Amanuensis Monday: Part 3: The Buerers in Africa: a letter excerpt from the early days

Idiofa via Kikwit
Congo Belge, W.C. Africa
November 25, 1946

Dear Friends,

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Harry and Nancy in front of the second house.

A few days after we sent our circular letter to you in August, our outfit arrived. That is, it arrived with the exception of our trunk which was lost on the way to New York and one case which was lost at the ocean port in Congo. We have been notified that both have been found and are on the way, although neither has arrived yet. We were very happy to be able to unpack our dishes, bedding, books, and all the other things that we waited so long for. There were some disappointments, too, as we discovered that almost every box had been broken into any many things, mostly new clothing, stolen. Also, many dishes were broken and one box contained a quart bottle of ink and a large can of Flit which both broke and gave things a distinctive odor as well as color. However, these things were not very important and we have almost forgotten about them now.

About that time also, the rainy season started and we found our house living quarters (crossing out of "house" done by my grandmother in her letter) quite uncomfortable. Rain here is almost always accompanied by a strong wind and we could hardly find a corner in the house where we could keep dry. However, the stone house that had been under construction for several months, was almost finished so the Brower family moved into it and we moved into their former house. It, too, is a temporary building but it will keep us dry until another permanent house can be built. The house is made of clay with a grass roof and floor woven of split palm poles. It has two rooms, a bedroom and a dining room while just outside are a cookhouse kitchen (crossing out of "cookhouse" done by my grandmother in her letter) and two storerooms. Harry made several pieces of furniture from the wood in our packing cases which helps a lot as we had no place to put things.

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Vickie cooking outdoors in Africa.

We are able to carry on conversations with the natives now if they don't talk too fast. Harry has been busy every day supervising the buildings that had to be done. A workshop, a boys' dormitory, a girls' dormitory, a garage, a bell tower, a print shop, another dwelling house, and a school have been started. Some of them are completed. Our former house had a porch as big as the house. This was enclosed, the partitions taken out and the building used as a church and schoolhouse.

Every morning at 6:15 the school children and the workmen attend chapel for a half hour. Some of the children attend school from 8 to 12 and others from 1 to 5. On Wednesday evenings there are prayer meetings and on Sunday there is the church service. The Word of God is given out in each of these meetings, sometimes by Angus Brower and sometimes by the native Christians who were trained at Tshene, our other mission station. We have six of them here helping as cooks, houseboys and school teachers.

Sometimes it seems as though nothing unusual every happens here but the past week we had had more than our share of excitement.

And unfortunately this is the only part of the letter I have. I really hoped for some swashbuckling intrigue and dastardly villains. But I have many, many diary entries, and there is no lack of excitement ahead for Harry and Vickie in Africa. (Worms in cookies, anyone? Stay tuned...)

Amanuensis Monday: Part 2: Vickie and Harry Buerer Wait for the River Boat

Below is the second part of the first letter my grandmother, Vickie Prinzing Buerer, sent home to her parents. The first letter about my grandparent's journey from Chicago to the Belgian Condo in 1945 talks about the initial steps in their journey.

A Little Golden Book from 1945, probably similar to the ones my grandmother bought my mother and aunt at the bookstore in Leopoldville.

Part 2

I can’t seem to get this letter finished. We haven’t done much but it’s so hot and there are always so many people around talking. There are two English missionaries here and one especially is always razzing us about America. He’s always asking about the strikes and about the gangsters in Chicago. He raves about Dillinger and says there are 3 kidnappings a day in Chicago and everyone has to carry a gun in his hip pocket to protect himself. He believes it too. I guess yesterday he said, “I heard that Life is the most widely read magazine. You can’t tell which is an advertisement and which is serious matter. In England we have our advertisements in the front and in the back of our magazines so they don’t interfere with the reading matter. America has a dreadful mania for advertising.” Someone asked him something about Paul Revere though and he never heard of him so we teased him so much he kept still.

We can’t get a river boat until Monday morning. It takes five days to get to Mangai and we wired Angus to meet us. When we got here there were letters waiting for us from Charles and Pearl, Arthur & Evelyn, Lena, and Louis and Ruth Zelle who passed through here last week. Ruth is Mrs. Feleen’s niece. Then the day afterward, we got a letter from Angus saying he received Grandpa’s cable. We took some pictures of our family for Grandpa and will send them if they turn out all right. We are buying lots of canned goods and supplements to take to the station with us.

