To Africa for a Rose
Three generations of women
pioneering through the Wind of Change
by Emma Ellis
‘The Wind of Change is blowing through this continent,’
declared British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in South Africa, 1960.
This forthcoming non-fiction book,To Africa for a Rose, explores a century of change through the story of Australian Gallipoli-survivor and pioneer, Frank Anderson, who, in 1925, discovered an old Chinese rosebush flowering improbably in an African wilderness. Staking his family’s future on this slender evidence of a water course, he sent for his wife and daughter to join him from Australia in establishing a farm named Rasharasha in the Maasai highlands of Tanganyika.
Recounted through the experiences of the three women in Frank Anderson’s family - his wife, daughter and granddaughter - and drawing on an extensive archive of original documents, this book offers unique insights into the precarious colonial life of a family across five continents during the British Empire’s closing century.
This book is pending publication: enquiries can be sent via the Contact page.
Frank Anderson, 1890-1961
Dramatic 20th century events unfolding in To Africa for a Rose take place across five continents: Australia, Asia, Europe, Africa and America.
Blending the family story with wider historical events, the story first evokes early colonial life in Albany, (Western Australia) and moves to Gallipoli (Turkey) and Yokohama (Japan). Then it moves to such East African locations as the Serengeti Plains, Ngorongoro Crater, Mount Kilimanjaro and the safari town of Arusha, although the main focus is Rasharasha, an isolated sloping valley near Arusha, Tanganyika (now Tanzania). The name, Rasharasha, means ‘light rain’ in Swahili, and in the Andersons’ time, ‘land of mists’.
Much of the book is set in the context of East Africa’s personalities such as resident Denys Finch-Hatton (immortalised in Out of Africa) and visitor Ernest Hemingway (Green Hills of Africa, Snows of Kilimanjaro), along with other names associated with Kenya’s aristocratic and often infamous ex-pat residents.
Frank Anderson and his family are revealed as people who become extraordinary through force of circumstance. Threaded through the story are those vital, yet often unacknowledged, roles played by those, particularly women, who support others’ hopes and dreams. The Andersons faced dramatic circumstances where survival required courage, new perspectives and transformation.
This account of a way of life now long past reveals surprising facts about a period of history that not only still resonates with us but also defines the lives we live today.
Shown in the photograph is a rose similar to one planted then abandoned at Rasharasha in the early 1900s. It was of a traditional English variety, fragrant and elegant, yet tenacious.
For the Anderson family, this rose symbolised how to grow, adapt and survive, even in radically changed circumstances.
Three Generations of Women
To Africa for a Rose is told in three parts that focus in turn on Frank Anderson’s wife, daughter and granddaughter, all united by their love for Frank and for their farm, Rasharasha.
Honor showed resourceful courage as she ventured into the unknown, ultimately finding the key to the family’s survival… Patricia held the complex venture together in the wilds of Africa… Jeannine picked up the pieces as the dust of the Winds of Change settled.
Honor: Honoria Ethel Anderson, née Hassell, 1893 - 1980
Patricia: Ethel Patricia Wright, née Anderson, 1918 - 2011
Jeannine: Monica Jeannine Cook, née Wright, 1944 -
