This is a complete and accurate transcript of the tape of the oral history interview of Ruth Edna DeVelde Hess (CN 242, T1). No spoken words have been omitted, except for any non-English phrases which could not be understood by the transcribers. Foreign terms which are not commonly understood appear in italics. In very few cases words were too unclear to be distinguished. If the transcriber was not completely sure of having gotten what the speaker said, "[?]" was inserted after the word or phrase in question. If the speech was inaudible or indistinguishable, "[unclear]" was inserted. Grunts and verbal hesitations such as "ah" or "um" were usually omitted.
Readers should remember that this is a transcript of spoken English, which follows a different rhythm and rule than written English.
... Three dots indicate an interruption or break in the train of thought within the sentence on the part of the speaker.
.... Four dots indicate what the transcriber believes to be the end of an incomplete sentence.
( ) Words in parentheses are asides made by the speaker.
[ ] Words in brackets are comments by the transcriber.
This transcript was completed by Evan Kuehn and Christian Sawyer in May 2004.
Collection 242, T1. Interview of Ruth Edna DeVelds Hess by Virginia Luknic on December 2, 1982.
LUKNIC: [unclear- begins speaking before tape starts recording] ...of...of what you’ve done [unclear].
HESS: Well, I was born in 1909 in a little suburb (at that time it was a little suburb) of Chicago, [static] Irving Park. And my father was a school teacher in one of the main high schools there in Chicago, the Irving Park Schurz High School. And I was born into a Christian home so from early childhood I was taught the Word of God [the Bible], and to love it, and to live by it. And then, as I grew up with my brother (who was older by three years) my father was anxious and my mother was anxious that we would have a Christian training, a Christian school to go to college. So Wheaton was chosen. At that time Wheaton wasn’t like it is now. It was a very.... In fact, there was only the main building [Blanchard Hall], which has been added to since. And that was the main building. And then what was the old gym (you use it for something different nowadays). But there were only a few buildings.... And the dorm which [is] where the dining room is now. And the campus was just confined to the main section of land that you have, not all these outside places. So, anyway, my brother was the first one to come to college and my father decided that he would be able to go backwards and forwards to teach in school and they built a house out here and my brother went to...started in college in 1923. And at that time Wheaton College had what they called the Wheaton Academy which was a high school. And it isn’t...it was in the old grad building (if you know where the old grad building is, the one that’s right across from the library, that one right on the corner of Irving and I’ve forgotten what that’s...Franklin, Irving and Franklin. And not...it was just that...I don’t know what they have in there now.), but anyway that was the high school that I went to. I didn’t go to the city high school, but I went there and had the benefits of Christian teachers and so on. And then, of course, my brother graduated and I followed on in ’27. We...I started out in college and had many wonderful days and, of course, that’s where I met my husband; and we had many good times together and along with our classmates and we graduated in ‘31. Both of us were interested in serving the Lord on the mission field. And we had both been trained as teachers. And it was during our senior year that a missionary came to see us, somebody we had known who worked in Angola, Mr. [Leonard] Gammon. And he brought to us the need of the missionary’s child, how they needed teachers. So we considered this and prayed about it, we had...hadn’t any particular place that we had in mind to go, but that began our thoughts about teaching missionaries’ children, it began to start our interest in it. And a little later we had a letter from another missionary friend of ours who was working at that time in what was Northern Rhodesia or Zambia now. And she was working at a school for missionary children. It had started (Sakeji school, they didn’t have very many pupils), but it had started in 1925 and she was filling in...that was in the year of [pauses] ‘31, I think, that she was filling in for the main missionaries that had gone away on furlough to England. So we corresponded and we thought and we planned and prayed about it. And after our graduation we had another year in this country. We did think that we might benefit by going to Moody [Bible Institute in Chicago] for a short time and we took what we called a medical course, but actually we did no medical work when we were out there so I don’t really know that it benefitted us. But anyway, we went there for a bit and then in 1932 our plans began to materialize and so we began to plan to go out. We were unmarried then, but in August ‘32 we were married [pauses] and we went out with...sailed (didn’t fly then because there were no such [laughs] things as flights to Africa so we sailed on a boat) and went first to England and had time in England and in Scotland a little bit (about a month it was) and then we sailed to Africa going in from the west coast of Africa, we landed in Angola in Lobito Bay, and traveled by rail (the rail had just been put in) and so we went to within forty miles of our station by rail. Many people before who had gone out to work in that area had gone by rail from Cape Town. And then they had to tre... had to trek, you know. They had to have native carriers and all their loads were carried by Africans and they either hammocked [were carried] or cycled (I don’t know whether many of the ladies cycled or not). Actually, when we went to...when we came in on the three-day tri...