Chinese place names are spelled in the transcript in the old
or new transliteration form according to how the speaker pronounced them. Thus,
"Peking" is used instead of "
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, made by Noel Collins and Bob Shuster, was
completed in May 2007.
Collection
534, T2 Interview of
Marguerite Owen by Bob Shuster, June 6, 1997.
OWEN: ...our play and I was in two of his.
SHUSTER: What was his name?
OWEN: Bittikofer, he is...he was
huge. The thing is someone used to say you could always tell who Bittikoffer directing, no one directed like he did
[laughs].
SHUSTER: What made him such a good teacher?
OWEN: One thing is he was insistent on per...insisting on perfection, insisting on rightness, I mean, any
teacher who will call the best out of you and not let you get away with stuff.
In other words, when I was accompanying some of his singers and I made a
mistake, he said, “Did you notice that Ms. Goodner
missed that?” Boy, you don’t
miss it again. And also, he was...he was alive, very much alive and he made you
feel the music you were singing. I
sang in the choral group too at the same time. Then also, because I had Greek
in college, they let me take New Testament Greek but I must confess that the
only reason I took New Testament Greek was because (I was the only woman in the
class) because in that class was a young man named Harry Owen. That’s where I met Harry.
SHUSTER: That’s the first time...well,
you didn’t take the class for him if you met him in the class.
OWEN: Well, no, I had met him before but he was
in the class. My second semester I took it and we wrote notes to each other,
addressing, and I was “presbuteros ed metra
adelphos mou”- little
sister and older brother and all. But, we...that’s where we...we...we
went together, then we were separated and then we met again in
SHUSTER: Very careful to keep the men and women...?
OWEN: Separate. So that they wouldn’t have quick
romances...the, the men sailed for
SHUSTER: How did you, do you remember the first time you met
at Moody?
OWEN: The first time I met him?
SHUSTER: Uh-huh.
OWEN: Oh yes, it was at a prayer meeting.
SHUSTER: How did that....?
OWEN: I’d seen him before that but I hadn’t
no...Well, I met him that night for sure but the first time I noticed him there
was a group of CIM prospective missionaries that went out every night on the El
[the elevated train], went out to Dr. Isaac Page’s home and we had a prayer
meeting there every first Monday...every Mon...yeah,
every Monday, every Monday night.
And the first night I went with...I took a whole bunch of
SHUSTER: What was it that...what was it that got your
attention?
OWEN: That first, that’s what got my attention.
SHUSTER: That he was praying?
OWEN: That he was praying. It was he...he has a wonderful
voice and he had a real gift of speaking and praying both. And I was impressed and he didn’t
pa... he didn’t talk to me all the way home, you know this ...we
just...and I was with my gang anyway. But, I notice him several times, he
was...of course, he was a..a
third year or second year man and he was, you’re on duty ushering people
or managing things and he noticed me, he told me afterwards, that he thought I
was the most flibberty student....
SHUSTER: That you were the most what?
OWEN: Flibberty gibberty. I don’t think I was but he thought I was,
you know, too
flip.
SHUSTER: Too energetic?
OWEN: Yeah and all that. And, but he...I noticed his
demeanor was always so [pauses] special. He...he was...he was not...I...you
never saw him...he never slept.
SHUSTER: Like your grandmother.
OWEN: Right, right, right. He was...I mean, he was not that resilient. But he
was somebody you noticed and I noticed him and then we...then one, just about a
month after I first noticed him, this China group had a picnic, up on the...way
up on the El to another place, and he was there and of course I was there and a
whole bunch of others. But there was...I had to go back for work and he had to
go back for something else and we was the only two that had to go back early. So we had this long El ride together and
we got acquainted and we found a mutual love in poetry. Very
much so. And, the...in fact I have, not that original book that I
took with me but one that I gave
him (mine was lost in the bombing).
And also both of us had other attachments. I had gone with one young man for six
years.
SHUSTER: In
OWEN: In
SHUSTER: Harry Owen had an attachment....
OWEN: Harry Owen, in
SHUSTER: Which is where he had come from?
OWEN: Where he came, yes...he’s...he was born in
SHUSTER: You had
grown up, of course, with a large family and a very close family and you’d
always lived with your family. Gone
to school and...
