Three Generations of Women
Rasharasha’s story begins in the Victorian/Edwardian era in Western Australia, with Honoria Hassell, ‘Honor’. In 1917, she married wounded Gallipoli survivor, Frank Anderson, a marriage which tested her love and loyalty to the ultimate as she stayed by his side through a tumultous earthquake in Japan, and then a pioneer’s life creating a farm, Rasharasha, from scratch in Tanganyika Territory’s Maasailand.
Their only daughter, Patricia, then takes up the tale, providing a different perspective on the family and their farm as East Africa endured crises in the 1930s and during the lead-up to World War Two. At that time, Patricia met and fell in love with her future husband, Jack Wright. Their daughter, Monica Jeannine, was born near the war’s end.
Jeannine then takes up the tale from the perspective of the post-WW2 generation. After leaving for Europe during the Swinging Sixties and then moving to the USA with her husband, Albert Rundle Cook, she had to watch from afar the effects of the British Empire’s demise on her family and on Rasharasha.