(or, was it about three days? Or maybe it was five days that it took us to get in.), we trekked, we...but I didn’t use a hammock. I had always cycled, so we cycled, had bicycles and cycled along the little narrow paths. It wasn’t always easy, but at least when you’re young you don’t mind that. So that’s what we did. We came by boat to Lobito and had a little time there and then came by train by...right up to a place called Mutshatsha [?] which was in Zaire, as it is now, in the Congo [in 2004, the Democratic Republic of Congo]. And we had a forty mile trek, so it took us about...I think it was...I’m not sure that it took us a whole week, [but] it took us several days cause you can’t go more than about twenty miles a day. Well, that would be two days, maybe, or three days it took us. I think it did take us three days. And we stopped along the way. We had somebody came and got us. This friend of ours that we corresponded with. She came and met us and then she could talk the language and could speak the native vernacular and she helped us along the way. And we’d go so many miles and then we would stop and make a camp and have the night there and the push along. And so that’s how we came to Sakeji. And there weren’t many pupils there at that time. The school was just a small school, about twenty-five children. But I can...we always remember how we came to this ri...little river which is Sakeji River, crossed it. And the story goes that the people, the...the senior missionaries had given the boys who washed the clothes (they washed right there by the bridge) and so they’d given them a [sic] guns to shoot off. Not guns, I should say a gun, to shoot off so that when we came, they would hear the gunshot and they’d know that we were coming and the children would come down to meet us. And I can’t remember whether the gun didn’t go [laughing] off or what it was, but anyway, they did evidently know that we were coming because all this children came running down to meet us. And when you’re young you don’t know quite what to say with all this group of children, but that was our first introduction to Sakeji. And we came up to the main station, thatched roofed buildings and [pauses] it was quite an experience for us coming from America to the middle of central Africa. But most of our mission...missionary workers were British workers. So we had a new adjustment to make in working with people that weren’t Americans, not that it made much difference. But we found them very congenial and we worked along with them very happily and have always had a...a greater part of British workers than we have Americans and Canadians (now we have quite a number of Canadians). And so that was our first introduction with all of us...with those children. And gradually over the years the school grew and more people sent their children, they heard of the school and were able...they had more ways of sending the children and bringing them. Eventually there were roads. The roads were opened so that they could come by car. The time we went there wasn’t any car so you just...you had to bicycle or you had to trek in. And we settled then in a...a by years [?]. So after that the first car came. Then they opened up the roads and you could get places. But not very many people had cars. We didn’t have a car that first five years that we were out there because we didn’t have the money to get one in the first place. And...so we didn’t...when you wanted to go you always went to the train and went...had to go down to Cape Town or if you were going out for a little, that’s what you did; you went...had to go down to Cape Town or else to Lobito and go off the...go by boat. We still had no way of going by plane, and....
LUKNIC: When was your first furlough?
HESS: Our first furlough came in 1938. We were there longer than five years because of different circumstances. We were held over and so it was more li...let’s see we went in ‘32 so it was six years that time. And we had...two of our children were born out there then. And my work eventually, from being a teacher (we started out as teachers)...but eventually my work became the dining room...looking after...because we had all these children that came to Sakeji. They had to live with us for eighteen weeks of the term. They couldn’t go home because, of course, it was difficult. In fact, some children [that] came to us had to stay even longer than that; they had to stay the whole year because they just had no way of getting to their homes. If they went, they had to go for a long period, and we had a...in the summer time we had three months when they were away, when they could go home and see their parents. So over Christmas we did have quite a number of children who stayed. But...[Luknic interrupts] so my work changed from being a school teacher to being the housekeeper and looking af.... I helped a little in the school by teaching lessons that...in the afternoon so some of the teachers could have their ti...their afternoon off cause everybody seemed to have an afternoon off at the school at that time. But that was for y...for most of the years. Then after that, I was the housekeeper and that wa...fulfilled a big job because you have to feed these youngsters so that they keep well and strong and....
LUKNIC: Uh-huh.
HESS: It was an interesting job too because you c...we didn’t have any stores right near where you could go and buy your sugar and your flour and all the things that you.... Most people just think, “Oh well, I’ll just go down to the store and get this that and the other,” but when you think about...when you thought about that at Sakeji and even today you have to think of about 350 miles to get to the first store to get any kind of thing. So it’s been an interesting experience for me to [coughs] be able to work in that capacity as the...[pauses] in the dining room and looking after the children’s food. And...we had...our biggest number of children that we ever had there was 125. And workers were sometimes ten, and sometimes more than that I th...I’ve forgotten the biggest number of workers we’ve had, but mostly about ten people. Many were single workers, but several couples. And [pauses] many times my husband was the only man on the place as some of the other couples were on furlough or else...not so many couples were there at the...each time. The senior workers, they had problems in their family because, first of all the mother died after the birth of her twins and then Mr. Nightengale left the work, and that left my husband to do the...was the principal at that time. And then later we had another worker come, a man and his wife. And for many...several years we had help in that way and that was nice. [pauses] Then later, because of furloughs, there weren’t...there was only the one man in the station many times. But over the many years, the Lord was wonderfully good and provided for us. And [coughs] as we look back after serving Him there for fifty years, it...(actually forty-three years in the ch...in the school itself) we found that [pauses] we had been wonderfully cared for and the many promises that the Lord had given us were fulfilled. So now [coughs] after all that length of time, here we are to...we had...we were supposed to have retired in ‘75 because that was the jubilee of the school. And we were coming [home] on furlough and we felt that we had given that number of years and so that we’d be able to come home and perhaps settle in here and not go back again. But we found that we loved Africa too so mu...too much so we went back once again. And [pauses] we had a furlough in between in ‘79. We didn’t stay out as long because we were older and then it was easier to come because of planes. And [pauses] now we’re back again and whether we’re going to stay or not we don’t know, but we’re just praying about it. We love Africa very much. It’s like our own home over there rather than here. But we have to...we want to be where the Lord wants us to be.
