Continental Girl: A Profile of Hilde DathorneAuthor(s): LUCY WILSONSource: Caribbean Quarterly, Vol. 56, No. 3 (September, 2010), pp. 81-87Published by: University of the West Indies and Caribbean QuarterlyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23050676 .

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Continental Girl: A Profile of Hilde Dathorne

LUCY WILSON

In the late 1950s, Hildegard Ostermaier was a young Bavarian girl, still in

her teens, studying at the University of London. The only surviving child of

considerably older parents, she had lived a sheltered existence in postwar

Germany. She remembers as a small child watching victorious U.S. soldiers

distribute candy bars among the German children. Such excitement was rare,

however, for Hilde's father was a somber man who did not welcome deviation

from his routine. That all changed one day for Hilde when, standing in the London

Underground, she was introduced by her roommate to Ronald Dathorne. Ronald

was like no one she had met before. Though still in his twenties, he seemed older,

and already he had the appearance and mannerisms of a scholar. After a brief

courtship Ronald announced to Hilde, "I am going to marry you."

This was the beginning of Hilde's fascinating, sometimes frightening, and

often frustrating life as the wife of O. R. (Oscar Ronald) Dathorne (1934-2007):

scholar, novelist, poet, and founder of the Association of Caribbean Studies and

the Journal of Caribbean Studies.

Having grown up in the culturally diverse society of colonial Guyana, Ronald Dathorne earned an international reputation for his groundbreaking work

on social conflicts of race, class, and status in colonized cultures. As a social critic

and an academician, he often came into conflict with those in authority. He

changed jobs often and sometimes found himself at the heart of controversies.

Nonetheless, he remained a creative thinker and a respected expert on the effects

of colonization and the literature of colonized peoples.

Ronald Dathorne taught in England, Africa, and the United States. He

founded and directed the Black Studies program at Ohio State University and the

program of Caribbean, African, and African-American Studies (C.A.A.S.) at the

University of Miami. For thirty years he remained the founder/director of the

Association of Caribbean Studies, and editor of the Journal of Caribbean Studies.

A creative as well as an academic writer, he produced a body of published work

that included numerous essays, a book of poetry, three novels, and eight books of

cultural criticism notable for the scope of their vision. More than any of the

universities where Professor Dathorne taught, the Association of Caribbean

Studies was his refuge, his outlet, his home. For thirty years he and his wife Hilde

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devoted much of their time, effort, and personal resources to organizing the annual

conferences and publishing the Journal of Caribbean Studies and the conference

Abstracts.

When Ronald Dathorne died, his wife Hilde attempted to keep the

Association and the journal in operation. More than anyone else, she knew the

value of Ronald's work and understood its importance to him. In a series of

interviews conducted at her home in Kentucky this past July (2010), I asked Hilde

to talk about her life with her late husband. Anyone who had attended the ACS

conferences over the years with any regularity was aware of Hilde's importance to

the continued success of these ambitious ventures. Yet despite decades of non-stop

work for the Association, Hilde's name appears nowhere in the journal or in the

Association correspondence. Many others (myself included) were given credit for

assisting Ronald with the production of the journal: visiting editors, editorial

consultants, advisory editors, reviews editors and so on. But the name of the

woman who actually produced the journals and organized the conferences is not to

be found. And that is exactly how she liked it. This self-effacing woman is a

challenge to the interviewer because she is so reluctant to talk about herself. But

what a story she has to tell. When the nineteen-year-old Hildegard Ostermaier

decided to marry the Guyanan scholar, she married "away" (the German

expression for children who leave home and country when they marry) in nearly

every capacity implied by that term: geographic, cultural, linguistic, and racial.

Even a brief account of Hilde's life, such as this, gives some idea of the courage and fortitude of this woman who from behind the scenes ran her husband's

organization, published his journal, planned and oversaw his conferences, and, by

freeing him to concentrate on his research and writing, in essence created and

nurtured the phenomenon known as O. R. Dathorne. It should be noted that she

did this on two continents while making homes for her family in Africa and

America, raising two children who today are successful professionals, and

earning a Ph.D. in anthropology at Florida's Miami University.

In the early days of their marriage, before Ronald began receiving job offers

and invitations to talk at prestigious American universities, he found himself

unable (in large part because of the color of his skin) to find a teaching job in

England, so in 1960 the Guyanese scholar and his young wife, his "continental

girl" as he referred to Hilde in an unfinished novel, moved to Nigeria. The

Dathornes lived in Nigeria and Sierra Leone for 10 years, during which time Hilde

gave birth to their daughter, Cecily, and son, Alexander, though having miscarried

in month five of her first pregnancy, Hilde returned to Europe for the births of her

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daughter and son. Of her life in Zaria, in Northern Nigeria, Hilde recalls poisonous

snakes, modest houses made of clay, and streets with no lights at night. Ronald

taught at Ahmadu Bello University, and in his "spare" time, he began a school for

local residents and persuaded his colleagues to volunteer their time teaching basic

language skills and other subjects that might enable the residents to improve their

lives. Four years later the Dathornes moved to Ibadan when Ronald was offered a

position at the University of Ibadan.

