A Gift of Light
from "Sweetheart," in her own words and pictures
by
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(Coming back from a round-the-world cruise, 1939)
Did I tell you that when we arrived at Hilo, a troup of girls came on board and hung leis around everybody's neck, even in the dining room where I was? The girls were graceful and sweet-looking and wear flower leis of all kinds and flowers tied around their ankles, bare feet, of course.
We got back to the dock before five, and since the boat did not sail until six, I let the others go on board without me and got three girls to pose for me, twenty minutes apiece, and paid each one 25c, and thus got three carbon sketches. They became afraid that I was going to miss my boat, but since my friends knew where I was, I knew I could stay till 5:55 perfectly safely.
One woman said, "You miss your boat, Mama." There were a dozen grown women selling flower leis all around me. I wanted to paint them but I couldn't interrupt their business that way. So I talked to them, and soon had them, and the girls, and the wharf hands, and a mixed crowd around me thick, talking and laughing.
One woman put her hand on my shoulder and said, "She miss the boat, she come live with me." I was sitting on my little folding stool. When I got up they all came around me and each threw a lei over my head till I had thirteen, and they were heavy and full of perfume. They were just as sweet as they could be. The sweetest is the prumelia which smells like a lily, and a strange thing about it is that I kept it for days in perfect condition. One other made of very fragrant flowers (white) continued the same without the edges turning brown or fading, for three days. They do not fade the way our flowers do. They were thick and heavy and must have weighed pounds. I just wore them down to dinner as they were, they were so beautiful.
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About the Book
Rachel Wyse was a light in the world. Some amazing experiences in youth, including the instantaneous healing of a violent toothache and an encounter with Jesus at her mother's deathbed, left her with a quiet sense of wonder and beauty in everything -- people, nature, art -- that lasted all her long life:1864 in Salem, Massachusetts, to 1958 in Charlottesville, Virginia. She brought up her four children in Toronto, and afterwards travelled in Europe, Canada, Alaska, Mexico (well into her eighties), and once (alone, at 75) round the world. She was writing and painting all the time, often hurriedly, to show her family what she was seeing and doing, yet always looking and listening for the inner beauty. When she painted a portrait, even a quick sketch, the eyes always looked thoughtful. A flash of crimson bougainvillea was a marvel, but so was the old stone wall it grew beside. She was always lighthearted, fun to be with, not given to preaching. A man who once interviewed her on the radio thought she was like "a bird poised for flight." The life inside kept sparkling through. We first put this book together for her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, as she certainly would have wished, for she was devoted to them; but she also thought of the whole world as her family.
About the Author
My grandmother and I were great pals, since I was very small, up to her death when I was 27. She lived in Toronto and my family went to see her every summer; later she came to live with us in Charlottesville, VA, for about half of each year. But I have hardly written this book -- mostly assembled it from her own writings, with a minimum of connective tissue between. My mother helped gather the materials, and did a little of the writing, but she was growing old, and the organization of the project is mine. For most of my working life I have been a teacher at college level, and most of that in England, where I moved in 1972 with my English wife, whom I met in North Carolina where she was studying. I taught English literature at a teacher training college under the University of Leeds, which has since become independent. Now retired, I live in Leeds alone, my three children and their small children being spread over the country.