Shell-Collector and Painter
p. 80 · Read in the full issue
Painter of BOP
MRS. ANNIE KUSTER of MANUS (below) is an attractive, talented part-Polynesian with a strong German flavour. Her father was Charlie Munster, a well-known adventurer who had run away to sea from Germany, obtained British citizenship when he was a newspaper boy in Australia, and then went to the Solomons for Lever Bros.
They sent him to Lord Howe Atoll (or Ontong Java), where he was finally told by the Buala, or King of the Atoll, to get out, get killed or get married, so he took the same alternative as Harold Markham, and married the girl in question. She was the lovely Va'ule, daughter of the Buala himself. She died giving birth, in 1907, to Annie Johanna.
Charlie left for New Guinea a couple of years later, and while he was around Rabaul little Annie was cared for by the famous Mrs. Parkinson there. In 1910 Charlie settled in Manus, where he lived the rest of his life as a planter and trader. During the First War he was interned with other Germans, but after proving his British nationality in Aus tralia was allowed to return to New Guinea.
During the Second War he was not interned but was collected by the Japanese and did not survive the war.
Annie married Ludwig Kramer about 1929.
He had been planting at Kokopo, and then went to seek his fortune on the Goldfields, where Annie made her home at Wau, and had three children. Kramer died in 1940, Annie married again the next year, to an Australian of distant German descent, Gus Kuster, and they moved to Australia ahead of the Japs.
Gus first joined the AIF, then the NGVR, and finally the American small-ships. Since the war the Kusters have settled at Manus, and have four children. Annie is a keen shell collector, and also paints in oils and water colour, mainly island scenes and birds of paradise, all in fine detail, and some miniature
paintings for Christmas cards.-