Children of Hope. Sandra Rowoldt Shell

      Acknowledgments

      This book has been several years in the making, and along the way there have been countless people who have offered valuable help and encouragement. The topic intrigued and enticed many, and I have appreciated their interest and enthusiasm. The staff of the Cory Library at Rhodes University have always evinced a special interest in the project, knowing that it was there it all began. After all, my first inkling of the existence of these Oromo children came in the form of brief entries on cards in the Cory Library’s manuscript catalog. I am grateful to Dr. Cornelius Thomas, Liz de Wet, Zweli Vena, Sally Poole, Louisa Verwey, and all the Cory Library staff, past and present, who went the extra mile with their professional assistance. Thank you for your encouragement, kindness, friendship, and laughter over the years.

      In Cape Town, I thank all the staff, past and present, in Special Collections at University of Cape Town (hereafter UCT) Libraries, particularly Bev Angus, Busi Khangala, Allegra Louw, Sue Ogterop, and Belinda Southgate. Thank you for your professionalism, encouragement, and humor in equal measures. Thank you to Dr. Colin Darch for his personal insights into past and present Ethiopia and for the loan of precious items from his personal library. I am grateful to the staff in Manuscripts and Archives for access to the James Stewart Papers and the Monica and Godfrey Wilson Papers, particularly Lesley Hart, Clive Kirkwood, and Isaac Ntabankulu. That the James Stewart Papers were deposited in Manuscripts and Archives at the University of Cape Town instead of in the Lovedale Archives in the Cory Library has been, for the purposes of this study, a most useful anomaly. I applaud the unfailing efficiency of all those in UCT Libraries’ Inter Library Loans section who speedily located countless obscure sources for me over the years. My warm thanks to them for their efficient, friendly, and enthusiastic support.

      I am profoundly grateful to Nicholas Lindenberg and Thomas Slingsby of the GIS lab at the UCT for their interest in and assistance with this project. I thank them for their patience, the many afternoons spent in their lab, for the generation of countless maps from my data, and for their unflagging enthusiasm. I am similarly grateful to Professor Roddy Fox of the Department of Geography at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, who skillfully created an additional map from a subset of data.

      The National Library of South Africa has been a favorite haunt since the early 1970s, so spending much time in the Reading Room and Special Collections was, as ever, a pleasurable and fruitful experience. My special thanks go to Melanie Geustyn and her staff in Special Collections for helping in innumerable ways, as well as to the ever-helpful and cheery Reading Room staff.

      Similarly, the staff of the Western Cape Archives and Records Service—particularly Thembile Ndabeni, Jaco van der Merwe, and Erika le Roux—have offered strong support and assistance. I remain ever grateful for their knowledge and expertise, equaled only by their friendly helpfulness. I thank, too, all the tireless stack attendants who endlessly retrieved box after box and volume after volume.

      In the Library of Parliament, Lila Komnick kindly supplied me with Lovedale and Oromo photographs from their collection. She also gave generously of her time and I am grateful to her. I am beholden to the staff of the Kimberley Africana Museum for locating details in their collections on some of the Oromo who settled in their city. Cecilia Blight, formerly an archivist in the National English Literary Museum (NELM) in Grahamstown, expressed strong interest in this project. I would like to thank her most warmly for that interest, in particular for discovering and sending valuable information relating to Gilo Kashe, one of the Oromo boys.

      Alison Metcalfe in the National Library of Scotland went way beyond the call of duty with all her help and support. Thank you, Alison, for your friendly,