OWEN: Uh-huh.
SHUSTER: ...stayed at home. What was it like at this point,
going so far away and going to school at Moody?
OWEN: I didn’t find it bad at all. I mean, of course,
I’m so gregarious. I mean...I
mean here...I mean I...I don’t...I’ve never felt at all that I
missed it. I mean I’m sorry I have to stay up here...but I’ve got
more people...
SHUSTER: You mean here in
OWEN: Yes, then everywhere I’ve gone. I mean I’ve
moved so many times and always I have some new groups that’s
why my correspondence is so terrible. I have written,
I have in my letter book a thousand entries since I came...
SHUSTER: Oh my.
OWEN: ...in 1994 at the end of last.... There were 750 at the end of the first
year and it’s been more than 300 since then. But you see everywhere I
went I made friends and I want to keep up with them. Every time you leave, you
make some more. And so, when I went to Moody, well, I had of course my friend
Rita that went with me....
SHUSTER: Uh huh.
OWEN: That
was right away. And also I had the China Inland Mission people that I was
interested in, I got to know them right away and I made some friends. As a
matter of fact I just wrote to one yesterday, Esther Hamilton, Mrs. John Hamilton, she went to the
SHUSTER: Oh, Christ Home, yeah.
OWEN: Christ home in Warminster. And we’ve, we’ve kept up all
this time and she....then I met another one who is Woodworth who went to the
SHUSTER: Did you take any missionary courses at Moody?
OWEN: Yes, I took , I took
Missionary Sewing.
SHUSTER: Missionary sewing, what’s missionary sewing?
[chuckles]
OWEN: You had to, one of the courses you had to have, you
had to do...you had to do, men had to do woodwork and women had to do all kinds
of sewing and the thing they gave us to do was make baby clothes. I struggled
with that more than anything you could imagine. I mean I cannot sew, I mean I
try. The Chinese would say, “You’re too “wong”,
you’re too hasty, jerky.”
I can’t do anything that requires small steady movements like
this. I guess, I can play the piano
but that’s a little bit different. And, oh! And I...if I...my sewing
would get so dirty...it would just....
SHUSTER: The whole class was just sewing?
OWEN: Oh yes...we all...you had
to...to be...a...it was a whole missionary course. You took sewing, you took mild medicine
things, it’s called missionary equipment and the men all had to learn
some type of carpentry...some type of wood...repairing things. In other words,
if you were starved you can do these things. But you go to
SHUSTER: [talking over Owen] That’s
right, you have hand-sewn pillows there on your...the top of your bed.
OWEN: ...one of my friends. So...but that was one of the
things that I learned at Moody. Also, it was very good...although I knew the
doctrine, it was very good to have it re-worded another way. Had...I had.... What were the other missionary courses I
took? Missionary e...about the cause of missions...I mean the re....
SHUSTER: History of missions?
OWEN: History of missions, Lower [?], Glover...History of
Missions....
SHUSTER: Robert Glover taught that?
OWEN: What?
SHUSTER: Robert Glover taught that?
OWEN: Yes, he...his was the text that was used.
SHUSTER: Oh, his was the book that you used, but he wasn’t
the teacher.
OWEN: Oh no, no. Who was the teacher then? I’m afraid
I’ve gotten him mixed up with somebody else. But I did take that book and
I did take that course.
SHUSTER: Were there any courses on how to adapt to another
culture or...?
OWEN: No, none of that kind that I remember, I didn’t
have any. It was...how you could do things, the history of missions and then
how you do things when you got there. But I don’t...we may have had
something on other religions but if so I’ve...that’s one of those
things I didn’t remember.
SHUSTER: How to do things? You mean like the sewing or do
you mean like preaching and studying, Bible clubs, things like that?
OWEN: Yes, oh yes, we had that, we
had Homiletics, which was preaching.
I don’t think they actually taught us about starting Bible clubs
but they may have, I’m not sure.
That was...I mean that was...I forget...I don’t remember
everything. I remember a lot.
