Kottayam: Rosanna D’Costa from California in the US first travelled to India and then arrived in Kerala, in search of her family roots. The 54-year-old woman wishes to institute a scholarship in memory of her father at the St Berchmans' College in Changanassery where he had studied. She has informed the college authorities about this.
Her great-grandmother's house in Kochi is now a hotel named 'Koder House'. She will stay there on Wednesday. Afterwards, she wants to visit Mumbai where her great-grandmother and husband have been laid to rest and pray for them.
Rosanna and her father Francis D'Costa were born in Singapore, but her grandfather Peter Augustus D'Costa hailed from Pulluvila in Thiruvananthapuram. Rosanna's great-grandmother Sarah Koder was born into a Jewish family in Kochi.
Peter got married to a Pulluvila native, Mary Ann Fernandes. They then migrated to Singapore, where Peter worked in the education department. Rosanna's father Francis D'Costa and his siblings were born in that country. Amid this, Peter was assigned to work in Labuan in Borneo island.
With the threat of World War II looming, he sent his wife and children back to Pulluvila in 1933. During that voyage, one of their sons died of an illness on board the ship and Mary buried him at the nearest port in Nagapattinam on the eastern coast of Tamil Nadu. The grave with his name engraved is still there in that cemetery. Francis survived due to sheer luck.
Amid this, Peter returned to Singapore for cataract treatment and had to continue there due to the World War. His relatives back home thought that he too might have died in the war there. Meanwhile, his wife Mary died; and her children were raised by her sister Cecilia Fernandes.
Rosanna's father Francis D'Costa enrolled as a Science-Maths student at the St Berchmans' College during 1947-49. Peter came to know about his wife's death only when he returned to his home state much later. He then took his children back to Singapore.
A teacher in California, Rosanna decided to set off in search of her family roots a year ago. Rosanna's great grandmother Sarah was born into the wealthy Koder family in Kochi in 1895. She left for Mumbai with a Catholic named Augustus Nevis, a teacher.
Only the eldest and youngest daughters of Peter and Mary survived, the rest all died. The eldest daughter Catheline Nevis is Rosanna's maternal grandmother. The family lived near St Anne's Church in Mumbai. Sarah passed away after giving birth to the youngest child.
Catheline married Indian-born Malaysian native Dr Cherugard Raphael Paul and migrated to Malaysia. Rosanna's mother Isabelle was born there. Isabelle had three daughters, including Rosanna.
Rosanna wishes to procure documents, including the marriage certificate of her great-grandmother. She has undertaken the journey in the belief that she would be able to obtain these.
"My friends in the US told me that I should definitely visit Kerala during my tour of India. But for me this is not just a journey for sight-seeing. But it is also an opportunity to reconnect with the land of my ancestors," Rosanna said.
