The question, really, is not who or what Rikste van Witzenburg-Meijer was.

My great-aunt; black sheep; adventuress; sartorial icon; party animal; truck driver; firewoman during the London Blitz; among the crew of a crashing Catalina; or passenger on the SS Rimutaka - core of the most heavily armed and longest-distance convoy of World War II.

The question is why she was who and what she was. Why did she become a self-declared journalist on the ocean liner JP Coen in 1927? Why did she marry qu...