SHUSTER: What was
OWEN: Oh, it was terrible, I thought it was terrible. Going
back to my working as a...the... waitress [sic]. After she...one morning before
she dissed [dismissed] me we came to school...we came
to work at four o’clock in the afternoon, our door that we entered was
all full of bullet holes. The night
before there’d been a gang war right on
SHUSTER: That the name of the town?
OWEN: No, that’s just...sanctioned...it was
predominantly Jewish. Had 5 synagogues in walking distance of our house. [Laugh]
SHUSTER: This is where?
OWEN: No, south of
SHUSTER: When you were in
OWEN: Ye...we went...we had assignments. We went to lo...yes,
I would go...Sunday night I went with Harry to
SHUSTER: Oh! So that was your first contact with Chinese
people?
OWEN: No, no, I’d had Chine...I’d met the
Chine...I really...that’s another...go back. In
SHUSTER: Did you ever have a chance to talk with him?
OWEN: Well...I...I...I...you know, I was about seven or
eight something like that. I’d
just say, you know just “hello”...
SHUSTER: “Hello”....
OWEN: ...and that sort of thing. But on Christmas of that
year that I was eight, the doorbell rang and I went to the door and here was
this Chinaman, I can’t even remember his name now. And I said, “Oh come in, come in”.
[Phrase in Chinese ending in “Mama”]. I said, “I’ll go get her.”
SHUSTER: He wanted your mother?
OWEN: Yes, your mother, [repeated phrase in Chinese ending
in “Mama”], “your mama”. And so I went...I said, “Mother,
there’s the Chinese man....”
She said, “Didn’t you ask him in?” I said, “Yes, but he won’t
come.” So she came and she
begged him. “Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas” and he handed her a
lovely little woven basket full of leachy nuts and a...a lovely silk
handkerchief. I think somewhere in
my belongings, I still own that. It’s
faded terribly but I...I grabbed it I think eventually. And realized I didn’t have a thing
in hand to give to him, it was two or three days before Christmas and anyway
the next....
[Tape recorder turned off and on.]
SHUSTER: You were saying the next year the man from
OWEN: Yes, and he...he...he say...he...you know, he bowed
and bowed and thanked her. But, we
couldn’t get him no...we couldn’t.... Of course, he didn’t have enough
English so it was embarrassing for him but he...he
knew that we loved him because he went every Sun...in
the Sunday and then every....
SHUSTER: [over Owen] Shook hands
with him...
OWEN: [unclear] and it....
SHUSTER: What was his name? Do you recall?
OWEN: No, not at all. At that time I wouldn’t’ve
know Chinese names anyway. Ya know, this is...I was
only.... And then, he’s the
first Chinese I knew and then I met others through the years but I didn’t
ever get to know any of them personally.
I mean I never was alone with...with them enough or in circumstances
where I could really talk to them.
So, it was just people, they were just people, not.... Except that one person that was so very
near to me and then of course, those
SHUSTER: And then you taught the class in
OWEN: [talking over Shuster] Yes, they spoke English of
course. I mean these were just...we
were just youngsters that were going to school there.
SHUSTER: But did you have a chance to talk.... Had they been in
OWEN: [interrupting Shuster] No, no they were all
Americanized. I mean the only thing
was that they went to this Chinese church.
And they had this Chinese and....
We did visit the homes, I remember that but their English was so limited
of course, we had no Chinese. We
were...we would mostly just give them the Gospel or tell them things and try
to...we tried to get from them what they knew but it was very seldom. The women wouldn’t...I mean I
imagine the men would...I’m sure there’s a lot of real Christian
Chinese in Chicago but I didn’t know them at that time and this was of
course, sixty years ago or more. [chuckles]
SHUSTER: Did you...you mentioned that sometimes you went to
OWEN: Oh yes, he was wonderful, just won.... Now, he’s an expositor preacher
and it was just wonderful to listen to him. We all...all the Moody students...all
the Moody students liked to go there if you could.
SHUSTER: What made him so wonderful?
OWEN: Well, one thing was it...it was so...it was so
Biblical. I mean it was so...and it
was...it didn’t...it sounded fresh even though you might’ve known
it before, the way he presented
it. And also his whole mannerism
was so outgoing. He had a
personality that made you...that made you just feel like listening to him. You know people are like that.
SHUSTER: Can you think of an example of that?