LUKNIC: Right. Now you live in Wheaton....
HESS: Yes, we’re here in Wheaton and in the home that my father and mother left to us, the old home that I started in when we were here at college.
LUKNIC: How old were you when you first moved into this home?
HESS: I was...let’s see...1923 we came so I was what, [pauses] fourteen? Fourteen was it? Something like that. Yes, and ready for high school and....
LUKNIC: And you went to the high school here in Wheaton. How many...? You had one brother you mentioned....
HESS: I just had the one brother, yes.
LUKNIC: And he’s....
HESS: Don’t have any sisters. Just the two of us in the family.
LUKNIC: How...how...how much older?
HESS: He’s about three and a half years older than I am. And he’s a Wheaton graduate too.
LUKNIC: Yes.
HESS: And....
LUKNIC: Where’s he now?
HESS: He’s in Ba...Baltimore. He...he’s...he had fifty mini...fifty years in the ministry. I’ve had fifty years in mission work and he’s had fifty years in the ministry (Presbyterian minister he was). And now he’s retired from that and he’s...he lives in Fallston, Maryland, that’s just outside of Baltimore, and he does supply work.
LUKNIC: Okay. Then [pauses] your mother and your father and your brother lived here. Think about, you know, your high school days in Wheaton and.... What...when you were in high school (here in Wheaton), what..., you know, thinking of...of the college and overshadowing you, your brother went there, and you...
HESS: And ...
LUKNIC: ...most likely you knew....
HESS: ...because I was in the Academy, of course, it was....
LUKNIC: Right, you were right next to the college.
HESS: I was sort of had si...I sort of had eight years at college...
LUKNIC: Right.
HESS: ...because you’re right on the edge and all the football games and the basketball games and all the college activities were to me as thrilling as if I were...
LUKNIC: Right there....
HESS: ...right there.
LUKNIC: But....
HESS: ‘Course, I was so much younger that it didn’t apply to me, but I enjoyed them. I used to go to all the games. And my brother was a basketball player and...(not a football player). But I used to know the football players too, and used to like to go and....
LUKNIC: Right.
HESS: And then my husband, of course, when we were in college he was in track and did long distance running so....
LUKNIC: What did your father play?
HESS: My...no, my husband.
LUKNIC: Your husband. Oh, okay...okay...okay.
HESS: He was up here at Wheaton, yeah. And if you were to go into the gym...or not the gym, is it the gym? It’s in where the....
LUKNIC: The bookstore [the art department in 2004].
HESS: Yes, it’s the gym. There’s a room that has a...where the athlet...ath...athletes have been given awards for....
LUKNIC: Right, yeah.
HESS: He’s one of those that’s in that. His picture’s in there and the...he has an award, we have an award up here on the wall of what he was given.
LUKNIC: Before you went to college, you know, being in the shadow, what...what impression did you have before you went to Wheaton College of the college.
HESS: You mean of the college...
LUKNIC: Right.
HESS: ...itself? Well, of course, because I was so interested in it through my brother’s activities, and being right there on the doorstep, you might say. I loved...oh, I thought Wheaton was the best place on earth, and...because of the way the activities that we could attend, the Christian activities, of course, that side of my life developed very much too. It was a...there was a different stress than if I had gone to some other college. It was a...your spiritual life counted a great deal. And I’ll always remember the Tuesday night prayer meetings. They used to have Tuesday (I don’t know if you have those now but)...we used to have Tuesday night prayer meetings in which the student body (anyone who wanted, I mean it wa...you weren’t forced to do it), but you would go to the student...the student prayer meeting. And we’d have singing and testimonies and someone would give a message. But I joined in, even though it was college, I could join in too and I did, and enjoyed it very much.
LUKNIC: Right.
HESS: So it had a real influence in my life. All my life it....
LUKNIC: For...?
HESS: For ready...preparing me for the mission field, and....
LUKNIC: Right. [pauses] So when...when you did start in...? '28?
HESS: ’27.
LUKNIC: ’27. You [pauses]...what did [pauses]...? How many students were there, then, when you started? Do you remember the numbers?
HESS: Oh, I don’t...well, I think it was something around 300 or something like that. It wasn’t a big school, you see. It might have been 300 when my brother was there and then increased.
LUKNIC: Right.
HESS: It could be that. But it was a smaller school. Much smaller than, of course, what you have now. And you did get to know all the professors very well, and you got to know....
LUKNIC: Which professor do you remember the most? When you think about....
HESS: Oh, well, of course, when I went...when we went to college, professor John Leedy (not the John Leedy that has been up here in recent years; it was his father). And he was...he married us actually. And he was a...he was such a fine person. And he had, I think, the most influence on our lives, but we did get to know all the others too and had quite a bit to do with different ones. And many of them have died and our gone now so that you don’t have the same teachers as we had.
LUKNIC: Right.
HESS: But I do know some of the ones like Russel Mixter. Do you know [him]? Maybe you don’t.
LUKNIC: You mentioned.
