Carla Gerardu-Low | Family Stories & Roots

What happens when the records are missing, and no one ever told the whole story?

The Missing Beginning

We believe my grandmother, Dinah Benton, was born in the Dutch East Indies around 1900, possibly in Gombong, but we do not know for sure. There is no birth certificate. Her surname may not have been her own. She was orphaned by the age of eight. Her father was reportedly a native soldier in the KNIL, the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army. After both parents died, she was taken in by another KNIL family, raised in their household, and likely worked for them.

She eventually arrived in Meester Cornelis, a garrison town near Batavia (now Jakarta), where she met my grandfather. He was stationed there with the 16th Infantry Battalion. That is where her documented life begins.

What came before remains unknown.

What the Records Don’t Say

I have searched through archives, genealogical records, and even DNA testing. The only connections I have found are distant matches. There are no school records, no family documents, and no photographs from her early years. Every lead seems to dissolve into a dead end. It is deeply frustrating to pour time and energy into the search and still come up empty, no names, no places, no real clues to help me understand where she came from. It is as if she emerged from the margins of colonial society, shaped by forces that left little behind and cared even less about preserving her story.

She likely never had access to education. My father alluded to the fact that she was illiterate and that her Dutch was very limited. At the time, Dutch was the language of status and power, while Malay was seen as lower class. This was not just about communication; it reflected the structure of colonial society. My father once told me, “The kind of conversations you and I have? I never had them with my mother.” Whether because of language, culture, or trauma, there was distance and silence.

While shocking to me, I don’t think this was all that unusual.

Life of a KNIL Garrison Family

The KNIL, a colonial army built for Dutch control, recruited thousands of native men from Java and across the archipelago. Soldiers lived in garrison towns and moved frequently. Their families, wives, children, adopted or informal dependents, often lived with them, but were not officially part of military life. Children like my grandmother, especially orphans, were rarely documented in official records. Their identities were shaped by proximity to the Empire, but not always protected by it.

It is my understanding that the KNIL garrisons were tightly controlled, racially segregated communities. There were separate barracks for different ethnic groups, like Javanese, Ambonese, and others, to maintain colonial distinctions. European officers lived more comfortably, while native soldiers and their families stayed in simpler quarters, often grouped by rank and background. Women often worked as laundresses, cooks, or household staff. Children, and I would assume, my grandmother, grew up on the edges of this system, present but rarely acknowledged in any formal way.

A Changing Java

Between her birth and marriage in 1924, Java changed rapidly. In 1901, the Dutch Ethical Policy was introduced. This policy promised to improve native welfare through investments in education, irrigation, and emigration. But in reality, these programs often reinforced existing class and did little for racial divisions. Education remained limited, especially for native girls. Most opportunities were reserved for elite Indonesians or those of mixed (Indo-European) descent. For example, years later, because his father was Dutch, my dad, a KNIL cook’s son, went to HBS with the children of Goodyear executives. This opportunity was not available to his sisters.

In 1918, the colonial government established a new advisory council, the Volksraad, which offered political representation to native inhabitants of the Dutch East Indies. Similar to the Ethical Policy, it was largely symbolic and did little to empower local communities. However, it did mark the beginning of organized political awareness and the early roots of the nationalist movement.

Cities like Batavia and Buitenzorg (now Bogor) were modernizing, yet deep inequalities remained. Native soldiers were used to enforce colonial order, even as their own families lived under the restrictions of that same system. My grandmother grew up within this colonial system, but had no access to its privileges.

Marriage, Status, and Survival

When she was 24, she married my grandfather. Marrying a Dutch soldier, especially while pregnant, would have been life-changing for her. At the time, many native or Indo women were in informal relationships with European men, and few were formally acknowledged or married. Children were often left unclaimed. Their marriage set her on a very different path, one with more stability, status, and legal protection than most women in her position could expect.

To make their marriage possible, they had to make her acceptable to the Empire. My grandfather decided her birthdate was one day and one year before his for the official paperwork, and her religion was listed as Christian. However, I don’t know if she held any belief at all. These weren’t small details; they were bureaucratic necessities. Without a birth certificate, without official religion, the colonial authorities might have denied the union altogether. Her marriage was not simply a personal event; it was a way to secure legitimacy in a system that rarely granted it to women like her.

Have You Found Stories Like This?

Sometimes all we have are fragments. But even fragments matter, because they remind us that these lives were real.

Resources

A Brief History of the Dutch East Indies – Part 1.
Dutch rule from 1815 to c. 1920
History Of The Volksraad: Colonial Era Parliament Which Became The Mouthpiece Of The Indonesian Nation’s Struggle
Volksraad: Malay Language (Indonesian) as a Means of Political Strategy of National Fraction