked to go to China when it was still closed to travelers, in the days when it took a special invitation to go in. He was gone six months on this assignment (and missed my high school graduation, but I forgave him!).

The other photo is from a mining town in Turkey when we lived in Izmir when I was 13-16. Then a few of my parents and I over the years that I like of them. And one of my most recent ones of me, taken 3 years ago when I visited friends in Seattle and BC. I lived in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest for ten years, from 1989 to 1999, and have many friends there.

I just read your article on David and skirts and really enjoyed learning more about him -- I well remember that time as my parents talked about it and his being on the TV shows. I wondered when I read your article about Nola if he was the son meditating outside Nola's room in Nola's final days.

I am blown away that Auntie Nola had so many photos of me with her, that our closeness stood out so you noticed it! She was very special to me, but I had not realized that I was so special to her so it means a lot to learn this. I think there was a bit of controversy around me for her and uncle John as I was adopted as a baby by my parents and Chilean by birth (they adopted me when they were living in Argentina 1957-1962) and unfortunately Dad's relationship with Michele was somewhat distant, as she was mostly with her mother and stepfather and I sensed there was some uncomfortable stuff there as well with Dad's first wife.

I think Nola and John felt a bit torn in their loyalties. I heard the stories of Dad and his first marriage from Auntie Nola as well. She shared with me how his first marriage had been unhappy and it was clear the she and my dad had a very close bond as he would confide in her a lot when they were younger. Auntie Nola did become very close to my mother, also, and she and John were very good to her and really accepted her into the family so that she felt at home and very welcome.

When my mother and father were first married, when he worked in West Africa and then East Africa, my mother lived for some time at the Lido with Nola and John and my grandfather, Nola and Cecil's father who in his later years lived with Nola and John up to his death. Auntie Nola told me about his last day or evening when she said goodnight to him, as he peacefuly died in his sleep.

She and uncle John were always wonderful to me. But I did make her angry a few times that I can remember when she really scolded me, and I know I deserved the correction. I said a few outrageous things when I was around ten or so and visiting them, so I can identify when you were writing your reminisces and describing something similar!

With regards to Pluto and dogs you mentioned, I especially remember him and Auntie Nola telling about him, calling him Pluty. I think there was a special act that she gave at the Lido where she would go out in her evening gown on to the ballroom floor and Pluto would pick up her hem and carry it in his mouth while she danced out at the end of the night. She and my dad both loved dancing and he told me that he taught her ballroom dancing and she ended up winning a ballroom dancing competition when they traveled in Geneva as young adults (in their early 20's?). My parents also both loved to dance. My father taught me to foxtrot but I cannot, alas, claim the same degree of proficiency!

It sounds like we're close in age, which I had not realized, as John's children were quite a bit younger than me when I visited South Africa. I would love to see any photos that John has of uncle John, auntie Nola and the family--I really appreciate your communication and facilitating contact. Do most of the family still live in South Africa?

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Every bit of information is special to me. That is so synchronistic about the South/Central American connection! I only lived in Buenos Aires for a year, but have taken Spanish in school and university and now as a social worker here in North Carolina which has a large Latino population, I currently am serving all Hispanic families for my agency and doing Outpatient therapy and Intensive In-Home Services (a more crisis type of therapy work). I and the director of my agency are the only two who can speak the language. She is fluent and I am half fluent, but am practicing a lot and intend to become fluent. My second language is French (after English).

I tried to scan the letter I found today in Mum's address book for your blog if you want it, since it's rather what precipitated my connecting to your blog--not a great job but thought you might like to see it in its original form. Also I meant to send this photo of my dad in China rather than the other one. He traveled to inner Mongolia at that time and so saw much of the huge country in six months of work. The photo I previously sent you did have him in a characteristic pose, however, with his thumbs in his pockets!

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Dec. 2006, taken by my good friend Ranny 

Above you see a picture of me and my mother during our last Christmas together. Ranny helped me at the end with her care in her final year. The portrait of my father you can see on the wall to the right was his engagement photo taken for my mother, and she kept it by her always after he died. Ranny had our photo enlarged and framed for each of us as our Christmas present, and I still have it in my living room along with my parents' wedding photo (which you can barely see on my mother's shelves).

Today is my mother's death anniversary (2007) but I feel better than I usually do. Last year for some reason I struggled harder than I had at the first anniversary in 2008, it's as though it hit me in a new way. I worked all day as it was a Teacher's Workday, and kids were home so we took advantage of that to have treatment team meetings with families, but I had a very bad headache, which is not typical for me, and had to work hard to keep from crying. Today, I feel balanced and as though my work will go well this afternoon when I do my sessions, and I feel as though I've been given a gift.

Even while I was in process yesterday with plugging into Google the word "Nola Hall" I felt that my parents may have been guiding me through their eternal selves.

Mainly I am writing to thank you for your kindness and generosity in sharing this cornucopia of information with me, and on linking me with other family members. I plan on contacting the other relatives you sent me contact information for, once I have a bit of a chance to process all I took in from yesterday. I spent the last part of my day continuing to work through parts of your blog, and I read more essays and articles. I loved Tony's birthday speech to Eve on her 65th birthday. I very much enjoyed the letters I read from Eve to her mother, and also your reviews of both the opera and Handel's Messiah performances that you took your son and daughter to. I finished it with "At my shoulder is Tezcatlipoca" which was humorous and fascinating and explained the relationship with Mexico and ensuing fortuitous events. I loved how you said "I give myself to this country. Let me return."

I also came across a section with many entries you have for family photographs, and I immersed myself in wonderful photos of the Hall side of the family, and loved the historical aspect of it, with the old photos going back to uncle John's boyhood, and also felt enriched by learning more about Eve's side of the family, which I had not known about, and and the beautiful and tender photos of your wife Teresa and your children taken over the years. I also filled myself with looking at her side of the family, and so got to experience the full spectrum of generational and family community.

Today I have been reading many of your entries related to Eve and found very moving your description of the day at her bedside when she died,"Our most gracious and beautiful mother", and "I am my mother's son". I have been reading obituaries of both your parents lives, and essays written about them by their friends.
In a sense, it feels as though I lived through my childhood again and then got a panorama of yours as I viewed your photos and read descriptions from your years growing up. I felt also I had been gifted with more of my father's history, and feel as though a door has been opened for me on a new vista.

Thank you,


Karen Marisa Phillips