Obituaries - June 25, 1999

Beatrice Hackett; Wrote Book on Refugees

Beatrice Nied Hackett, 66, anthropologist and author of a book on Cambodian Chinese refugees. Hackett taught at American University in Washington from 1989 to 1995, where she was anthropologist in residence and an assistant professor. In 1993 she wrote a book, “Pray God and Keep Walking,” based on the stories of Cambodian Chinese women who fled their country for resettlement in the United States after the Vietnam War. She was active in the peace movement and in community affairs in Washington. She was also director of the D.C. Community Humanities Council, the state-based program of the National Endowment for the Humanities. On June 11 of breast cancer at her home in Berkeley Springs, W.Va.

Kanha Khiangsiri; Best-Selling Thai Novelist

Kanha Khiangsiri, 88, best-selling Thai novelist and short story author. Kanha wrote 47 novels and short story collections, often exposing the idiosyncrasies of the Thai upper class while making heroes and heroines of the poor. The daughter of Bangkok aristocrats, she began writing in high school, achieving national recognition in 1937 with her novel “Ying Khon Chua” or “The Prostitute.” She was best known for “Baan Saai Thong” or “House of Golden Sand,” published in 1950, and later made into a movie that starred Jarunee Suksawasdi. It also inspired several Thai television soap operas and set a fashion trend for short pants and pigtails among girls. Prominent Thai writers said that Kanha had enormous appeal across generations. “She was one of the few romance novelists whose novels, such as ‘Baan Saai Thong,’ remain to fascinate the younger generation even now,” said short story writer Niransak Bunchan. Kanha had been bedridden for 12 years after a stroke. On Wednesday at Phromitr Hospital in Bangkok.

Mary Rose Harrington Nelson; Nurse POW

Mary Rose Harrington Nelson, 85, former Navy nurse who was interned for three years in the Philippines during World War II. A native of Sioux City, Iowa, Nelson joined the Navy nurses corps in 1937 and was assigned to the Philippines in 1941. When Japanese forces took control of the islands at the outset of World War II, Nelson was captured and interned with other Americans. Initially, she was held at a Catholic school that had been converted into a prison. Later she was moved to the Los Banos internment facility about 30 miles southeast of Manila. She met her future husband, T. Page Nelson Sr., a U.S. Treasury Department official, at the facility. He was also an internee. They fell in love after she treated his injured ankle while doing nursing duty at the camp and were married in San Diego in April 1945, two months after the camp was liberated. After the war, Nelson turned to volunteer work for the Red Cross, working in bloodmobiles and helping administer polio vaccines to schoolchildren for 40 years. She testified before congressional committees on issues pertaining to women in the military and was the recipient of a Bronze Star. On June 17 at her home in McLean, Va.