OWEN: Not at all.
I mean that was something...I just remember going home and saying, “Wasn’t
that a good sermon?” you know.
And then of course, the music was wonderful. You loved that.
SHUSTER: What kind of music did they have?
OWEN: Oh, they had a... a big choir and they had a big organ
and they had lots of and lots of singing.
I just go for hymn singing.
Though, I have...since I’ve been here, in order to keep my fingers
from going completely stiff and my mind from completely losing reading notes, I
started in February of ‘95 and almost every afternoon from 2:45 to 3 when
nobody’s in the living room, I go in and I play through hymn books, I
play through four: InterVarsity, Voice of
Thanksgiving (that’s the Moody one), the...Hymns for the Living
Church and another one hymn book that’s called Hymns of America
or somethin’, I don’t know, just two
ordinary hymn books. And right now,
I’m starting one called Praise and I play...just play through
two...each...each verse twice then I be sure I’ve got that one and go on
to the next one. But, it’s
two things for me. One things is
spiritually enriching, I...I don’t sing anymore, my voice has gone
cracked and I can’t carry the tunes.
But, I do like to sing and I love music. My whole family loved music. ‘Course I have...my two sisters
are beautiful soloists...my third sister and fourth sister. They’re just wonderful
singers. And Mother was a concert
pianist who could’ve been but she wound up teaching music. And my Father had a sense of music and
all. One of my most vivid memories
and one of the ones I treasure the most was when I graduated in 1930 from UCLA,
the folks gave me a real...besides giving me the pewter chest, they gave me a
trip out to see Stanford and Berkeley and northern California. And we...we camped out....
SHUSTER: [interrupting] This is
partly to look at universities or...?
OWEN: Yes, just to see...or places that they thought they’d
be interesting. And we stopped
first at Camp...at Sequoia Camp...
SHUSTER: Now when you...in
OWEN: No, I don’t remember if it was still going at
that time or before that time or after that time, I don’t know, I never
went to there.
SHUSTER: Okay, and anything else
you want to say about your year at Moody?
OWEN: It was a real year of growth for me. I mean it was....
SHUSTER: Why was that?
OWEN: Well, I was away from my family and I was, as I say, I
was learning to pray and I was learning I think to trust the Lord too for
things. I...I mean I had never...I
just trusted Daddy. [coughs] But I...I didn’t
want to write to him all the time. And I...I took anything. (I’m gonna
sneeze I’m afraid).
SHUSTER: Sure.
OWEN: That’s alright. I took, I did babysitting, I did domestic work, anything. And I just feel, that year, I became my
own self and an individual grown up.
I mean I wasn’t just a part of the family anymore, although I didn’t
love them any less. I...I was just
as close when I came back. But it
was...Also, although I was seeing a lot of Harry, I wasn’t on a steady
date as I had been for six years.
Always going to the same place with the same.... And, it was just a year of, I think, of
spiritual growth everywhere. The
end of it was rather startling. We
were all going off on different trains.
SHUSTER: This when you were heading back to
OWEN: We were heading back to
SHUSTER: You lost it or somebody walked off with it?
OWEN: No, I lost it, I left it in a
cab. It was a cloth purse, it was
the same feel as my little cloth pillow.
And when I picked up the pillow, I thought I was pickin’
up the purse and when I went to look it wasn’t the purse, it was the
pillow and I didn’t have it.
And the cab, of course, had long gone. And so, I just said I...there were some
people going back to Moody for...from seeing people off and I said I would go
back with them and sleep with them and just see what I could do, I didn’t
know what I could do. But, I knew I
could stay a night at Moody, as far as that goes. So, I waited to see Harry off, which was
very sad. He was very
perturbed. And he thought...he didn’t
like to leave me there knowing not [sic] where I was going and all. And we didn’t know if we would
ever see each other again and all this sort of thing. But anyway, he left and I went
home. No, before I left, as we
were...as we were going through the main concourse, “Margaret Goodner! Margaret Goodner! Anybody”?
And so I went over to the phone and the man said, “Did you just
lose something”? And I said, “Yes,
I lost a purse”. “Can
you tell me what was in it”?