Hilde thought of Nigeria as home and expected to live there permanently. Her only regret: "I wish that the children had had proper cribs and Winnie the Pooh

Bear blankets instead of rough cots and mosquito nets. But they spent part of every

year in Germany with their grandmother, and there they had their own rooms and

small luxuries that were unavailable in Africa." I asked Hilde whether her parents

objected to her marriage to a black man from South America, and she insisted that

they did not. What made them unhappy about her marriage was her decision to

marry "away." But Cecily and Alexander spent several months a year with their

grandparents. Although Hilde's father died a short time after Alexander's birth,

his infant grandson brought out the best in this taciturn man. In fact, the infant

Alexander's power to charm may have been the fulfillment of a midwife's

prophecy. According to Hilde, when Alexander survived being born with the

umbilical cord around his neck and a blood type incompatible with his mother's,

the midwife predicted that he would enjoy good fortune in life.

Hilde did not realize at the time that in Ibadan she was witnessing the birth of

a modern African arts and literature movement. The Dathornes' circle included a

young writer named Oloye Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Soyinka, the Nigerian

poet and playwright who, twenty years later, would win the Nobel Prize in

Literature. They also knew Nigerian writer John Pepper Clark and transplanted

European artists Uli Beier and Suzanne Wenger (later Nigeria's "White

Priestess"). Beier's journal Black Orpheus showcased a select group of Nigerian

writers and artists. However, Hilde recalls distrust of outsiders and suspicion that

Black Orpheus was backed by the CIA. Uli Beier was not the only outsider

suspected of CIA connections. When Malcolm X gave a lecture at the University

of Ibadan, Ronald Dathorne caused an incident by mimicking some of Malcolm

X's mannerisms and reiterating his key points. "When the students responded with

enthusiasm," according to Hilde, "Ronald said,' See how easily you are swayed by

the power of his rhetoric!' The enraged students chased Ronald from the

building." Although there are a number of conflicting accounts of this incident,

including a brief reference in Malcolm X's Autobiography, Hilde insists that

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Ronald "was simply trying to make a point by warning the students about

believing everything they heard. At this time, Ronald was not yet aware of the

Black Power movement in the United States or of Malcolm's importance to that

movement. Had my husband been cognizant of the true state of race relations in

America, I doubt very much that he would have moved here."

Hilde explained their decision to leave Nigeria and move to Sierra Leone:

"In 1967 civil war broke out between the Muslim Hausa-Fulani, the Yorubas, and

the more worldly and successful Ibos (Biafrans) from the east. There was a

holocaust taking place. However, they were not after us, so we did not feel

threatened. That changed, however, when Ronald was mistaken for a Biafran.

Fearing for his life, we left Nigeria in a hurry."

In Njala, Ronald was appointed professor of English literature and Black

literature, and chair of the English Department, at the University of Sierra Leone.

He was also expanding his areas of expertise from British modernism, in particular D. H. Lawrence, and Anglophone African literature, to include Caribbean and

African American literature. Hilde, however, was homesick for Nigeria. Before

the war broke out, Hilde explains, "I could not imagine living anywhere else. I had

moved there during my impressionable years and had practically grown up there."

In 1970, three years after moving to Sierra Leone and ten years after their

arrival in Africa, Ronald agreed to give a lecture tour in the United States including

stops at Northwestern University, the University of Wisconsin, Hunter, and Yale.

The Dathornes arrived in New York, where Hilde, Cecily, and Alexander stayed in

a hotel while Ronald was traveling, but because they had no credit cards and little

money, the hotel insisted that they pay in advance. Shortly after that, Yale offered

Ronald an associate professorship, but Ronald turned it down because he saw it as

a step backward from his full professorship at the University of Sierra Leone.

Hilde recalls, "We were so ignorant, naive and ignorant. Ronald did not know that

Yale was special. He did not understand academic politics in the United States. He

did not play politics, though everybody else did. Had he, our lives would have

been easier."

In an effort to support his family, Ronald accepted full-time professorships at Howard University and the University of Wisconsin, then resigned both when

his "moonlighting" was discovered. He went on to teach at Ohio State, University

of Miami, the University of the District of Columbia, S.U.N.Y. Brockport, and the

University of Kentucky. There were more conflicts with administrators, for

according to Hilde, "He did not like authority in Africa or the United States or

anywhere." Nonetheless, he continued to produce books and scholarly articles at a

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remarkable rate and was instrumental in legitimizing Black Studies and

Afro-Caribbean literature within the American university curriculum. "He was

loved by students," Hilde explained, "but butted heads with nearly every chair and

dean he ever worked with. He ended up at the University of Kentucky where he

kept a low profile, wrote his books, and taught his classes."