HESS: He’s...he’s retired too, Professor Mixter so probably you don’t remember him. And let’s see, who...I never lived...never was in the dorms so it didn’t mean anything to me to.... The dormitory people didn’t influence my life in any way. But [pauses] I had other teachers too, but perhaps I had more to do with Professor Leedy because he was our maj...our...we majored in Botany and he was...played a prominent part in all of the subjects that we took at that time.
LUKNIC: What...? Right, so you were...you took Botany and...can you remember the...the...the curriculum, the different classes, can you think about...about which classes you took and...and what you remembered taking?
HESS: Oh, I’ve forgotten all that. It’s too long ago now [both laughing] but....
LUKNIC: Can you think of anything that...that...that had influence, you know [clock chiming in the background]?
HESS: Well, let’s see, I don’t know as anything stands out a great deal. We always took s...you had scripture lessons that...scripture classes that we went to like... In fact, I can’t even remember who’s class I was in, but.... I’m afraid it’s...it’s kind of....
LUKNIC: How about classmates and...?
HESS: Well, I had...we had...our class of thirty-two was a...a very...([class of] thirty-one) was a very fine class and now they’re in many walks of life. John Walvoord , who has to do with [pauses] Dallas Texas [pauses] Seminary [Dallas Theological Seminary], he was one of our classmates. And...oh, I couldn’t go through the list of them. We weren’t here for our fiftieth anniversary [class reunion] which was in...in ‘51, but...in ‘71, but.... Not ‘71, what am I talking about? Where are we now, ‘70...? ‘81.
LUKNIC: ‘81, yes. Yes.
HESS: Yes. But we would have liked to have been [in attendance at their fifty-year reunion], but we couldn’t come away at that particular time and then come now. So we’d have...there are a lot of our classmates that we didn’t actually...haven’t seen for years and years and years. But we were back in...in...’76 and went to our forty-fifth anniversary [class reunion] and then we saw quite a number of our classmates then. But you know unless you have a paper with the names down you forget them.
LUKNIC: Yeah, it....
HESS: You don’t think you will. When you’re in college, you think, “Well, I’ll never forget, I’ll never forget”. But as soon as I get a paper [coughs] and read all their names off (I kept the alumni news, I kept over there in Africa and read all their names and I tried to find their pictures).... And of course, I know that I don’t look the way I used to look so people wouldn’t...wouldn’t recognize me, perhaps, but a lot of them you could still recognize their features, but others had changed a great deal. I had a very special friend called Alice Oury ( or her name wasn’t Oury then, it was before....), Alice MacKinney. And we went everywhere together. In the Academy we did a lot of things together and then we went to college together and... But sh...I haven’t...she’s way out on the West Coast now so I don’t get a chance to see her very much and....
LUKNIC: An...and you did all of your activities and different things with her. What...what activities do you remember doing with her?
HESS: What...what?
LUKNIC: Whether you did some athletic activities and worked with....
HESS: Oh, well, I’d...my athletics...in those days they didn’t have really organized athletics for girls, so we used to play basketball (that was my main game, basketball), then we used to play baseball too. And those were.... I wasn’t...I didn’t go in for tennis, (I wish I had’ve), I had some friends who were very good at tennis, but basketball was my...the game I enjoyed the most I think. We didn’t...I don’t know, I think you have many more organized games now in college than...
LUKNIC: Yes, yeah.
HESS: ...than we did then. And it was just beginning. I think women were just beginning to have special classes and I don’t even think we had gym classes in those days. But you all have gym classes now, don’t you, that you attend and so....
LUKNIC: Yes.
HESS: And swimming, of course, we didn’t have swimming in those days. But we had lots to [pauses] prepare us for the work we were going to do in Africa by meeting other people. One thing I always remember. I had a...(as well in...in the academy) I had a very special friend. Her name was Betty Johnson. And her parents were missionaries in Kenya and...so she had come over from school over there to come to Wheaton. And her parents had to leave her here. They didn’t see her for many years because their furloughs were just like our beginning ones, maybe five, six years apart. And it was through her, actually, that I really got an interest in Africa because she told me about her life out there and how her parents worked amongst the African peoples and so I got to know...to be interested in the African life. ‘Course she didn’t...she went to an Africa...a missionary school, but it wasn’t her telling me that made me interested in teaching missionaries’ children, but the African side of things...I was interested in Africa because of her.
LUKNIC: What did you know of Africa, like when you were in...in college studying [unclear]....
HESS: Well, mostly only through speakers that we had and different missionaries that came to the church and so on, but, of course....
LUKNIC: What...Can you...[shuffling of papers] can you...remember at all what you thought of Africa, or...[Hess laughs] or the impression you had then?
HESS: Oh well it’s....
LUKNIC: You know was it....
HESS: ...I think the Lord leads you along those lines because why didn’t...and we heard a lot of Indians and Chinese and...about work in China and work in India, but somehow it was the African work that appealed to me the most. And....
LUKNIC: What about Africa itself, did...?
HESS: Well....
LUKNIC: Do you remember what you thought of Africa [Hess laughs] before you went there? Did you...what did you expect before....