And I told him exactly, I knew just what it was, two dollars and ninety
cents. And....
SHUSTER: your ticket?
OWEN: And my tickets, of course. And...I’ve...and
my testament. He said, “Well,
I got in the cab after you left it but I didn’t find it till I got home
and when I got home, I opened it and I thought somebody’d
been careless. Well, when I saw a
testament, I thought you wouldn’t be just somebody, you know, careless. And so I thought I’d call,
can you get out on a plane...train tonight?” And I said, “No, there’s not
one till 10:40 tomorrow morning.”
He said, “Well, can I bring it to you at the Institute?” And I...”Oh, thank you so much.” I was so grateful to him. And he...but I had two dollars and
ninety cents to eat on all the way home to
SHUSTER: So, the person called you that night after you
returned back...while you were at Moody?
OWEN: He...he called the station.
SHUSTER: Oh, called....
OWEN: I...I was...I was...I was paged at the station. ‘Cause he didn’t know where
I...I mean, you know, could I...I would’ve had the Moody Institute but I wouldn’t’ve had my...there.
Shuster: Sure, sure.
OWEN: He, he paged the station ‘cause he’d
gotten....He said, “I got in the car at the station probably just after
you’d left, but,” he said, “not until I came home way out in
the suburb did I see that there was this purse lying there. So, I brought it in and I thought
somebody was just real careless.
But then I looked in it and saw there was a testament and I saw the rest
of the thing that it was evidently just....”
[Tape recorder turned on and off]
SHUSTER: Now, when you returned to
OWEN: Yes, yeah, there’s summertime, of course, that I
had. But, I enrolled in Biola right away, and of course there was no tuition, I was
living at home, and not only that, but a real good friend of ours offered me a
ride every day. He said he was
going down from...I lived out in the valley, out in the San Fernando valley, way out there,
SHUSTER: What was BIOLA like?
OWEN: I really can’t judge BIOLA because I was only there
from nine to twelve. I didn’t
join any of the groups, I didn’t...I enjoyed it. I especially enjoyed the missionary
courses there, we had several missionary courses there
that I took. Incidentally, I was in
the missionary courses with Dick and Don Hillis
[prominent Evangelical mission leaders].
I sat right behind them and tried to decide is this Dick or is this
Don? But, then Dick and I, of
course became candidates together that very fall.
SHUSTER: At
OWEN:
SHUSTER: Who was the president of BIOLA then, do you
remember?
OWEN: Who?
SHUSTER: Who was the president of BIOLA?
[Pauses]
OWEN: Louie Talbot.
SHUSTER: Oh, Louie Talbot, did you have any classes from him?
OWEN: No, he didn’t teach. He was just president. Or he may have taught somethin’, I didn’t have any. Although, I got to know him very well
later when we were on the...when we were at his church often on missionary conference. He would say, he told Harry [unclear],
he says, “Give it to ‘em, Harry, give it
to ‘em, tell ‘em
some exciting stories.” And
Harry said to him, “Dr. Talbot, I will tell them what the Lord tells me
to tell ‘em.” My husband was not [tape recorder turned
off and on]...[chuckles].
SHUSTER: And how did Dr. Talbot react to that?
OWEN: I don’t know. Harry didn’t tell me his reaction.
SHUSTER: How did BIOLA compare with Moody? How are they alike and how are they
different?
OWEN: The cla...classes were the
same. I can’t really compare
the rest of it because I didn’t go to the Missionary Union, I didn’t
go to the King’s Daughters.
They were all in the evening and I had to go back to the Valley with
this man who drove me. And that
was...we were an hour and a half from downtown so I never got into the student
life at all. And I...so I...I feel
though...my feeling is Moody was superior, it is regul.... Well, one thing is I think all the
students had to live in and BIOLA, so many of us didn’t. And that makes a lot of difference.
SHUSTER: Why was that good?
OWEN: Well, I mean if you’re together all day long,
you get to know each other better and you also get a better sense of unity, a
better sense of community, of fellowship than you do when you just sit in a
class with somebody and don’t talk to them all, you just sit like...I
mean.... I, I got to know Dick
later and also Heather Rippah [?] who was in the same
class and [name unclear] ‘cause we were all candidates together. But, I didn’t know them at school
much, I just knew who they were and that’s sad. Harold Lanmermuir was the president of our class,
he was once the resident superintendent here [OMF’s
retirement center in
SHUSTER: At....