But how, I asked Hilde, did Ronald's career choices affect his wife and

children? She explained that for Ronald, it mattered little where he lived. "Ronald

was at home wherever his 4000 books were shelved. No one was allowed to touch

his books. But sometimes the children complained about being dragged all over

the world. 'Alexander once said, 'I have no home,'" but gradually, like their

father, Cecily and Alexander came to view themselves as citizens of the world

with a global perspective that has served them well in adulthood.

With characteristic self-deprecating humour, Hilde insists: "I was never the

power behind the man. He made all the decisions. Being naive and stupid, I went

along with things." Hilde jokes that Ronald married her because he so admired D.

H. Lawrence whose wife, Frieda, was German. Hilde spent long periods in

Germany, first with the children and later caring for her ailing mother, but always she reached a point where she thought (in her words): "Let me go back to Africa

[later America] for that was where Ronald was." They were a team. It is difficult to

imagine O. R. Dathorne's numerous achievements had he not had this feisty

German woman watching his back. He was too volatile, too anti-authoritarian, and

also too fragile to have made that journey alone. For Ronald was fragile, plagued

by a variety of serious health problems for much of his life. Although he exuded

confidence and charisma, he was painfully aware of the lingering effects of

colonialism and racial inequality.

According to Hilde, "Ronald's greatest contribution was the Association of

Caribbean Studies and the Journal of Caribbean Studies. Anybody can write

books. But Ronald was instrumental in creating and legitimizing the field of

Caribbean studies." Throughout most of the 30 years that the Association and the

journal thrived under his direction, it was Hilde who planned the conferences,

visited and selected the sites in the Caribbean, South & Central America, Europe

and Africa. She ran the conferences and made sure that the journals and abstracts

came out on time. She did all the mailing of programs, calls for papers, journals,

and membership materials. When Ronald caused a near riot in Brazil by involving

the police during a period of heightened tension between university students and

the constabulary, Hilde calmed everyone down and saved the conference. When

some of us sat around their hotel suite (a sure sign that one had been admitted into

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the inner circle) listening to Ronald hold forth on any and every topic that arose, or

when we attended sessions, swam in the sea, visited historic sites and dined at

restaurants she had selected in advance, Hilde would be off arguing with hotel

management about the inadequate size of the conference rooms or the absence of

overhead projectors. Hilde (in her words) "had to take so many insults" from staff

members at conference hotels, and as soon as one conference ended, she had to

begin planning the following year's conference. Yet nowhere in the conference

materials or the journal is her name mentioned. Ronald and Hilde agreed that

another Dathorne in the list of ACS and JCS advisors and facilitators might

compromise the organization's professionalism by giving it the appearance of a

family enterprise. However, the time has come for Hilde Dathorne to step out of

the shadows and be recognized for a lifetime devoted to the promotion of

Caribbean culture.

Today she continues to protect her husband's legacy. After his death in

2007, there was much speculation and vying for position within the ranks of the

Association of Caribbean Studies. Who would assume directorship of the

organization? Who would edit the journal? Could any one or even two individuals

replace O. R. Dathorne? He was larger than life, a force of nature, with the power

to charm or infuriate, and it mattered little to him which he did as long as he had

your attention. I have seen him hijack a conference presentation that he felt was

moving too slowly—he just walked to the front of the room and began talking!

No one could take his place. ACS without Ronald Dathorne at the helm

would not have been the same organization. The journal was Ronald's creation as

well, and Hilde feared that whoever took over as editor would change the focus of

the journal to reflect his or her interests. This was unacceptable to Hilde, and in

2009 she made the difficult decision to close down the Association and cease

publication of the journal.

Toward the end of my visit with Hilde in Kentucky, one question remained, but I knew better than to ask her whether Ronald appreciated her lifetime of work

in his behalf. I knew that she would respond with characteristic self-deprecating humor. So I turned to the great man himself. He was gone, but his books remain,

and although he dedicated several of his books to his wife, one dedication in

particular allows us to see behind the fa?ade at the vulnerable, complex, and yes,

exceedingly appreciative man who married his continental girl and brought her

into his world: "For Hilde Ostermaier Dathorne who provided me with the time,

space, and climate to make this possible and who gave unstintingly of her time and

effort." Theirs was a "marriage of true minds," and together they helped put

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Caribbean studies on the map while providing direction for scholars like myself and a place for us to meet other academics who shared our interest in Caribbean

culture. They literally changed lives, broadened minds, enabled friendships, and

opened lines of communication across national and ethnic boundaries. This is O.

R. Dathorne's legacy, and Hilde made it happen.

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