By Max Uechtritz
(Forward by Kalolaine Uechtritz Fainu)
"The value of these videos, blogs and collections of family stories is immeasurable."
The following video and tribute was put together by my uncle Max Uechtritz. Max is our family historian, a dedicated researcher and documenter that has unravelled, discovered and shared so many interesting and fascinating stories about our ancestors and the incredible lives they lived.
The passing down of family history and adventurous tales is something that has always existed in our family. My grandfather was a wonderful storyteller, whose tales of growing up in on a plantation in East New Britain Province, always filled my imagination with endless scenes of adventure in a tropical paradise.
But it is our family tree, and the stories of our ancestors that truly captivate. We descend from a line of royalty and chiefs; a line of explorers, anthropologists as well as a line of strong, smart women and infamous 'Queens' of the South Seas. And that is just on my grandfathers side. My grandmother has an equally interesting line of ancestors to celebrate, from pilots and ships captains to secret service agents... there is a lifetime of stories, or a really really long series of netflix drama's that could be produced from just our family history!
Anyway, I digress a little, because this post is an opportunity to share just one of those stories that uncle Max has put together for us to keep in our family archives and share with our own children. The value of these videos, blogs and collections of family stories is immeasurable.
Thank you uncle Max.
- Kalo :)
Check out Max's blog at: https://maxmoments.blog/ for more incredible stories.
"Without Richard and Phebe Parkinson, we would be strangers in our own land"
These words were spoken by the wonderful PNG historian Gideon Kakabin in our first conversation and formed the basis for our enduring friendship and shared passion for history.
My Danish great grandfather Richard Parkinson, of Malapau and Kuradui, published his famed tome Thirty Years in the South Seas in 1907. It was in German (Dreissig Jahre in Der Südsee) because that was the language of then German New Guinea which encompassed a great swathe of the Pacific.
In 1999 "Thirty" was finally published in English after decades of difficult translation effort - and the book was launched in Sydney by PNG's Lady Aivu Tauvasa.
For my father - Alfred Max Parkinson Uechtritz - it was a memorable event he'd yearned for all his life. He was a proud special guest as he put the record straight about how critical to the book were the efforts of his grandmother Phebe.
This video is a record of that day, a testament to the Parkinsons and my father who left this world on this day in 2008.
For my father - Alfred Max Parkinson Uechtritz - it was a memorable event he'd yearned for all his life. He was a proud special guest as he put the record straight about how critical to the book were the efforts of his grandmother Phebe.
This video is a record of that day, a testament to the Parkinsons and to honour my father who left this world on this day in 2008.