OWEN: ...many, many years later. He went to Africa first and then, he’s
here and now his daughter is one of our missionaries in
SHUSTER: What is her name?
OWEN: Martha Wilson.
She was Martha [unclear] and she married Don Wilson on the field, I mean
they got acquainted on the field.
And so, they spend part time in
SHUSTER: In, after you graduated from BIOLA, did you apply
to CIM right away?
OWEN: I’d already applied. I applied in the fall when I came back
from Moody. I went right over to Canfield’s, she’s the one who painted this big
picture up here. I went right over
to them, she was the original secretary and I said I wanna
apply to go to mission.
SHUSTER: Now, why did you choose CIM?
OWEN: Well, I...I had always planned to go to
[Tape recorder turned off and on]
SHUSTER: No, this is fine. This is fine.
OWEN: Oh, I was...oh.
SHUSTER: No problem here, go ahead. You were saying you were in a Northern
Presbyterian church....
OWEN: I was...these...these...these Northern Presbyterian
missionaries that I met (and there were many of them, and I met many more on
the field) who did not believe in divine scripture, they didn’t believe
in the virgin birth, they didn’t believe in the second coming. And I said to mother, “If I were
now put on a station in
SHUSTER: What did he say?
OWEN: He was saying...he was giving 3 memories that he had
of
SHUSTER: As part of a prayer.
OWEN: As...as...yes, just as a...as
a person trying...that was her belief.
And two other instances of the...of the people,
without Christ, a beggar on the street and a little...little boy who didn’t
know anything or something.
He said, “As long as there’s people
like that in
SHUSTER: When was this?
OWEN: When I was a senior, in college. He came out...I remember, he came out
with...who was it, it was somebody he brought
out? Oh! It was Buswell, he brought James Buswell out to speak at a big thing out at UCLA. And I was waiting on his table and came
by and he said, “Marguerite, if you hope to get to...” I told him, of course, I was going to
SHUSTER: You really were...?
OWEN: I really was worn out. When I went to, when I went over to
apply with Mr. Sandu...Mr. Canfield, he was very
pleased but he said, “The first thing you do is to have a physical exam.” I didn’t pass,
they said I’d have to gain ten pounds. Wish they’d tell me that now....[laughs] But, anyway, and also, my blood level was very
low. So, he said, “I...you...you...you’ll
health will have to improve or you can’t go.” But he said, “Well, back to the
candidate school anyway. So, when
you gra....” So that was the beginning and so all
that winter when I was at BIOLA, I quit every activity except my Sunday school
class and going to church and Wednesday night prayer meeting. I quit choir, Bible study, youth group
all those things. They were...I was
gonna go to
SHUSTER: What was candidate school like?
OWEN: There were just five of us.
SHUSTER: Uh huh.
OWEN: It was a
very unusual candidate school.
Nowadays, they have thirteen or fourteen over [unclear]. We had one candidate school for the
whole year. Now, they’re
having fifteen right now up at Lidington [?]. We were in
SHUSTER: The Dionne quintuplets were five children born to a
woman in
OWEN: Uh-huh.
And so they called us the CIM quintuplets. [Shuster laughs] And we were there in candidate school
for forty-two days, that’s six weeks and in that forty-two days, we gave
our testimony forty times.
SHUSTER: To who?
OWEN: Everybody.
We went to prayer meetings, to churches, to Sunday schools, to youth
groups, wherever they were invited.
We were just taken all over...at that time, we had a lot of CIM prayer
meeting, Mr. Canfield was very good at that. So, we went to all of those, then we we were invited to this Sunday school and then we’d
go to a church service maybe at some of them and the evening service and the CE
[Christian Endeavor] group. I have
forgotten what they all were. We
were, we were all packed toge...in
a big car with two jumpseats. So, we took all five of us to all these
different places. Oh, we made it as
far as
SHUSTER: Did you do it?
OWEN: No, of course we didn’t [laughs]. That’s...that’s...we had a
very happy time as candidates.