The bookstore here has the Little Golden Books for 12 fr. each. I bought one for each of the kids and one for Nancy’s birthday.

The children are getting along fine here although Nancy has prickly heat. There is a swing in the back yard and they have lots of fun on that.

We have bananas for breakfast every day and the girls really love them. We have lots of canned fruit, too. The peaches, apricots, and pears are really delicious. We have found some very good friends in Nolan and Ruth Balman going out under the Scandinavian Alliance Mission who are staying here. They are Baptists, too, and have two small children. They went to Moody and Northern Baptist and know Art Brower, Bob Shermer and Bob Prinzing.

We are going to town now so I will close and mail this.

Love, 
Vickie

Please let Grandpa read this and the rest of the family, Aunt Viola and anyone else that might be interested.

Amanuensis Monday: Vickie and Harry Buerer Journey to Africa

When I look at the wealth of photos and information my grandmother left behind, I'm incredibly grateful. I believe (and I think a lot of people who knew her would agree) that she was a very difficult person to know on a personal level. But I'm hoping that through her letters and diaries, I can understand this person better. And it's fascinating to read her writing when she was a young woman.

All her life, my grandmother longed to go to Africa as a missionary. Her relatives ran the Belgian Congo Mission, and she made it her life's intent to join them. But I don't think things turned out the way she wanted. In her life story she wrote for my cousin, she explains a lot of things in detail. But when she gets to the part about Africa, she basically accounts that they went and only stayed three and a half years. And after reading her letters and diaries, I think I can make a bold statement.

The experience really sucked for them.

But I would like to share the letters and diaries for many reasons. Posterity. To delve into a story about a couple taking two young children to Africa in 1946, an experience I can honestly say I would never, ever do. And to hopefully understand Vickie more. (And let me tell you a lot of what my grandmother says in her diaries and letters does not translate well to our current time. You'll see what I mean.)

Vickie's first letter to her parents about their journey. Part 1.

Harry, Peggy Ann, Nancy, and Vickie Buerer in the airport before boarding the plane to Africa.

April 2, 1946
Leopoldville

Dear Mamma and Daddy,

We should have written sooner but it is so hot here in Leopoldville that one doesn’t feel much like writing. We are getting along fine here except that almost no one speaks English and my French is pitiful. I can sometimes make myself understood but can seldom understand anyone else.

The night before we left New York, there was a bad rainstorm and Pan American called to say the plane would be delayed until 3 P.M. Wed. After that they kept delaying the flight until 5 and then 7. When we got to the airport, the plane didn’t leave until 8:45. We got to Newfoundland about 2 o’clock (EST) Thursday morning. That was the worst part of the trip for me. There were several rough spots and the landing was very rough. Harry got air-sick and I felt awfully nauseated. There was snow on the ground and it was very cold there. We had to sit in the waiting room for six hours there because the weather was too bad to go on. Soon after we left there Peggy Ann became sick and didn’t eat anything from Newfoundland to Lisbon. During that time she vomited 10 times and was a very sick little girl. She was very good though and never cried or complained. She slept or just lay there looking at us. Nancy was very good too. Every so often she wanted to get off the plane because she got so tired riding, but we didn’t have any trouble with her. We landed at Shannon Airport in Ireland at 11:15 P.M. (6:15 EST), had supper, and sat around waiting for a couple hours. Finally they decided to take us to a hotel for the night in Ennis. It felt good to sleep in a bed for a few hours even if they did wake us up at 5:30 a.m. There were stone jug footwarmers in the beds and they really felt good. After we got back to the airport we had to wait until 10:30 a.m. before they got started. One rumor was that the crew was on a spree in Limerick and they couldn’t get them together. We had a lovely ride through the Irish countryside just at daybreak and it was very quaint and picturesque.

