Intrusions of Chance: Autobiography of K.O. Harrop from Penury to Phd

By Kingsley Ormonde Harrop-Williams

This is the authors autobiography from birth to when he started his professional career. As stated in the book, from the beginning, his chances were pretty slim. His chances increased with each gamble his mother made. His mother took a chance to move to the bushes of Smythfield to live in a hut built of tar drums by his father, gambling that the financial situation would get better. His mother taught herself to sew and took a chance to invest all the money she had in a used foot pedal sewing machine, believing that she could develop a clientele. His mother totally ignored his dying fathers advice to take him out of high school, and took a chance that despite the fees and books they would be okay. His mother took the chance in supporting him for over a year until he got a job befitting his high school graduate status. His mother took a chance that she would be okay after she stopped getting his contribution when he took a four month student visa to the USA.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524615703

Kingsley Ormonde Harrop-Williams

Dr. Kingsley Ormonde Harrop-Williams was born in Golden Grove, West Coast Berbice, Guyana. He grew up in Smythfield near Berbice largest town New Amsterdam and attended Berbice High School. After nearly a year and a half unemployed, he worked for the Transport and Harbors Department in New Amsterdam. In 1970, almost five years after high school, he applied for and received a four month student visa to study computer tabulation in The United States of America. On completion of the computer course, Dr. Harrop-Williams applied and was accepted to the City University of New York (CUNY) as a foreign student. Attending only night school, while working in the day to pay the school fees, he completed his Bachelor’s Degree in civil engineering and graduated Magna Cum Laude. With scholarships and grants he finished a Master’s Degree at CUNY and a PhD at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. He has the bragging rights that he never had a student loan. Dr. Harrop-Williams was a professor of Civil Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and George Mason University. He published thirty technical papers in Civil Engineering, and was the principal engineer on many design projects. His career took him to become a Professional Engineer in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia; and a professional Hydrogeologist. He also worked as a civilian engineer for the US Air Force and the US Navy. Dr. Harrop-Williams was the Grand Prize Winner of the National Library of Poetry 1995 North American Open Poetry Contest. He is also the author of a book of poetry entitled ‘Poetry of K.O. Harrop’. Dr. Harrop-Williams lives in Virginia with his wife and three children. He considers his decision to become a Permanent Resident after six years in the USA and getting his mother and siblings out of Guyana when the food situation became dire as his proudest accomplishment in life.

Book preview

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2016 Kingsley Harrop-Williams. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse   07/20/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5246-1571-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-1570-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016910517

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

About the Book

Chapter 1    The USA Connection

Chapter 2    Escape to Smythfield

Chapter 3    A Gamble with Sewing

Chapter 4    Not Folding the High School Hand

Chapter 5    Someone Broke with Tradition

Chapter 6    To the USA

About the Author

About the Book

This is the author’s autobiography from birth to when he started his professional career. As stated in the book, from the beginning, his chances were pretty slim. His chances increased with each gamble his mother made. His mother took a chance to move to the bushes of Smythfield to live in a hut built of tar drums by his father, gambling that the financial situation would get better. His mother taught herself to sew and took a chance to invest all the money she had in a used foot pedal sewing machine, believing that she could develop a clientele. His mother totally ignored his dying father’s advice to take him out of high school, and took a chance that despite the fees and books they would be okay. His mother took the chance in supporting him for over a year until he got a job befitting his high school graduate status. His mother took a chance that she would be okay after she stopped getting his contribution when he took a four month student visa to the USA.

Chapter 1 describes the history behind the author’s existence, his two sisters’ death on the same day, and the situation they were in when he could first remember. It bordered on homelessness because his father was unemployed and the cheapest rents in New Amsterdam were unaffordable. Each subsequent chapter shows separately that every chance that his mother took was a winning chance that led them from penury to the American dream. It also describes in detail his experiences during that phase of his life.

Chapter 2 lays out the author’s experiences growing up in bush covered Smythfield. Dodging hot melted tar while living in a house his father made of mangrove limbs and flattened out discarded tar drums, and being called ‘Tar Drum House’ by boys in the village. Here he tells of catching land crabs and fishes by hand, making casava bread, casareep, cassava starch, coconut milk, and coconut oil; picking cotton to fill pillows, and shredding coconut husks to make mattresses. He reminisces about accompanying his grandmother to New Amsterdam landfill to scavenge for toys while she looked for good utensils. He tells of the many fights that erupted as he fetched water from a stand pipe at the head of the village. During that phase he described how he and his brothers responded to his father’s whip.

