1942-1946 ( 8 ) Daddy and Mummy's First Years Together

1942   #8    Daddy and Mummy’s first years together

Daddy and Mummy started out in Calcutta, and in April of 1942 moved to Bombay.

Mummy’s memoirs… After our marriage, we went to live in Bombay in a small two-room apartment on the fourth floor.   Marina House, Marine Lines, Fort Bombay 1  (This was our home until I was 12 except for furlough.  To take a taxi there or give directions, it was always across the street from the Liberty Cinema )   

Being a country girl at heart, I wasn’t sure I could ever get used to the city.  But the first days there brought to my mind the lines of a poem …

Obedience
By George MacDonald
(1824-1905)

I said: “Let me walk in the fields.”  He said: “No, walk in the town.”
I said: “There are no flowers there.”  He said: “No flowers, but a crown.”

I said: “But the skies are black;  There is nothing but noise and din.”
And He wept as He sent me back – “There is more,” He said; “there is sin.”

I said: “But the air is thick, And fogs are veiling the sun.”
He answered: “Yet souls are sick, And souls in the dark undone!”

I said: “I shall miss the light,  And friends will miss me, they say.”
He answered: “Choose tonight If I am to miss you or they.”

I pleaded for time to be given. He said: “Is it hard to decide?
It will not seem so hard in heaven To have followed the steps of your Guide.”

I cast one look at the fields, Then set my face to the town;
He said, “My child, do you yield? Will you leave the flowers for the crown?”

Then into His hand went mine; And into my heart came He;
And I walk in a light divine, The path I had feared to see.

It was in that tiny apartment that we learned to love each other.  We had determined to start each day with reading the Scriptures, singing hymns and praying together.

From a letter Daddy wrote to Anita Durham in 1982

Please convey to your siblings our warm love and gratefulness for each.  And what shall we say about your dear mother (Her father passed away years ago during a typhoid epidemic..our Anne and their Anita survived.)  As one who has been more to us than any natural sister or brother, we long to see her at least once more here on earth.  We remember how your parents took us under their wings upon our arrival in Bombay in 1942, and they were an immense encouragement to us for many years.

Less than a year after our marriage, the Lord blessed us with Anne Bethel.

Part of a prayer letter home: 

June 25, 1944

We praise God for continued good health – a great boon on the mission field.  Eunice has been in India for almost six years, and perhaps feels the pressure of things more than I do after only two and a half years.  It has not always been easy to attune our daily routine to Oriental tempo, but we have recognized the necessity of some adjustment.  As a result, we have been able, even in Bombay’s enervating climate, to conserve our vitality and thus maintain a good measure of joy in our daily labors.

Many friends have asked about Anne Bethel.  All the world loves a baby.  The little lady is now eighteen months old , and is of course now engaged in language study.  Already she has acquired an effective, if now copious and distinct, vocabulary of semi-English, semi-something else sounds.  We suspect that we have an embryonic scientist on our hands, for Anne Bethel has an obsession for minute things = tiny particles on the street, tiny animals, etc. indirectly she is doing her share of Jewish witness for she has, by a little smile softened many of those stony hearts of which the prophet Ezekiel writes.

Hmmm… no special information about David John or Sharon Grace  although we do have pictures!!! 

David John arrived 12/26/44 

Feb 1, 1946 (excerpts from Daddy’s long letter home!

The world is becoming constantly more aware of the Jew.  His dominant place in the affairs of men and of nations is obvious.  Representing only a tiny part of the worlds, population, the Jews are nevertheless, all too frequently, occupying front-page space in our newspapers.  Israel is the enigma of our times.  


Shari’s input-The holocaust took place around 1941–1945; Israel became a nation May 14^th 1948

Concerning personal matters, all four of us are well and happy.  We were absent from Bombay for 3 months, until the end of November.  For the first month, September, we were together in Landour, a beautiful hill station in the western Himalayas.  This being the first real vacation we have had since our marriage about four years ago, it was greatly anticipated and enjoyed.   We were guests at Childer’s Lodge, a missionary rest home very well known to many of our India friends, where we thrived on good food and good fellowship.  During this month, one of the two hottest periods of the year on the plains, we tasted a pleasing sample of America’s September days and October nights.  Nestled among several peaks over seven thousand feet high, the last two thousand feet being reached only on foot or in “dandies” (small boat-like affairs carried on the shoulders of coolies)  Landour affords a refreshing change for tired minds and bodies.

Anne Bethel was intrigued by the many new kinds of animals, insects, and flowers.  All readily found a place in her heart.  Not being concerned with caste, she bestowed her delights as freely upon mongrel dogs and lowly weeds as upon those of prouder pedigree.  The innumerable monkeys, jumping from tree to tree, were an endless source of interest.   Both Anne and David soon began to acquire roses in their cheeks, eventually looking as if they had spent a winter vacation with their grandmother in Wisconsin or Ontario.

Eunice and the children remained In Landour until the last of November, while I myself turned towards, Bombay.

The question of furlough has been much in our minds of late.  We had expected that passage would have been available err this, but the end of the war did not relieve, but rather aggravated temporarily the shipping problem.  Civilian passages are still greatly restricted, although at the time of writing the outlook is improving.  Considering the unsettled condition of shipping, as well as the discomfort of present day travel, we have peace of heart in postponing furlough.  This turn of events has brought mild disappointment to our loved ones more than to ourselves.  Eunice’s father is in failing health;  my own father passed away about a year ago.   However, we trust that we may patiently await the Lord’s time.  By the grace of God we are all in good health, and this extra time in India before furlough will in no sense be a hardship but rather a continuance of our joy in ministry.

 

 
Daddy and Mummy spent a lot of time in language study during this time, and began visiting homes and open air evangelism, looking for opportunities to share about Jesus, the Messiah and had another baby!
 

Sharon Grace arrived March 29, 1946

 Daddy’s Memoirs:  Because of a possible Japanese invasion of India, in 1946 the government recommended that foreigners leave India.  Since I had been in the country for just four years, I felt I should remain in India, so Eunice and the children boarded a refugee ship; bound for America.  This was a troop ship with four-tier bunks, and Eunice had a trying time keeping three young children in the bunks at night (though Shari got something in her eye and the nurses loved her so much that they kept her with them the rest of the way!)

Mummy’s passport states that she had the opportunity to step off the boat at Manila, Philippines  ( with 3 children under 5)  if she really wants too!

Newspaper report

On Sept 22nd about noon, Mrs Eunice Buffam and her three children arrived at the great Union Station in Chicago, Ill, enroute to her home near Cazenovia, Wisconsin where her mother, Mrs Warner Scott, eagerly awaited her daughter’s arrival with the three grandchildren, from Bombay, India.  Mrs. Buffam’s brother-in-law, Mr. Rodney Brown, and her oldest sister, Mrs Gilbert Mortimer and the writer were waiting in Union Station to meet this faithful missionary from far-off India, where she had spent nine years in devoted service , the last five of which were in union with her husband, Cecil John Buffam.  We all had lunch together, talking of many things; and then parted.  The writer to return home to Cincinnati and Mrs. Buffam, with her relatives, to drive the remaining 225 miles to her home in Wisconsin, in her brother in law’s car.  Mr. Buffam carries on alone in Bombay, in spite of riots and manifold disturbances; feeling led of the Lord to do so lest the work suffer.  His return to the States, probably sometime in the next year is in the hand of the Lord, even as Mrs. Buffam’s return at this time has been evidently in His hand.   What a wonderful Saviour we have!  Remember them and us all, in your prayers.

Cordially, W. T. Reid.


To be continued.....