We landed in Lisbon that afternoon (Fri.) about 3:00 P.M. (EST). We were there for about two and a half hours. While there Pan American took us for a bus ride around town and to a ritzy restaurant to eat. The meal was delicious, although we turned down all the wine. We refused the whiskey in Ireland, too. Lisbon was very colorful. Everything was in bloom and the houses were shades of pink and peach stucco with red or orange tile roofs. In Ireland they had grass (illegible until the next page)…better after that. We arrived in (illegible) about 2:15 a.m. Saturday. It was our first glimpse of Africa and it wasn’t anything encouraging. It was an army post as Newfoundland was. We were served a buffet lunch by natives and even the air had an African odor. We took off again in 45 minutes and landed at Roberts’ Field in Liberia at 7:00 a.m. (EST). That was the filthiest place I’ve ever been in in my life. We slept in the army barracks and ate in the mess hall. I couldn’t find a clean spot on the tablecloth. The food was really unfit for children and was served by dirty natives. The only good thing was that the water was cold which we haven’t been able to say since. The sheets we slept on were filthy and when I put down the mosquito netting, bugs rolled out. In the room next to ours the stewardesses entertained army officers all night but it was against army regulations for our husbands to sleep with us. They had to be in the officers barracks and one stewardess spent the night in a room near Harry’s. There were 10 missionaries and 7 missionary children on our plane. Another couple got on there with two children. The heat there was terrific and the very sticky kind. We didn’t leave there until 3 a.m. Sunday morning, so were there almost 24 hours. While there, they took us on a tour of Firestone rubber plantation which was very interesting. We also went to a nature village which was also very interesting. We bought bananas for a penny a piece from the natives.

The trip from there to Leopoldville, I mean the last part, was very rough. Most of the dinner fell off the table all over the floor before they got to serve it but we didn’t feel like eating anyhow. At one time, Harry, Nancy, and Peggy Ann were all vomiting at once.  Nancy and I were in one seat and I was holding a paper bag for her but couldn’t reach the others to help because we were all strapped in. They were each using one side of the same bag so got along O.K. I’m the only one of our family that didn’t get air-sick but I didn’t feel very comfortable. It won’t bother us if we never fly again.

We landed in Leopoldville Sunday afternoon about 2 o’clock. It is a very lovely place and the mission home where we are staying is nice and clean and serves delicious meals.

Matrilineal Monday--Montana, WWII and a Schlitz Sign: the young married life of Vickie and Harry Buerer

Harry, Vickie, and Peggy Buerer

My maternal grandparents yearned for the mission field in Africa. This longing led them to Wheaton College, and I firmly believe this desire brought them together in marriage. They married on September 7, 1940, at College Church in Wheaton, and I think they would have left for the Belgian Congo on September 8 if they could have. But the mission board counseled them to wait.

World War II raged on in Europe during this time, and my grandparents needed a visa from Belgium to enter the Belgian Congo. Unfortunately, the Belgian government was in exile, and my grandparents didn't know where to apply. Harry and Vickie decided to live in California to wait. But then Harry lost his job as a carpenter. Pastor Paul Jackson, the minister of Harry's boyhood church, recommended Harry take a job as a minister at a small church in Polson, Montana. So Harry and Vickie packed their belongings into a trailer they built and drove to Montana with their newborn daughter, Peggy (born on June 20, 1941 in Modesto.)

First Baptist Church, Polson, MT

The First Baptist Church of Polson, MT, had one room with a parsonage of four small rooms that had no bathroom and one faucet of cold water in the kitchen. They received $10 a week from the Sunday offering, but if less came in, they had to accept what had been tithed. One week during the winter brought a little over $3. Because the salary was so small, Harry and Vickie decided to leave the church in Montana because it wouldn't cover the birth of their next baby (my mother.) They packed up and headed back to Illinois, stopping at least once a day to fix a flat tire. Harry got a job in Chicago in a defense plant and enrolled in the Moody Bible Institute for evening classes. They found an apartment in Villa Park over a tavern. My grandmother writes "We didn't need a night light because there was a big red Schlitz sign outside our bedroom window. A jukebox in the tavern played constantly until the tavern closed each night at 2:00 am. The two songs we remember hearing over and over again were "I'm Dreaming Tonight of My Blue Eyes" and "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition." My mother, Nancy, was born on April 15, 1943, and Harry and Vickie moved back in with Vickie's parents. 

Parsonage in Polson, MT. Harry and Peggy

Harry and Peg. Polson, MT

Harry, Nancy, Peg. Polson, MT

Nancy and Peg

Nancy and Peg. Polson, MT

Harry, Vickie, Peg & Nancy Buerer. June 13, 1943

The church in Polson couldn't find a pastor and asked Vickie and Harry to return. They made arrangements with the Montana Baptist Fellowship and became missionaries with them. This time, Vickie and Harry were well compensated, bringing in $125 a month. They stayed in Montana another year and left in May 1945.

Finally, five and a half years after they married, Harry and Vickie received their visa for the Belgian Congo and flew across the sea to Africa. Where more adventures awaited...