SHUSTER: What did the school...I mean were you actually
learning things at candidate school?
OWEN: Oh, yes.
Oh yes. We learned, we learned the radicals, Chinese radicals....
SHUSTER: the language....
OWEN: But, we learned simple conversation we learned [speaks
Chinese phrases]. Ya know, just all those little,
little phrases. And we also learned
principles and practices of the mission.
We had to learn those.
SHUSTER: What were some of the main principles and
practices?
OWEN: That we do not go into debt, that we do not ask for
money, that we trust the Lord for all these things and
that we do not spend until we have the money. In other words.... In fact, if you applied and I don’t
know whether they do now or not.
But in my day, if you applied with debt, you had to pay off that dept
before they’d accept you.
SHUSTER: You mean personal debt?
OWEN: Yes. And
they also had no guaranteed salary.
The mission came in and divided your [unclear] according to where you
were, how much you had, if so...as far as I was concerned, it was wonderful,
that was fine. And then there
other principles about of course, the doctrine principles, the
things you believe. Now, in our
mission, you were free to believe anything you want on prophecy. You could be a pre-millenialist
or a postmillenialist or a mid-tribulation or there
was.... Or you could be any, you
could be a Baptist or a sprinkler or a pourer, those things are.... But, you have to believe in the inspiration
of the Word of God, you have to believe that the...heathen are lost and that
the only way of salvation is through the blood of Jesus Christ and you have to
admit that people are all sinner, those things.
SHUSTER: Was there any position or discussion of speaking in
tongues?
OWEN: Not at that point. There has been several times since. The mission has now taken, the last I
heard this policy: if you want to speak in tongues and you feel you can, that’s
up to you privately as long as you keep it to yourself or those of like mind. But, you cannot put this doctrine on
somebody else. In other words, you
cannot say, “You have to speak in tongues or you won’t be saved or
you’ll have to be this or you won’t.... That’s divisional. And....
SHUSTER: But there was no discussion, pro or con, when you
were in candidate school?
OWEN: No, no, not at all. Nobody even thought of it, didn’t
even come up.
SHUSTER: ...sail for
OWEN: We were accepted in August and we sailed October 4th.
SHUSTER: Oh, I meant to...I meant to ask you that, too. When did you actually find out that you
had been accepted and...?
OWEN: The end of the...the end of the six weeks. At the end of the six weeks, they
called....
SHUSTER: Was there some examination involved?
OWEN: No, except they called account. We all had...we’d had to present a
doctorate paper before we even came and we had...they had watched us and
studied us and we’d answer different, talked different.... They knew us pretty well. And then we had the council...the Los Angeles
CIM council which consisted of about four people. And one of them so old I think he was
[unclear, laughs] out of him. But,
anyway, we had to give our testimonies to them and then they voted on it,
accepted all five of us and we all five sailed within a month. Three of us sailed in Oc...the three girls sailed on
October 4th and the two men went out and sailed on October 7th. And as I said we met in
SHUSTER: What was the boat trip like?
OWEN: It was another very good experience except the first
two weeks. But, I don’t want
to go again, anywhere cause the last two times I went,
I was just sick all the time.
SHUSTER: Not this trip, but your last two boat trips, you
mean?
OWEN: Yes. This
first trip I was sick the first two weeks but once I got the sea legs, I was
alright. Cause
it was...we were on the boat, oh, that first two weeks, the first week because
we were.... We didn’t see
land for twenty-one days. We sailed
from
SHUSTER: It was put out....
OWEN: It was put out onto, it
was...used to fight
SHUSTER: Oh, it was being sent to
OWEN: Yes, it was being sent to Japan from
SHUSTER: When
you arrived...took that first trip in ‘33 and docked in
OWEN: Yes.
SHUSTER: What did you think?
OWEN: It was fa...oh,
fascinating. We arrived at night
and we drove through these crowded streets and all the shouts of the people
selling things. And we got to the
big mission home and we were given supper and then we were showed up to our
room and we had a balcony looking over one of the main streets. And I stood there and “I’m
in
SHUSTER:
OWEN: In
SHUSTER: Well, that might be a good point to stop for today.
OWEN: I would think so, yeah.
END OF TAPE