HESS: Well, I...I didn’t no exactly what to think my opin...after all, you...don’t get an impression at the right...the right impression until you get out there and see it, but, of course, I...I knew that there were a lot of snakes, you know? [laughs] And thought about the unknown of Africa. One doesn’t know what you’re going to...but it’s wonderful how you go along as...in your travels and you just adjust to the different things that come. You haven’t...but if you had fear of the unknown, you don’t have it by the time you get to the end, so.... And there was a lot of unknown that we didn’t know what we were coming to or where we were going, but.... For that reason I think one can be thankful for the background...the Chr...the Christian background that we’ve had that makes a difference. And, of course, there are other people who go out for adventure and they’re...they don’t care they’re just to have their adventure, but we were particularly interested in...from a scr...Christian standpoint we were interested in Africa. Though at that time, though we...we thought about the Africans, we weren’t concentrating so much. It was after we got out there that we realized how we wished that we could do something amongst the Africans, too. And, of course, when you get into school work, you have to live to the clock. When you get to be a teacher, you must do just what the clock tells you to do at a certain time. And when you’re taking care of the children who are in school, then you have to do the same thing. So we were bound very much by the work that we had to do there at the school. But I didn’t get out into the villages as much as my husband, but he did make a real effort to get out and get into the African setup, too, but didn’t have as much time. Now, of course, we have all the time that we need to go out and the African loves to have you just sit and talk to him and...and have...[pauses] not to worry, to...to rush and have to get back to a timetable of any kind. So that’s been a real joy in these latter years, to be able to do that. And we didn’t have any responsibilities since ‘75; we haven’t had any school responsibilities so we live on the station. We have a little cottage right near the edge of the station and we get all the benefits of the...of the school cause we have lights and...(my husband was able to put in lights and running water and all those different things, but....) So we benefit by it.
LUKNIC: Going back to before you went...[pauses] talking about when you...you first thought about missions your senior year at Wheaton and, you know, what...can you remember your...your motivations for going? You...I....
HESS: Well....
LUKNIC: You mentioned a real strong interest to go. Wha...Wha...What motivated you?
HESS: Well, the thing w...when we were spoken to by this man, he pointed out how it was so hard for the missionary parent to teach their children as they ought to be taught because after all those children have to come home here to this land or to Britain or wherever they come from and they have to fit in....
LUKNIC: Okay, and who...who is this man?
HESS: Oh, Mr. Gammon...
LUKNIC: Mr. Gammon, okay.
HESS: ...who was the missionary who spoke to us then. And that’s...that’s what he presented that.... Well, now the early missionary...the early missionaries, Dr. and Mrs. Walter Fisher, (who are on...in this little pamphlet here, you can see their pictures) [shows Luknic a pamphlet that is not described] they had children who they had to send to England’s school and they realized what a big burden it was. They couldn’t have their children with them because they couldn’t educate them properly and so they were separated from them for years. But the way they worked out the plan was that every two years, one would go home so they were only separated for a matter of two years. But, of course, it meant that going back to England, they’d have to go by boat, that it would make a long time for them to be separated from each other so...but they felt that that was the better thing to do than to sacrifice their children to not knowing their parents or having any contact with them so that’s what they did. But it was always Mrs. Fisher’s prayer and desire that some kind of a school would start up and it was in 1925 that the first..., through her efforts at home speaking to others they managed to get equipment and to begin this.... They picked out a site. They walked over the land and they found a nice place to build a school and that’s how it first started in 1925. But...so through their experience of having to be separated so much they felt that if the children could come to a central school and then get back to their parents again in the year, that that was the ideal...,
LUKNIC: That it would work out.
HESS: ...a better thing, yes. Now we thought, as we thought about what Mr. Gammon had said, we would only be sitting...only being on his mission station and touching maybe [coughs] four or five children, so as we thought and prayed about it, we thought that it would be [pauses] better to be at a school where you could contact more children and be a blessing to...to more children, so, we didn’t go to the mission station and just teach the few children. We went to Sakeji School and then worked there for those numbers of years. And as I say it started...it was only a small school in the beginning and then it grew to twenty-five. They thought that was a good number cause after all the children had to come from such long distances. And then later school got to be ninety and then up into the hundreds and we were touching (and still are touching) many children and giving them the same kind of a...a schooling that they would have if they were over here in this country. We’ve been able to get books and equipment so that they ha...they...they might lack in certain...certain lights, but not very much. And most of the children who have left Sakeji, they’re usually in about first year of high school, we take them up to a first year in high school. And when they come back over here, they [pauses] fit in very nicely, or even in Britain we have been able to work out a syllabus that has [pauses] subjects. The subjects both for the states and for England have been worked out so that they don’t lose, they have American history and they have British history and geography, the same way...most mathematics and things like that are similar. So that was our motive. We were motivated by the need of the Af...of the missionary family and the children and we felt that to reach the greatest number we would be best in going to the school so that was.... We’ve heard many...many in chapel hours, of course, and you still have many speakers come to you, but we had many missionaries from different countries: India, Africa, China. And special speakers at different times and other...in the missionary...anyone who’s missionary in...minded could go to the (what did they call it in those days?).... Well, it’s...it was the missionary group so you could if you were interested, you would hear different people speak on different lands.
LUKNIC: Then to go.... Tell me something about the mission board.
