Amanuensis Monday: the dramatic birth of Marilyn and other adventures in Africa in 1948

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Buerer family in 1948. Peggy Ann, Vickie, Marilyn, Lois, Harry, and Nancy.

I have been waiting since I started posting the diaries of my maternal grandmother’s experience as a missionary in the Belgian Congo to get to probably the most dramatic event of her time there, and possibly her whole life: the birth of my aunt, Marilyn. The rest of 1948 held plenty of drama for them as well.

August 1948 came along, and the Buerer family (Harry, Vickie, and their three daughters, Peggy Ann, Nancy, and Lois) continued their time in Africa dealing with driver ants and a crazy man. My grandmother was pregnant with her fourth child but wasn’t due for another month. One day, my aunt, Peggy, and mother remember my grandfather telling them (along with one of their houseboys) hurriedly to get in the car. From my mother and aunt’s recollections, they recall being completely unfazed by the whole commotion, probably thinking, “Cool, road trip!” My grandmother laid in the back of the car for the journey. On August 29, my grandmother wrote: “Early this morning I started losing blood. We went to Idiofa and the doctor sent us to the hospital at Kikwit.” My grandfather continued the 100+ drive to the hospital as fast as he was able, but halfway there, he stopped and climbed in the back with my grandmother, telling the children to take a walk. My mother remembers looking into the back to see what was going on and my grandfather very pointedly telling her, “GO AWAY.” The children walked along the lane, looking at the flowers and other points of interest they could find. Not long after, my grandfather called to them to come back to the car. “This is your new baby sister! Her name is Marilyn Alice,” he said. The closest doctor they could find in the moment was a dentist a few miles away, and he cleaned them up and took care of them for a few days. Marilyn weighed six pounds. My grandmother remarks at the end of her entry that “Harry drove to Kikwit this afternoon to get the doctor but he refused to come.”

September 5

We stayed at Iwungu until Friday morning. Wednesday morning Mrs. Smith got sick and had to stay in bed. Thursday Harry went to Kikwit to do our shopping. A truck came in from Angola that morning and he was able to get fresh cabbage, carrots, potatoes, and onions.

Friday morning we went home. We stopped at Idiofa to see the doctor. He examined both of us and found everything o.k.

Marilyn has been so good. She sleeps almost all the time. She doesn’t even want to wake up to eat.

September 12

I stayed in bed most of the week. The food we got in Kikwit tasted so good.

Marilyn weighed 6 lb. 5 oz. today.

The crazy man keeps coming around and bothering us.

Solomon, the teacher, quit and went home. We had to send our cook over to the school to teach. The carpenter left, too.

Marilyn's birthplace.

September 19

Monday morning we went to Idiofa. The doctor cut Marilyn’s tongue loose because she was tongue-tied.

October 24

Saturday the crazy man walked into our bedroom and today he walked into the dining room twice.

October 31

Thursday night a thief climbed in the window of the girls’ room and stole some of their clothes and Lois’ and Peggy Ann’s helmets. He also took our two water drums from the back porch. He dropped some of the clothes on the porch. Harry followed his tracks about five miles but it started to rain and he lost the trail.

November 14

Peggy Ann got sick last Sunday and has had fever all week. Today she is feeling a little better.

November 21

Peggy Ann has been very sick all week. Thursday we sent for the Idiofa doctor but he was in Leopoldville and wasn’t expected back until the 26th. However, yesterday she began to feel better. She isn’t very strong yet but is playing in bed today.

Harry has been sick in bed the last few days, too.

Petelo went to his village on Monday and came back today. I’ve only had Mubingi in the house.

The teacher didn’t show up to speak in church this morning so I had to take charge of the service. I played Kikongo records on the phonograph.

November 28

Thursday was Thanksgiving Day. We had roast duck and pumpkin pie.

Peggy Ann was up all week until Friday. Then the fever came back and she has been very sick. She has a fever and vomits all the time.

Marilyn, Peggy Ann, Lois, Nancy.

December 5

Peggy Ann was so sick last Sunday night that I sent for the doctor the first thing Monday morning. He came before noon and said it was appendicitis and we should get her to the hospital at Kikwit.

