My father’s Pitcairn

This examination of personal correspondence reveals not only how material exchanges were established between a small Pacific island and a burgeoning superpower, but also how a discourse network developed to support a friendly, informative relationship over 35 years. In 1958, my father, Spencer Scheckter, in New Jersey, United States, began a correspondence with John and Bernice Christian, on Pitcairn Island, that lasted until Bernice died in 1993. As the manager of a small-town department store, my father asked practical questions and solved logistical problems. A small trade developed: Spencer sent clothing and machine parts, and the Christians returned wood carvings and other souvenirs. The discourse network revealed in the material exchange rarely permits emotional depth or complexity, so that its shape is readily apparent – and its boundaries as well. On Pitcairn, the time period of the correspondence will later come under legal scrutiny, beginning in 1997, with allegations of rape and sexual abuse that eventually came to trial in 2004. While the investigations implicated the entire culture of the island, the Christians’ bounded discourse offers, perhaps more usefully, a clear picture of the complicated, interwoven negotiations that ageing individuals were required to perform in a small, closed society.