The Mexolie
factory in 1933/4
In 1933 Kebumen was a small kampong in the south of
Java. My parents came to live and work there at the age of 29 (Oscar) and 26 yrs
(Nelly). It will not have been easy for a swiss girl who didn't speak dutch nor
malaysian, to adapt to colonial Netherlands-Indies and to Asian people she had
never met. But, from the letters she writes to her parents (see Blog posthume),
the newlyweds were full of energy, enthusiasm and hope for their new life
together.
They drew for their parents and friends the map
below. Indicated with numbers are:their house (1), houses of director and other
staff (2-4, 9), station (7), tennis court (8), central park (alun alun, 29),
mosque (27), palace of the Prince (26), prison (31), hospital (14), ice factory
(16), a Japanese shop (18) and a Chinese shop (19), market (pasar, 21), post
office (23), hotel Juliana (24), and the Mexolie factory (6, 10).
Map of Kebumen,
drawn by my parents in April 1934. As indicated by the compass, North points
downward.
Immediately after their arrival my father started to
work in the Mexolie factory close to their house. He had to do administrations
but, knowing some chemistry,he was also involved in checking the quality of the
oil and in producing by-products.
Notebook
with protocols (e.g. for saponification of butyl alcohol) and a drawing of a
reducing valve. How did this
little booklet (10x16 cm) survive the Japanese camps? We will never know....
Batak intermezzo
My aunt Vivian Woldringh-Coster (born 11 December
1927 in Bandung) lived until about her fifth year in Parapat and later in
Tarutung near lake Toba in Sumatra. A year ago she told me what she remembered while
showing me an album with photographs. When I showed these pictures to Julia
Tampubolon, who was born and raised there, she could recognize most of the
locations!
Pictures
from the album of Vivian Woldringh-Coster. Left: Vivian (~4 yrs) with a
governess from Suriname. Right a kampong near Banuarea; the tree could be from
the Durian.
On September 3, 2015, I went with Hilbert van der
Meer and his visitor, Julia Tampubolon, to the University Library of Leiden. Julia
was looking for the book of a german missionary, Friedrich Eigenbrod. He wrote
a story about the conversion to christianity of her great-grandfather, Sarbut
Tampubolon; however the story was written in or had been translated to the "Batak-Toba"
language. So, Julia had to tell us what Eigenbrod had been writing about.
The book
about Sarbut Tampubolon, written by F. Eigenbrod in Batak language, found in
the University Library Leiden.
She told us that the book described how the father of
her great-grandfather, Guru Sumillam Tampubolon, had dreamed about his newborn son:
that he would become someone to be respected and well-known with great
influence towards other people because he would have charisma and power. So Sarbut
became spoiled by his proud father in his very early age, even as a gambler and
when he made “trouble”. Later, Sarbut became a leader, fighting with his Aceh
comrades against the Dutch, burning churches and dutch army
posts in the area of Toba. He was exiled to Padang and Aceh by the Dutch. He
had to go into hiding in a cave on the shore of lake Toba. He fought together
with Sisingamangaraja against the Dutch
{From Wikipedia: "Sisingamangaraja XII
(1849 – 17 June 1907; "raja" means king), was the last
priest-king of the Batak peoples of north Sumatra. In the course of fighting a lengthy guerrilla war
against the Dutch colonisation of Sumatra
from 1878 onwards, he was killed in a skirmish with Dutch troops in 1907. He
was declared a National Hero of Indonesia in
1961 for his resistance to Dutch colonialism."}
During his wanderings Sarbut met the famous Lutheran
missionary Ludwig Ingwer Nommensen, who "adopted him as a son".
Sarbut died on 11 September 1905; he had a son named
Pamilang Tampubolon; his son was Guru Tiodorus Tampubolon, who married Lena
Sitinjak. They had four sons and four daughters, of whom Julia is the youngest.
They represent the 17th generation of the Tampubolon family.
Julia was born in a village called Harianboho on the
western shore of lake Toba.
Houses and
rice fields (2012) near Harianboho, the birth place of Julia Tampubolon.
Modern Kebumen
Kebumen is now a town with more than 1 million
inhabitants. I found a web site about modern Kebumen and Julis helped me to
translate it.
Left: Ravie
Ananda's web site: http://kebumen2013.com/pdf-materi-sejarah-singkat-pmk-sarinabati-panjer-kebumen/.
Right: Julia Tampubolon, helping me with the translation of the web site of
Ravie Ananda, written in Bahasa Indonesia.
Photographs
of the Copra factory in Kebumen (1860-1930) from the Tropical Institute (KIT)
in Amsterdam. Many of these prints were also in my father's archive. Web site
Ravie Ananda: http://kebumen2013.com/foto-pabrik-mexolie-kebumen/
On his web site Ravie Ananda describes how the Copra-factory
in Kebumen developed from ~1860 to the 1920s. In the 1930s there were 3 classes
of houses for those who worked in the factory. The houses were built in a
classic european style. For the core staff they were located west of the
factory. For ordinary employees 25 units were built, each containing a well.
There were also public lavatories with wells. For covering the roofs, tiles
were made with tile-press machines imported from Germany. Besides these houses
many other buildings have been built as indicated on hand-drawn map of my
parents.
Left: With
the help of a picture of 1933, we found the house of my parents when we visited
Kebumen in 2000. It had become a military post. Right: The buildings, the
drying fields for the copra and the electricity poles have not changed much....
From 1961 to 1972 the production of copra-oil
increased again, giving more work to local people. The factory also produced
ice blocks. However, in 1986 the Mexolie (now called "Sari Nabati",
meaning pollen oil) went bankrupt. Machines, steel frames and lorries were
removed and sold. The factory was used for the storage of, for instance, sugar
products. It was neglected for about 25 years.
In the past years, reconstruction plans are being
carried out for the development of the factory area. There are plans to make an
amusement park, but also a library and a museum, a recreation place for
children, a sports center, swimming pool and a hotel. On the picture below a section of the drawing from
1934 is being compared with a section of the GoogleEarth map of April 11, 2013 from
Kebumen as posted by Ravie Ananda. The green area belongs to a military post,
the red area to the former Mexolie/Sarinabati factory.
Comparison
of the drawing of 1934 with the map from GoogleEarth, slightly tilted to a
similar position. The North now points upward.
When all the building plans become realized, it
remains to be seen what will remain of the old buildings and houses of the
Mexolie/Sarinabati factory. According to some people these buildings can be considered to represent
the historical and cultural heritage of modern Kebumen.
New
buildings (a hotel?) are being constructed at the factory site.
This picture
was taken in April 2015, when Channoch M. visited the town where he was born in
1940.
