From cemeteries to Archives: Unravelling the saga of the Abeyesunderes
View(s):By Yomal Senerath-Yapa
It was in the COVID years that Nirmala Marina Pieris put thought to the task of compiling a history of the Abeyesunderes, the illustrious Galle clan of her maternal grandmother Millicent. It was fired by the fact that her husband Mevan had produced ‘The Community – A historical account of the Mudaliyar class Goyigama Family Combine’ in 2023.
How this scientist by training, went from that point to finishing ‘The Abeyesundere Family of Galle’, released on November 14 at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute is a tale worth relating. The hardcover volume is a definitive biography of the family, meandering through seven generations and copiously illustrated to give a whiff of those hazy days of P&O steamers and the fabulous wealth of bourgeois Galle merchants.
Family history: Nirmala Pieris speaking at the launch of the book. Pic by M.A. Pushpa Kumara
As a chemist Nirmala did her PhD in 1976 at the Colombo University, and received a Commonwealth scholarship for postdoctoral research at the University of London. Her career at the Ceylon Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research (CISIR) spanned both research and leadership roles, and she also served as Vice President and Asia Pacific Regional Representative of the World Association of Industrial and Technological Research Organization (WAITRO).
Her passion for writing though it had occasionally spurted out in the form of a humorous ‘staff update’ at office would be given full vent with the planned book. That she was a researcher helped for much of the saga was shrouded in oblivion.
Following the launch of the book, we met Nirmala at Ellesmere, her home at Gregory’s Road with an African Grey parrot on the porch, and an elegant interior cluttered with family portraits and precious mementos.
While there were some facts and stories exchanged at the extended Abeyesundere family gatherings vis-à-vis ‘the ancestors’ neither was this information put together nor did the descendants know most distant cousins. Nirmala strode into this genealogical vacuum armed with insatiable curiosity, a notebook and a recorder.
There was family history that all Abeyesunderes knew, of a wealthy patriarch William Pemyano Abeyesundere in the mid-19th Century who built the Our Lady of Lourdes Church at Halpathota, Baddegama, and was made a Chevalier by the Pope; of his charismatic heir Fred, and of a road in Galle named after the family…
The Abeyesunderes were mentioned in Norah Roberts’ book ‘Galle: As Quiet as Sleep’ and there were two basic family charts compiled by Christie Alles and Jeff Felix, but this was all the literature available when Nirmala came on the scene.
With the parish priest of the Halpathota church, Father Bede de Silva (a historian aptly given his name), Nirmala would first visit St. Mary’s Cathedral, Galle, with the blessings of the Bishop of Galle, and potter around its archives. There she was to make her first breakthrough: finding the marriage banns of William and his betrothed, Juana Eliza de Costa, from 1857, which gave the names of William’s parents: Yathramulle Muhandiramge Abraham Silva Abeyesundere Goonewardene (born circa 1805) & Kotubenda Muhandiramge Nathalia Wijewickreme Goonewardena.
The next task was to trace the descendants of William and Juana, the links to the current-day Abeyesunderes.
Every weekend Nirmala would travel to Galle “and when I was not there I was at the National Archives.” At the Archives she perused the Dutch thombu, ola leaf manuscripts in cursive writing, the civil lists, Ferguson’s Ceylon Directories and the Ceylon Catholic Messenger. The Messenger was very helpful about events like elaborate nuptials, complete with reams on the bride’s trousseau, “which choir sang, what the guests wore, the pavada they put, how the church was decorated and where the reception was hosted.”
She also regularly went to three cemeteries at Galle; the Dadalla cemetery, the small cemetery at the family’s Halpathtota church and the big cemetery at St. Mary’s Cathedral. The Dadalla cemetery had the tombstones all ‘floored’ after the tsunami but Nirmala was able to garner much. She would also spend hours at the Kanatte – all 13 acres of the Christian section.
In overgrown parts of cemeteries the keepers would warn about ‘sattu serpei’ (serpents) but Nirmala tramped on undeterred. Some days were utterly frustrating having unearthed nothing, but other days would yield gratifying material whether in the airy rooms of the Archives or among mossy stone angels and Celtic crosses.
For the indispensable oral history Nirmala reached out to older family members, some at elders’ homes, and while some ladies proved to be veritable repositories of family fable and photos, not everyone was enthusiastic.
Piece by intriguing piece, she would put together the saga, tinged too with some tragedy, up to the “post-apocalyptic” 2020s.
It was a major task to bring shape and order to the amorphous mass of material. Translating Dutch and French records, locating precise dates for births and deaths, meant assiduous work.
The first chapter she dedicates to “uncovering the roots”– the antecedents of William, while the second chapter is about William Pemyano, ship chandler, landowner, muppu (lay leader) of the St. Mary’s Cathedral, member of the Galle Municipal Council who was made Chevalier by Pope Leo XII.
The other colourful character whom the book gravitates around is Fred Abeyesundere, Nirmala’s grandmother Millicent’s father, whom Nirmala calls the ‘master spirit’ of the family. An ardent equestrian, he built The Manor –a palatial house down Bagatalle Road. The trophies he won at innumerable races with his 50 horses are now scattered around the world, some of them still in the hands of Abeyesunderes.
The rest of the book covers the descendants of William’s children in snippets and cameos and includes a complete genealogy.
Amidst other interesting facts Nirmala records, is how the spelling of the family name had evolved. Initially it was all a’s, then two e’s and two a’s, and finally now all e’s (since the 1920s).
There is colourful family lore – for example the story of how when Fred’s hearse was being taken to Galle from the Bagatalle Road house, “in about Bentota, all the people gathered had seen this, five or six black horses suddenly came into the scene and then galloped into the night”…
Edited by Dilmani Warnasuriya, the book was made possible by Mevan Pieris, Nirmala’s husband.
‘The Abeyesundere Family of Galle’, can be bought at a concessionary price by contacting the author on 077 309 7798.
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