HESS: Well, [Luknic interrupts, unclear]...in...we have a mission board in New York. It...it’s a little bit different because of the [Plymouth] Brethren. It’s a little bit different than a big organized board, but it’s called “A Christian Mission in Many Lands” (CMML they call it). And though they don’t direct their...their workers, like ordinary missionary...like Presbyterians or African Inland [Mission] or all these different mag....
LUKNIC: How did you end up choosing that?
HESS: Well, because that was connected with the little groups that we were sent out [by]. See, we were sent out by a group in Buffalo; they’re called Plymouth Brethren, and they sent us out, but they didn’t send us out to...with a salary or anything like that. We went out trusting the Lord and other groups of the same belief would send us gifts as well. Now we go...we come from Bethany [Chapel] here in Wheaton, the little chapel down on College Avenue and President [Street] right on the corner there. But they...they have sent us out as well, but that’s only recently, when I say recent is in ‘50, I think, ‘55, something like that. They added our name onto their list. But they don’t give you a full [pauses] yearly support if that’s what you want to call it and most missions you have to go around and ga...get your support in different churches. We don’t do that, but we do come back and report our work to the different assemblies and then if they feel led to give to us later on, well, then they do and that’s a....
LUKNIC: Did you ever have any problems with that?
HESS: Well, no, we...when we were new to the work, of course, you didn’t know so many people. We did...we didn’t always have an abundance maybe, but we did certainly have...the Lord did supply our every need. And now, of course, we’re better known and some of the younger ones are not so well known, but we haven’t had any...we didn’t have any time in which we could say, well, we were destitute and didn’t have enough, we always had sufficient to see us over each day. And CMML still works this way. What it does is if I have a gift and I want to send to a missionary and I send it to CMML, they’ll forward it to that missionary and [pauses] that’s a great help because these days where you never know.... You can’t send money and you don’t know...checks aren’t acceptable whereas this is an acceptable way for missionaries to have funds that can be sent out to them. So that’s what they do.
LUKNIC: What kind of...what kind of money did you use...down in...in...in...Af....
HESS: Well, you mean in Zambia?
LUKNIC: Right.
HESS: Well, first of all, in...in the first days when we went out, the early days, it was British money that we were using. And then it...Rhodesia...it became Northern Rhodesia and we had Northern Rhodesian money, similar to British money. And, of course, now we have what is Zambian money [pauses] and...because Zambia is independent. It has nothing to do with Britain anymore. And [pauses] sometime...when we...our money goes across over there to Zambia, you lose some...lose a bit of money, you have...you don’t get the same for your dollar, course, that’s...
LUKNIC: Exchange.
HESS: ...to do with the exchange, but [pauses] even so we have always had plenty to...the Lord’s provided for us so that we have no problem.
LUKNIC: What kind of specific training did the mission board give you before you left?
HESS: Well, [coughs] they didn’t...they...we didn’t have any definite training like in other boards that you went to a place and trained. They just...it was your church that would recommend you as a person who [pauses] was outstanding. When I...when I say “outstanding,” I mean who would be capable of Sunday School teaching and who was interested spiritually, they could back you up as one who really loved the Lord and would be willing to be ser...to serve the Lord. They didn’t have any [coughs]...they wouldn’t know what we could do, of course, as teachers, and things like that. They wouldn’t have been able to qualify us in that way. But they felt that because they knew us that they could...our church recommended us to the board, to CMML, and...so because they backed us up, and, again, because we have the backing of the Bethany Chapel here, it goes like what you call a commendation, you know, it goes...it’s a recommendation.
LUKNIC: Right. Were there any requirements?
HESS: Well, I don’t know...we never had any...no, I don’t think there was...you just had to be physically...you had to go and have a physical and be sure you were physically fit. And in the early days, of course, missionaries went out they didn’t even have to be educated in...I mean, to have a college education, you could go...just with a high school education and [coughs] most of those early missionaries, that’s all they did then. And the school that we went to had no requirements that you had to be a college graduate, but we were both co...graduates....
LUKNIC: Do you think that helped you?
HESS: What do you mean? Well, you mean in the school itself or as a....?
LUKNIC: Right, in all your work....
HESS: Oh, I think it did, yes, sure, because, I mean you, one, we were trained here at Wheaton to be able to teach and did practice teaching. And I’m sure it did help us that way, but I don’t know that it...[pauses] it carried any particular weight in the school itself.
LUKNIC: Right. Okay, now w...when you think back to when you first arrived, and...and traveling...cycling to the...to the school, w...what was your first impression of th...of the land, and...and who were the first people that you saw?
HESS: [laughs] Well, we...first of all, we got off the train (it was very dark, it was early in the morning when we got there) and we were taken out to the mission station which was out...I don’t remember how many miles it was out from the station. And that was our first introduction to a mission station so we had to stay there until somebody came to help us with the carriers and to take us to Sakeji, and it was a British couple. But...oh, it was...it was very romantic to find the houses all with thatched roofs and after all we’d come from a civilization where you have wood houses and there it was just brick houses, mud houses, sort of bricks that they used, and a thatched roof and homemade furniture, and not...not nice floors, but a...a mud floor with probably a mat on it because that’s what...in the early days they didn’t have even cement floors. They just had...the mud was beaten down and the reeds had been made by the Africans. They’d cu...use bark rope and maded [sic] them...made [door closes] them into a certain size and you could put those down on the floor. And [pauses] then they didn’t have rugs like we have here at all, maybe little throw rugs, we used to have a few of those. And n....
