1942 (7) John comes to India; John and Eunice are married

 1942  John leaves for India;  John and Eunice are married.

Please see end of  1903-1942 Cecil John Buffam  in this blog to see all that brings John to 1942 on his way to India to marry Eunice!

From Mummy’s remembrances…. All the way from Australia to Ceylon the boat had to zig zag to miss the mines.  When they arrived in Ceylon they told the passengers they had better go by train because the war was very bad in Rangoon where the boat was going.  But he didn’t have enough money to go by train, so he and 3 or 4 other missionaries stayed on the boat.

When the boat came near to Rangoon, they notified them that Rangoon was falling and that they should go directly to Calcutta.  They came safely, but when they got to the Hougly River, it was too low and they had to wait four more days before they could dock.  (don’t I wish I had some diary thoughts from Daddy about this time!)  All this time I was waiting for him, and when we finally saw that boat come into dock, I was a very happy girl.

He stayed with some friends for 2 weeks until we could make all the arrangements for the wedding.

He had bought a wedding ring for me when he was in Ceylon, but it was a fake, so we had to buy another one in Calcuta.

Our whole wedding cost only about $50.00 in American money.  That included his suit and my dress and dresses for the bridesmaids. Our wedding dinner was a special Rice and Curry dinner and we all sat on the floor and ate with our fingers.  For our honeymoon we took a train out to a mission station in the country where we stayed for a week.

A Marriage Has Been Arranged

Between

Eunice Estella Scott

daughter of

Mr. and Mrs. Warner P. Scott

Cazenovia, Wisconsin, U.S.A.

and

The Reverend Cecil John Buffam

son of

Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Buffam

Perth, Ontario, Canada

Carey Baptist church

Thirty-one, Bowbazar Street, Calcutta

Thursday, Twelfth February

Nineteen hundred and forty-two

Eleven o’clock in the morning

The pleasure of your company is requested

May 1942 THE OHIO MESSIANIC TESTIMONY (M and D’s sending organization) writes…

We know you will be most interested in the accompanying cut, which is a picture of the bridal party of John and Eunice Buffam, taken on Feb 12, 1942, in Calcutta, India.  Communications are so slow these days that it took almost 2 and ½ months for the letters of the Buffam’s to arrive after they were mailed in India.  So we trust our readers will be patient, under the circumstances when  the waiting for eagerly desired news is long.

 

Reading from left to right in the accompanying picture, you have Miss Rizpah Moshiah, Mr. Lionel Hodgson, John Buffam, Eunice Buffam, Rev. Eadie, Miss Rachel Judah and Ronald Wallace.  Mr. Wallace gave the bride away;  Mr Hodgson was the best man;  Rev. Eadie, pastor of Carey Baptist Church, performed the ceremony; and it seemed most fitting that  two Jewesses consented to act as bridesmaids, since bride and groom are married in heart by the Lord Himself, to Israel.   But I am sure you would rather Mrs Buffam would tell the story herself, in which we have all been so very much interested; so I am copying some excerpts from her letter here for you to read.

There were some anxious days just before John’s arrival, when I had news that the boat he was on was being sent to Rangoon before coming to Calcutta; but in this as in all difficulties, the Lord overruled and they were stopped and came to Calcutta sooner.  I was told that the boat was expected at 2:30 PM on that long waited for day, Thursday, Jan 29, 1942.  Miss Leach and I had permission to the dock, so started early, as it took us nearly two hours to reach the dock where the boat was coming in.   At exactly 2:30 we sighted the funnel of a large boat making her way very slowly up the river.  After about another half hour it had come close enough for us to see the name, and we knew it was the one we were looking for.   It was still some time before we could locate or recognize any of the passengers, but before long I spotted John in his green polo shirt, which he had told me to look for.   He tried to climb over the rails and swim ashore, but decided he had better be patient.   It is so very difficult to dock boats in the Hoogly River that it was still a long wait, and the gang plank was not down till 5 Pm.  And then it seemed the greatest moment in my life had come.  I had lost all sense of feeling and everything else, but there was a wonderful song of joy and thankfulness in my heart that John was at last safe in India, our adopted home.  Just that moment was worth all the long wait, and all the dark hours; and God’s love seemed overwhelming as I thought upon His faithfulness.

God certainly answered prayer in the next few minutes and all John’s things came through customs with no difficulty at all.  We soon had them through and were on our way back to Mulvany House, where we brought all the big cases.  John was welcomed here by the girls, who garlanded him with flowers and sang a welcome song in Bengali.  Then I went to the Wallace’s with John for dinner, and Miss Leach came there later to bring me home, since John was not yet acquainted in the city.   He stayed with the Wallaces for the next two weeks, and they certainly made it home to us during that time.   He of course, found his way to Mulvany House all by himself the next morning and every day after that without difficulty, except once, when he got lost.  Those two weeks, though very busy were full to overflowing with JOY, as we got acquainted all over again and grew in love for each other.   It was a very brief courtship, but we are sure there never was a better.