In Chapter 3 the author describes his father’s determination to look only for a ‘night watchman job’ and his depression when he got fired. He also describes his mother‘s determination to build a proper house which they moved in before it was done. Now they were called ‘Half Done House’. Next he describes his father’s sickness and death. After that, he relates his behavior as an unsupervised teenager where stealing fruits from fruit trees throughout the area was the norm. He also describes the scores of fights that his older brother was engaged in.

In chapter 4 the author describes the difficulty his mother had putting food on the table after his father died. He relates his experiences during his high school years, and his experience with ‘bush rum’ overdose. He describes his fear when during the riots in Guyana he was arrested by a British soldier he had tricked. He tells of the year after high school and the difficulty finding a job. Of how he went from stealing fruits and ground provisions to more felonious activities like picking a man’s pocket and stealing neighbors’ fowls.

Chapter 5 lays out the author’s experiences during the three years he worked in Guyana. He describes the rum culture in Guyana, and how he and his colleagues fit in. He mentions some of the racial remarks he got for dating girls out of his race, and being shunned by some of his friends who had become Afrocentric. He tells of the incident when he was transferred from his job for enticing the boss’s daughter from her fiancé’s motor cycle and keeping her out most of the night. He also relates his adventures in prostitute laden New Amsterdam, ending in his brief experience as a pimp.

Chapter 6 lays out the challenges and triumphs he had in the USA. He describes how he found himself cold and alone at the airport in New York City when he first landed, as no one picked him up. He tells of his urgency to find work without working papers and taking a danger filled job. He tells of close calls with the police and a gunman, and being falsely identified as a mugger. He relates about doing his undergraduate studies at night at CUNY, graduating Magna Cum Laude, and getting a grant to complete his PhD at RPI. He got his ‘green card’ after six years without a working permit, and helped his mother and siblings escape the dire food conditions in Guyana.

Chapter 1

The USA Connection

The American civil war to free the slaves made conditions unbearable for an immigrant family in the United States. That family had recently immigrated to Portsmouth, Ohio from Wales, and the hardship created by the war forced them to re-migrate to Brymbo,Wales. Among that family was my father’s father Robert Harrop-Williams. So rather than becoming an American he grew up a British subject who relocated in the county of Berbice in the Colony of British Guiana. So because of the American civil war I am a Berbician. The name Harrop-Williams is the combination of Robert’s mother and father’s surname. The story told to me was that the Harrop family owned a coal mine in Wales and their daughter married Williams, a collier in the mine. Robert became a clergyman with the Church of England and in 1879 at age 24 was posted to Wakenaam in British Guiana. He later was assigned to St. George’s cathedral in Georgetown, then to Port Mourant in Berbice. He was not alone, but was joined by his younger brother John, also a clergyman, and Thomas who was assigned to the Post Office. After Robert’s wife died in 1894, he was accused of fathering two children with a local girl. He won the paternity suits but was forced to resign from the Church of England in 1900 because of the scandal. He subsequently became a trader in fur from ‘water dogs’ (giant otters) and feathers from ‘Canje Pheasants’ (hoatzins) he hunted up the Canje River in Berbice.

It was at Baracara up the Canje River that Robert met my father’s mother Catherine Adamson in 1908. My father was born a year later. Robert never married Catherine and returned to England when my father was a small boy. Catherine’s father was a Frenchman and her mother a local who grew up in Baracara. Catherine’s father also never married her mother and returned to France when she was a small girl. Baracara is 65 miles up the Canje Creek and usually described as the only maroon community in Guyana. Since the great Berbice slave rebellion of 1763 occurred up the Canje and Berbice Rivers, it is assumed that these are the descendants of the slaves that rebelled. However, there is an even greater possibility that they are descendants of Winkle slaves that were freed prior to emancipation and given land to homestead away from the plantations. Winkle, the Dutch word for shop, was the maintenance shop for the town of New Amsterdam and the slaves were owned by the Dutch government. When the British captured Berbice from the Dutch, the British government became owners of the slaves of Winkle. This was the first time that the British government became slave owners. A financial analysis was done and it was determined that these slaves were not profitable and they were offered the opportunity to homestead at Baracara. (Unprofitable Servants, Crown Slaves in Berbice, Guyana 1803-1831, by Alvin O. Thompson, The University of the West Indies Press, 2002, Pages 246 – 248)