LUKNIC: Tell...tell me about...about the Africans. They...they made those reeds. What...who were the first Africans that you saw? What were the different kinds of Africans?
HESS: Well, we went...we went in amongst the same tribe of people that we’re in now. We didn’t go to...a one...we went...we saw a lot of these Africans, of course, they always...the way they were dressed, some of them were very poorly dressed and others had nice dresses on, and gay clothes and things like that. But you didn’t see any European dresses on these African women, nor were the men all dressed up. They wore just their regular...[pauses] usually a cloth. They wore...even the men wore a cloth. Then later on trousers and things like that have come in more...and shorts, things like that.
LUKNIC: But what were their first [pauses] reaction to you?
HESS: [laughs] Well, they would have been told by these missionaries that we went to that we were coming out as new missionaries and...so they would...the Christian people, of course, came, not so much the he....
LUKNIC: Christian Africans or Christian...?
HESS: Yes, Christian Africans would come and would greet us and they taught us how to greet and you take their hand and you go like that [claps] and clap and you greet them....
LUKNIC: And you rub it?
HESS: Yes....
LUKNIC: Do it again.
HESS: See, if I was to take your hand, I’d go like this. [claps]
LUKNIC: Right.
HESS: And that’s the greeting they have. And different tribes have different kinds of greetings, but that’s the Lunda tr...people just had that type of greeting. And they were all very pleased...of course, they would talk to us in their language and we couldn’t understand anything they said, but we were told to say, “Mani, mani? Mani, mani?” [an African tribal language unknown to transcriber, transcription of this phrase based on sound only] [claps]. That’s they same as saying, “How do you do? How do you do?”
LUKNIC: Wha....
HESS: And they just...they were very friendly. Of course, even the unconverted people would like to co....
LUKNIC: What was the percentage of...of Christians and unconverted in the tribe?
HESS: Oh, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. That’s....
LUKNIC: Do you remember, was it a small portion that were Christians?
HESS: There isn’t a very big proportion of Christians, though in our area where we are now we have about nineteen little churches. Not all in one clump, you know, they’re all spread around in the area.
LUKNIC: Churches...you...African churches.
HESS: Yes. African churches. And that’s where...the last bit of our work, we’ve been visiting these churches and going to see the people there. But, their....
LUKNIC: Describe to me the churches.
HESS: Well, usually it’s a...in most places it’s not a very elaborate building. It’s a brick...they make sun-dried bricks, and then they...they build it up into...[pauses] make it into a certain dimension, a s...a square or an oblong, and have a...they thatch the roof. They still have a lot of thatched roofs. Some places do...have had enough money so that they can put iron on the roof. And some of the ho...some of the churches look quite nice. You wouldn’t ha...they wouldn’t look like our churches here, with elaborate windows and things. They’re always...most of them have open windows. And the benches are just...either wooden benches that they’ve made, or else they’re bricks built up as the..two end sections and then a...a board across it. And some of them are kind of uncomfortable to sit on for any length of time. But still, others aren’t too bad. And....
LUKNIC: Well, what did...? [microphone moves] How about the services?
HESS: Well, in our...see, in our setup, we have....
LUKNIC: At the school....
HESS: No....
LUKNIC: Your setup...
HESS: I’m thinking of the services....
LUKNIC: Oh, here. Oh, sorry.
HESS: In...amongst the African churches. They have...they have a preaching service, and a gospel service, and then they also have...each morning they...each Sunday morning we have the breaking of bread or communion service because that is our...our custom even here in Bethany, we have the early...first service we have is a communion or a breaking...we call it, the breaking of bread. And we don’t have a pastor and they don’t have pastors up there either. And....
LUKNIC: So how are things done? What’s...what’s the agenda?
HESS: Well, it’s generally a group of elders that runs different things. And in the breaking of bread, it’s...as the Spirit leads. They give out a hymn or they pray or sometimes they have a word from the Bible and they stand up and...and give that. Have you never heard of the Brethren?
LUKNIC: Mmm. Oh yeah, yes. I want to go back to [pauses] the...in...in Africa.
HESS: Yes, in Af.... Well, that’s what they just carry on the same way....
LUKNIC: Right, do they....
HESS: In Africa....
LUKNIC: Right. Do they...?
HESS: They’ve learned how to do. They’ve become accustomed to the way we meet because the white man has been with them and explained things to them and...so they just carry on.
LUKNIC: You know, entering...entering a...a church in Africa where you were...to go to...to the service...how...how is it?
HESS: Well, you just...you walk in...you don’t have eld...you don’t have people usher you [laughs] into the pews because it’s too small a place, but you just go in....
LUKNIC: Most of them are really small.
