Seeing the book to completion
According to Oakley’s widow, Sarah Kung: “If every person has a mission, then David considered finishing this book his.”
The main point of the book is to ask who those people were, says Kung, who adds that her husband used to do online research constantly. Once, someone in Canada who knew a person buried in the cemetery learned of Oakley’s work and contacted him to provide all sorts of information. Oakley also learned from British government archives that customs employees, the wife of the acting consul, and a Presbyterian minister are among those buried in the cemetery, and not everyone is British; also buried there are people from Germany, Switzerland, and elsewhere, because the cemetery was open to anyone regardless of ethnicity or religion. It is also thought that many of the people there had been ship crew or engineers who worked in Taiwan.
Oakley felt bad that those people had died far from their homelands, and was puzzled as to why their remains were not taken back home. What’s more, the cemetery was not well maintained, and had very nearly disappeared entirely. He felt that the people buried at Takow Foreign Cemetery should not be forgotten; on the contrary, they should be memorialized, because they had made important contributions to Taiwan in different fields.
Kung recalls that her husband would often ride his bicycle to interview people throughout the local area. With his classic British scholar’s personality—brimming with curiosity, concerned about logical analysis and reasoning—Oakley took an avid interest in the history and culture of Taiwan. His book is the crystallization of 20-plus years of field surveys, academic research, and correspondence with family members of the deceased.
After Oakley passed away, Kung in her mourning decided to organize her husband’s research materials and get them stored properly away. But as she read through the unfinished book, she discovered a fascination of her own with the matters set out therein. “So I decided to finish the book for him.”
David Charles Oakley’s widow, Sarah Kung, completed his second book and got it published, thus ensuring that his valuable work would see the light of day.