My mother is Portuguese. Her grandparents were indentured servants brought from Madeira by the British to replace the emancipated slaves that were leaving the plantations. The Portuguese were the first indentured servants to replace slavery in Guyana, arriving May 3, 1835. The Portuguese indentureship was not successful. Three years later, May 5, 1838, the British turned to India, giving to every Indian a free passage, and a free return passage or land grant if they renewed their contract. (Court of Policy No. 21 – British Guiana -1850, Appendix, No.14). Before emancipation there were over 400 profitable plantations in Guyana. A list of those in Demerara and Essequibo in 1813 with the number of slaves on each and the quantity of produce made during the year can be found in The Demerary and Essequebo Royal Gazette, April 1815 Plantation Chart 2. The use of indentured immigrants resulted in a 90 percent reduction in the number of plantations, even though the number of indentured immigrants exceeded the number of former slaves. This may be due to the retirement of the whip in combination with the assessment that ‘the Indentured Indians were one third as strong as the slaves’. (Handbook of British Guiana by James Rodway, 1893, Page 35 – 36; Timehri, Journal of The Royal Agricultural & Commercial Society of British Guiana, Vol IX, 1895, Page 292; Sketches of African and Indian Life in British Guyana, Revd. Ignatius Scoles, 1885, page 5 – 6; British Guiana by Rev. L. Crookall, 1898, Page 63). I was told that my mother’s grandfather, Manoel Pereira-Jardin, bought four estates in the Mahaicony area (Dantzig, Content, Relief and Farm) from the departing slave holders who found it unprofitable to continue without slaves.

All of the Portuguese brought to British Guiana were Roman Catholic, but I found out that the name Pereira has Jewish origins and Catholics with that name were the result of the Great Inquisition that took place in Portugal in the 16th century. My mother’s brother in Surinam followed his roots, changed his name from Pereira-Jardin to Pereira and had his sons circumcised. Like most of the Portuguese, after Manoel finished his 5 years indentureship he moved off of the plantation and set up shop among the emancipated population. The freed slaves, most of whom worked as daily hires on the plantations, needed somewhere to buy their necessities. The Portuguese, who had no return passage guaranty, stayed on and supplied that need. Manoel opened a baker shop in Mahaicony and became very successful. Unfortunately, my mother’s father died before his father Manoel, and his father’s wealth was divided among his living children. My mother’s father never married her mother, even though they had six children. Both of my mother’s parents died when she was very young and she grew up with a family friend in the Pomeroon.

The above makes me half Portuguese, a quarter Welsh, one eight African, and one eight French. My Birth Certificate says that I am a ‘mixed native of British Guiana’. It also says that I was born in the village of Golden Grove, West Coast Berbice. This Golden Grove is much less inhabited than Golden Grove, East Coast Demerara, or Golden Grove, East Bank Demerara. The name of these villages on the coastal plain of Guyana was of course the name given by the English planters to their estates. These estates became villages after emancipation. At Golden Grove, West Coast Berbice, 149 enslaved persons were registered in 1832 to Wm. and A. Ranken. In the history of Golden Grove, West Coast Berbice there is the following:

A local magistrate, Mr. Downie, complained about ‘irregular’ relationships on plantation Golden Grove. He alleged that one coloured family on the estate appear to have the whole control over the rest of the gang; and as one of the sisters of that family is kept by the manager, and the other by the overseer, no redress is given when any complaint is made against them (The Secret Lives of Slaves: Berbice, 1819 to 1827, Thesis for Ph.D. in History in the University of Canterbury 2002 by J. H. Lean, Page 173 – 176).

I was told that at the time of my birth that my father was not around. He was working in the Rupununi savannah on a large cattle ranch at Guyana’s southern border with Brazil. My grandmother served as mid-wife during my birth as there was no hospital or mid-wife in the Golden Grove area. Home birth was not new to my mother, for my two older sisters were born at Golden Grove. I have no memory of Golden Grove, for not long after my birth my father quit his job and moved the family to New Amsterdam. He thought the job at Rupununi was too long a stay away from his family, and he dismissed the idea of moving the family to the Rupununi because of the insecurity of the job and the limited job opportunity and school availability in the interior of Guyana. He also knew that there were no jobs in the little village of Golden Grove where everyone did subsistence farming. His best chance of finding a job was to move to the town of New Amsterdam.

New Amsterdam is the oldest town in Guyana and is the capital of the County of Berbice. It was established by the Dutch at the confluence of the Berbice and Canje Rivers in 1784 after the Berbice Slave Rebellion. In the history of New Amsterdam there is the following:

In New Amsterdam there was an old Dutch church. In front of that church in the old days a signboard was to be seen with the words: Negroes and dogs are not permitted to enter here! The minister of this Lutheran Church today was trained by the London Missionary body and is a descendant of that once hated race. (British Guiana by Rev.