Agnes Keith House - a must-vist in Sandakan!

Agnes Keith is an American writer living in Sandakan, Sabah with her English husband between 1934 to 1952. During those years, Agnes wrote three books on her experience in this land. The first was Land Below the Wind (1939), a book on pre-war days. It was followed by Three Came Home (1947) focusing on hardships in the second world war and White Man Returns (1951) which tells of her life in Sandakan after war.

The house where Agnes lived was restored and turned into a museum as a tribute to her by the Department of Sabah Museum.

In Agnes' own words, the house is located on the finest hilltop in Borneo, with a magnificient view of the habour of Sandakan. Imagine overlooking a scene like this from your house?

(This picture was not taken from Agnes Keith House, but it's Sandakan from another hilltop)

Keith's husband, Harry, was the Conservator of Forests.

Agnes loved her beautiful house. She said people from far and near came to see it, and have their pictures taken outside the house. Well, the student and the teacher also took one. Agnes could not be wrong!

And we also took one picture at the dining room. (Note: We were given permission to take pictures in the house with that little journalist's privilege, I guess)

These huge pictures were hung just above the board wooden staircase in the middle of the house leading up to the book-room.

Agnes wrote about her book room,

There is a mental energy in this room, discharged and accumulated fromt he past, which seems to exilerate you when you enter it. Not only is it a good place to work in, but it is a good place to stop while the bathwater runs, or when dressing for dinner or waiting for breakfast, for there is always something unfinished to be gone on with there.

- Land Below the Wind

On the left is the vast bedroom. Agnes wrote,

The bedroom is the next place of importance. Like a ship beached by a high tide, our bed stands in the middle of our bedroom floor. All the other pieces of furniture have washed away from it to the outer edges of the room, where they will not intercept any breeze. We made our bed and we certainly like to lie in it. Six-foot-six both ways it is, made of Borneo heavy timber.

-Land below the wind

The woman really loved her home and put her whole heart in her home! Home is where the heart is!

Another quote from her other book,

I believe that:
While we have more than we need on this continent, and others die for the want of it, there can be no lasting peace. When we work as hard in peacetime to make this world decent to live in, as in wartime we work to kill, the world will be decent, and the causes for which men fight will be gone."

(Three came home, 1946)

I like the staircase at the back of the house! I remember how I used to sit this way in my young days waiting for mum to come back from town and... the goodies she bought!

The three books by Agnes are certainly good read. I am into "Land Below the Wind" and can't wait to begin the other two books, handicapped by less than perfect eyesight though!

Agnes gave the locals starring roles in her book. She wrote of them lovingly and beautifully.