HESS: And the men sit on one side and the women sit on the other side, and I usually go and sit over on...with the women. And [pauses] then usually during the breaking of bread, the wives sit with their husbands. That’s the way they’ve been taught to do. And that’s when they’re both Christians of course, because it’s not...the unconverted don’t come to the table, but they sit at the back. And [pauses] our Africans sing very nicely and I enjoy their singing. Some...some tribes don’t sing nicely at all, but our Lunda people sing very nicely indeed. And we have another group of Africans, not...that came from the coast and...and settled in our area there. They have beautiful voices. They’re lovely singers. And [pauses] the women have their own times of...they have in the week time, they have a service when they...the women gather and...and read God’s Word and pray together and...[sniffs] and they bring their problems together and talk over things. And the men have their special time. Then they have s...a meeting when they all get together, the men and the women, and they usually have a time of somebody teaching from the Word of God. And my husband used to go out sometimes and take those meetings for them. And then each Sunday we would go, not to one special church, but we would go around as much as we could to the different ones and try and visit each one and be a help.
LUKNIC: In the same day?
HESS: In the one day, yes, and be a help [?].
LUKNIC: How are they different?
HESS: Well they wouldn’t be different. They’d all be the same. I mean, they’re the same tribe of people, speak the same thing...sp...same tongue. And they meet in the same way. And sometimes one person from another group will go over and speak to another. You’d have to travel...oh, what, sometimes ten...[pauses] five, ten miles because they’re separated out. You know, they’re not close together. They’re all separated out throughout the district. And if the roads a...we have very poor roads so sometimes, if the rain comes, you never know whether you’re going to stick or not, but we had...we didn’t have very many problems that way. It got along alright. And one day we’d [?] write and tell them we’re coming and then we’d go to one...there’s a one road that’s...one assembly that’s quite a long way away, about twenty miles and we used to go there one Sunday and get up real early and be there within.... (Is that...not somebody there?) And the...it’s real...they’re real friendly people and they take you right in and they like to talk to you, and they like you to come and they tell you that you must come again. And as they told my husband it...we should come back again because this country here of America isn’t our country anymore. We belong over there.
LUKNIC: What...?
HESS: Those children that come to our school, and who have been born in Africa, of course, they don’t all come from the same language-speaking people that we come from, they go maybe back to another tribe. But they are...they make fine missionaries if they go back to the foreign field again because they know how to...they’ve been able to speak the language as children and they can enter into things much better. And they hear...I think they hear quicker than we who go out and have to learn the language.
LUKNIC: How much of the language do you know yourself?
HESS: Well, I didn’t learn as much as...because I was working all the time in the kitchen, doing the...getting...supervising the food for the children and so my contact was on the level of a kitchen really to start with, but then gradually I’ve learned more too, in the time that we’ve been there and going to the different.... My husband speaks better than I do. And [pauses] a person who goes out to do African...to do the work of...to be a missionary amongst the Africans, amongst the natives, would concentrate on it, you see, whereas we’re getting a mixture of English, so much English, and then just a little of the language. You don’t pick it up quickly until you get right away from your own language and can hear nothing, but the lang...the spoken African language. But, of course, in my work where I was w...I employed...we employed a cook, an African, and it wasn’t an...a woman cook either. Most of the women don’t work in our area. It’s the men who do the work. They’re the ones that come in and do housework and things like that. But in the kitchen I had an African trained...I trained an African to cook and also one to help with the vegetables and things like that. And then we had...we had to have Africans who would help in the main dining room to take care of that and clean it and keep it nice and lay the tables and so on. And then later on we got the children did some of the work too, but you have to have a certain number of employed people....
LUKNIC: Did you have any...any language difficulties working with the...?
HESS: No, you mean a...with my African employed ones? No.
LUKNIC: Did they....
HESS: Just now and again they would get dissatisfied. More lately, they become satis...dissatisfied because other people get higher pay than they do. The government pays very high pay...wages. And they would become dissatisfied. So we tried to push them up so that they wouldn’t be dissatisfied and that they would be able to have enough money. Now, you had...they have to pay so much for their clothes and for children’s clothing and everything that they really need to have more money. So...but on the whole we didn’t hav...we’ve never had any problems. Just now and again as I say, we’d have somebody who didn’t like what he was payed and he would make some kind of a...a...an objection and maybe be difficult [background coughs] for a while and then he would...we would get over that stage and things would go along. And of course, if you have one who’s discontented in amongst a...a group of people, well, you know, what that makes the others dissatisfied. But we could usually talk it over and reason it out and if it seemed right to give them more money, we...we tried to. So...but we liked the African, we liked them very much indeed. And the...after I left the dining room the...the women would come over to my house. And I have a bench out at the side and we used to sit there and we used to sit there and talk and they’d bring their babies along and....
LUKNIC: Can...can you remember any of the conversations you had?
HESS: [Laughs] Oh, there isn’t...you ask them all...all sorts of questions about how their fields are and....
LUKNIC: Right. Did they speak English?
HESS: Pardon?
LUKNIC: Did they speak English?
HESS: Oh no, no....
LUKNIC: You spoke with them.
HESS: This would be in their own la...in their own tongue.
LUKNIC: Right.
HESS: Not very many people could sp...not very many women would speak English. No. You just ask them about their daily life and how the...their fields are. And they love you to talk about their children. And if they can come and get a little knitted vest from you for the children, well, they like that, and bonnets and I used to do some bonnets and booties and when they’d come, I’d let them....[tape fades off]
END OF TAPE