Bliss Earns Chatham Historical Society Scholarship with her Essay on How Her Family Came from India and Grew Roots in Chatham

CHATHAM, NJ -- Karina Bliss has been announced as the recipient of the 2024 Margaret Keisler scholarship offered by the Chatham Historical Society for her essay: My Town by a River .

The $1500 scholarship was presented to Bliss at her Chatham High School commencement exercises. The scholarship is named in memory of “Peg” Keisler, a lifelong resident of Chatham who was the Borough’s historian and dedicated educator.

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As part of the scholarship process, students were asked to share their own stories. In her essay, Bliss recounted how her family, originally from India, found Chatham, settled in, and grew their roots here.

Her family has lived in the same house for 50 years. She points out that even though her family has “little in common with Chatham’s settlers, rose farmers, and the Lenape tribe,” originating “from an entirely different part of the world,” they built their roots here. Her family of three generations has witnessed how the town has continued to grow and change, welcoming more immigrants and becoming a more diverse community.

As a student at Chatham High, Bliss took AP US History, AP World History, and her favorite - AP Art History. Last semester, she also took French Film, which ended up being one of her favorite "accidental" history courses, as each movie identified a different aspect of French history and culture. Over the last two years, she worked on her AP portfolio on world architecture and finished her high school art career by painting a senior mural. She is a National Art Honors Society member.

This fall, Bliss begins her pursuit of a dual degree in French and Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh. Studying Art History led to her appreciating the charm of Edinburgh, its old town, and its architecture.

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“Edinburgh's Scottish master's program also allows me to specialize in my degree, and begin researching my preferred branch of Linguistics, which is Historical Linguistics,” she said.

Karina Bliss' essay can be read below:

ESSAY: My Town by a River.

My Tata (Grandfather) was on an oil tanker for work where he was pretty lonely. Only a few years prior, he decided to leave his home in Hyderabad, India, taking his wife first to London, and then to a small house in Randolph New Jersey. The year was 1975, and while aboard the oil tanker in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, he met a man called Robert Berner who was building houses in Chatham. It sounded like a beautiful place to raise a family, far different from his own hometown growing up. Robert encouraged him to visit Chatham, and he, his young wife, and his 3-year-old daughter, fell in love with it.

My Mom grew up in the same town, the same house, and the same bedroom as I am now. On a quiet street with a view of the Great Swamp. She attended Mountainview school from kindergarten to 5th Grade, making the same mile-long walk through the neighborhood each morning as I did with my Amama (my Grandmother) to visit the Senior Center in the now repurposed Chatham Municipal Building. She graduated from Chatham High School two years after the Township and Borough districts merged in the class of 1990 with a grand total of 80 people.

Sophomore year, for my US History final project, I found myself in the Red Brick Schoolhouse museum, just a little ways up the street and down Fairmount Ave. Open for only two hours each month, the two women who ran the tiny museum were surprised to see me, and excited to shower me with pamphlets and materials for my project. I wandered the museum, marveling at spearheads found in the woods, left by the Native Americans, and read plaque

after plaque of recorded bits of Chatham’s settlement, town governments, and involvement in the Revolutionary War. I couldn’t help but notice that this version of Chatham’s history felt so far removed from my own experience here. My family has deep roots in Chatham, yet from the outside we have little in common with Chatham’s settlers, rose farmers, and the Lenape tribe, because we are from an entirely different part of the world. However, although from a different perspective, 3 generations of my family have witnessed the town continue to grow and change.

Soon, 34 years after my Mom, I will be graduating from the same Chatham High School with a class of almost 400 students. Since my Amama and Tata decided to raise their family here in Chatham, hundreds more immigrants made the same decision, creating an even more diverse community of families.

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