I telegraphed Harry to stay there and send (sic) Jacob on Emmie’s bike to Tshene. The doctor came again Monday evening and gave her penicillin.

Harry stayed at the hospital all night with her and she was operated on the next morning. She has been getting along all right but is so thin and weak.

December 12

We brought Peggy Ann to the Mission Home from the hospital yesterday.

I have been reading Heidi to Peggy Ann every morning in the hospital.

Monday was St. Nicholas Day and St. Nick came to Kikwit with a big party for white children. He sent presents to Peggy Ann in the hospital. Another day he came with his two little girls and brought more presents to her.

Harry stays at the hospital afternoons and nights and I stay there mornings and take Marilyn with me.

Hutchisons and Smiths got a big order of groceries from America Monday.

December 19

Monday Harry and I went shopping in Kikwit and bought a lot of groceries.

Harry made a Christmas tree out of wood a couple days ago and covered it with paper. The girls painted it green and are decorating it.

This afternoon a lot of women were trying to have a market behind the school. Harry and I went out and chased them away. We told them they couldn’t have a market on the mission on Sunday.

We celebrated Harry’s birthday with a cake last night.

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

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Harry, Vickie, and Peggy 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

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. 

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

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...

Matrilineal Monday: my grandparents, Victoria Emma Prinzing and Harry Forrest Buerer

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Vickie Prinzing and Harry Buerer

When I discuss family history with others, I find most people, whether it be distance, family relationships, or other factors, know about one side more than the other. I probably saw my maternal grandparents less than 10 times in my life. They lived in California, and we lived in Pennsylvania. We didn't talk much on the phone, as long distance was expensive during my childhood. But I did maintain a kind of "pen pal" relationship with my grandmother, and I got to know her better that way.

I already talked a little about my maternal grandfather, Harry Buerer. But I haven't touched much on my grandmother, Victoria Prinzing.

With all due respect....my grandmother was kind of a pain in the butt.

She definitely had an opinion on the "right" way to do things and the "wrong" way to do things. When she and I corresponded during my girlhood, she wrote me back at one point and told me my letters to her needed to be at least 10 sentences long. No hair hanging in your face, and no saying "Geez" (because it sounded too much like Jesus.) And god help you...GOD HELP YOU...if you you picked up your dessert fork and began before she did. She'd call you out at a holiday dinner in such a way that made you want to shrink under the table.

My grandmother, Victoria Prinzing, when she graduated from York Community High School in Elmhurst, IL.

And while I struggle to find information on Hannah and my paternal side, I'm not at a loss for research on the maternal. My grandmother documented every single sneeze. She kept diaries, letters, and family trees that would make any family historian jump up and down with glee. And through these I can  begin to understand (or at least attempt to know) the human being my grandmother was. 

My cousin asked my grandparents for their family histories when he was in high school. My grandfather promptly wrote him back a one page story of his life as a farm boy in Modesto, California, picking and drying apricots and peaches most of his young life (except for a year when he battled typhoid fever.) My grandmother wrote three typed pages single-spaced about her upbringing and adulthood.

Born in Chicago on January 11, 1918, my grandmother's birth kept my great grandfather from the draft into World War I. (People joked my great grandparents should have named her "weatherstrip" because it kept him out of the draft.) Her parents bought a house in Elmhurst, a suburb of Chicago, in 1922, before Elmhurst even had paved roads. She graduated fourth in a class of 250 from York Community High School and went on to study English Literature at Wheaton College, graduating in 1940.

Vickie came from a very devout Christian family. Her Aunt Viola Elsie Anderson and Uncle Anton Christianus Anderson, served as missionaries in the Belgian Congo. My great great grandfather, Fred Prinzing, acted as the secretary of the Congo Gospel Mission. Vickie grew up typing letters and stuffing envelopes for the Mission and soon found a desire for her own venture to Africa.

My grandparents met at Wheaton, and Harry also expressed a desire to go to Africa. (My grandmother describes my grandfather's relations as "a nominally Christian family.") My grandfather proposed, and the Congo Gospel Mission accepted them before they even graduated. But the mission board recommended they wait a year after being married to go overseas.

And wait they did. World War II, a trip to Montanta, children, and other factors halted their plans. But eventually, their quest for Africa happened. And all is told in my grandmother's diaries. 

To be continued....