(Vol. VI, No.6 February 2007)

Learning from Historical Resources
Presentation by Nina York

Our January featured speaker was author Nina York, a delightful, long-time St. Croix resident of Danish descent, who spoke about her experiences in translating both old and new Danish and English text. In introducing her, SJHS President David Knight emphasized that her book, Islands of Beauty and Bounty, should be considered mandatory reading for all of us in understanding the history of our islands.

Ms. York began by saying that her association with and appreciation for the Virgin Islands and her gift for translation grew from multiple roots. Her family provided a literary milieu—her father and uncle were writers/journalists; she earned a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship, and although expecting to be sent to New York was sent to Montana! She was a voracious English language reader. She has continually cultivated her English and Danish language skills and has gained an appreciation of how language changes by watching her childhood Danish become a different language. Before moving to St. Croix Ms. York lived in Puerto Rico for 13 years, but it was her father’s untimely death, heartbroken that he had never visited the Virgin Islands, that finally convinced her to take up her father’s gauntlet and settle on St Croix in 1976, where she dedicated herself to writing about the islands, and facilitating an understanding of the past.

At her arrival in St Croix, she began volunteering at Whim Plantation Museum, classifying the small collection of (mostly missing) books. Friends led her to meet Edith and Robert Graham, who had recently purchased the set of classic Bærentzen prints of the Danish West Indies -- images she had originally seen in her childhood. To her surprise, she found that there was an accompanying Danish text that went along with the prints, which she translated into English and later published as Islands of Beauty and Bounty. During this period she also volunteered at the Fort Christian Museum, where she translated text from old Danish to both modern Danish and English.

Ms. York’s 1994 translation of Hans West’s Account of St Croix in the West Indies, funded by the Virgin Islands Humanities Council and edited by Arnold R. Highfield and George Tyson, has yet to be released, but she commends it to us as a useful portrayal of the Danish West Indies in the 1790’s. (She also identified the translation task, from Gothic archaic to modern English and Danish, as a very challenging one; it made her realize that you can become an interested historian by taking on the labor of translating a book!) Hans West was the principal of a Christiansted Danish school, whose decline left time on his hands to explore and observe the people, animals, and botany of his island. Although somewhat verbose and an apologist for the government, he speaks thoroughly of the climate, biology, dress and clothing customs of the day, and gives us a view of the upper crust of Danish society in the West Indies as quite cosmopolitan and surprisingly well-read, not the colonial ‘backwater’ we might have supposed. Hans West also traveled to St. John and St. Thomas and gives us glimpses into inter-island as well as European-Virgin islands trade. We will all look forward to the book’s eventual release!!

Ms. York reminded us that Virgin Islanders are culturally conditioned to take on multiple jobs, and that she currently has several. She remains a translator, keeping her hand in translating everything from modern menus, websites, and furniture catalogs to archaic Danish laws. Originally a part-time job, the editorship of St Croix’s This Week Magazine has blossomed, as has Danish tourism and the demand for her knowledge as a guide.

She became the Virgin Islands Christmas Seal maven through a philatelist Danish connection, re-cementing a new Denmark-Virgin Islands relationship; Danes purchased as many Christmas seals as were sold in the Virgin Islands at a critical time after Hurricane Hugo when the program nearly collapsed. Ms York brought a portfolio of past Christmas seals for Society members to peruse; they are a marvelous pictorial reference–from the older stamps with the Danish Queen Charlotte Amalie and ‘Protest’ Stamps, protesting the sale of the Danish West Indies to the US, to the more modern ones which showcase our own Elaine Estern’s work in 1995. The portfolio includes_minified not only blocks of original issues, but also demonstrates how the stamps were used–by the one’s on Christmas cards here and in Denmark, and more commonly here and in the US-framed as collectable works of art.

Ms. York communicated her excitement about both new sources of historical research information, i.e. George Tyson’s African Roots database, with its depth, accuracy, and relational capability housing names, occupations, ages, burial records, etc., and the rich old sources still resident in Denmark–‘kilometers of Danish archives’ still awaiting interested translators and researchers. Assuring us that we can learn relevant and useful things from the past, she quoted from her book Hans West’s Account of St Croix in the West Indies: “If fevers occur, one is secure in the experience of capable doctors and in the simplicity and certainty of the medicines. Castor oil, quinine bark, old Madeira wine and opium are the simple weapons used unhesitatingly by doctors to take on the enemies of life….” In the old days, 4-5 bottles of old Madeira at one sitting apparently cured you of just about anything.

Ms. York’s self-effacing descriptions of just happening to know two languages and learning Gothic Danish, her description of ‘serendipitously’ becoming the organizer of the Virgin Islands Christmas Seal campaign, and her upcoming plans to produce an educational video showcasing the Hugo Larson paintings portraying the life and scenery of the islands, are only three examples of how she understates her achievements; we suspect we only saw a small portion of this wonderful woman’s energy and intellectual contribution to documenting the cultural history of our island.

Summarized by Robin Swank
Secretary, SJHS

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