Objet : Fw: Marjorie Harrison Jackson is with the Lord

Subj: Marjorie Harrison Jackson is with the Lord

I have received this notice (below) of the death of Marjorie Harrison Jackson. Marjorie , a student in the Chefoo School, was a dorm mate of mine in Weihsien. Thirteen of us girls lived together, first in Block 23 and later in a room on the second floor of the hospital.

A born leader. Marjorie was perhaps the most popular girl in our Lower School Dormitory -- known as the LSD.

O, Marjorie, Marjorie, Marjorie, my precious Marjorie, your passing floods me with childhood memories.

In the Weihsien winter when the Japanese finally issued iron, pot bellied stoves, Marjorie and I were partnered as LSD team mates in the rotation for lighting the fire in our dormitory stove in the mornings. Our Marjorie Harrison/Mary Taylor team set the record for the most times of getting the fire so hot it turned the stove red hot -- no easy feat with coal dust.

Yes, awash in a cesspool of every kind of misery, Weihsien was, nonetheless, for us a series of daily triumphs -- earthy victories over bedbugs and rats and flies. .

Like every other Weihsien problem, coal dust had its dark side and its light side. You could take your pick. You could grump yourself miserable about having only coal dust to burn, or when you were breaking the ice in the water bucket in morning to wash your face, you could count your blessings that you had anything at all to fuel the stove.

We younger girls made a game of carrying the coal buckets, In a long human chain -- girl, bucket, girl, bucket, girl, bucket, girl -- we hauled the coal dust from the Japanese quarters of the camp back to our dormitory chanting all the way, "Many hands make light work.". Then in the biting cold, with frost cracked fingers, we shaped coal balls out of coal dust and clay -- two shovels of coal dust, one shovel of clay, and as few splashes of water. Grown ups swapped coal ball recipes. Winter sunshine made coal balls dry enough for burning.

In the summer, if you had bedbugs, you launched the Battle of the Bedbugs each Saturday. With knife or thumb nail, you attacked each seam of your blanket or pillow, killing all the bugs or eggs in your path. If you panic at the summer's plague of flies, you organize the school children into competing teams of fly-killers.. My younger brother John, -- with 3,500 neatly-counted flies in a bottle -- won top prize, a can of Rose Mille pate, food sent by the Red Cross.

If you shudder at the rats scampering over you at night, you set up a Rat Catching Competition with concentration camp Pied Pipers clubbing rats, trapping rats, drowning rats in basins, throwing them in the bakery fires, Our Chefoo School won that competition, too, with Norman Cliff and his team bringing in 68 dead rats -- 30 on the last day. O, glorious victory! The nearest competitor had only 56.

What was the Chefoo School? Who were its children? For readers of our Weihsien Topica network who never experienced Weishien, let me explain. The Chefoo School was more than anything a British boarding school. Its purpose was to serve the children of Protestant missionaries in a vast, foreign continent -- to be a tiny outpost where we children could learn English and get a Western-style education. Our teachers were Christian missionaries. Most of us were separated from our parents by hundreds of miles, separated from our parents --when the war broke out -- by warring armies. The day after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Japanese appeared on the doorsteps of our school. Teachers, children -- we were prisoners of the Japanese. Subsequently, the Japanese marched, shipped, trucked in lorries the whole school into concentration camp, first in Yantai -- often called Chefoo -- and then to Weihsien. When American heroes liberated Weihsien in 1945, many of us had not seen our missionary parents for over 5 years.

We were people of faith. Our spirits could scamper to the heavens atop the hundreds of God's promises such as "All things work together for good to them that love God." Not a day passed that we did not memorize verses from the Bible.

We could tell endless stories about God's rescuing His people: Moses leading God's children out of slavery into the Promised Land. The ravens feeding the hungry prophet Elijah in the wilderness. God's closing the mouths of lions to protect Daniel in the Lions Den.

You could breathe the aniticipation: God was going to add our own story to the Miracle of the Ages.

Marjorie Harrison live that faith throughout her life. The last time I saw Marjorie, I jojned her in a church service, telling the Weihsien story as a testimony to God's church. She held children and grown ups spell bound with her memories and her mementoes -- believe it or not, even her steamer trunk from Weihsien.

Today, with her loss, I feel bereft.

Mary Taylor Previte.

Subj: Marjorie is with the Lord

Dear Friends,

I wanted to let you know that my dear wife, Marjorie, went home to be with the Lord this morning after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. The last five years have been more difficult, and I have learned what true love is all about in caring for her. It’s called agape love in the Bible. She communicated this love to me even though in the last years she was not able to easily express it. She never stopped blessing me with her beautiful smile, and she seemed to recognize me right up to the end of her life.

It is wonderful to know that I will see her again because we both, at a very young age, gave our hearts and lives to Jesus Christ. Eternal life is secure when you know Jesus. I hope you do.

Her funeral and memorial service will be held next Saturday, May 26th at Calvary Church in Lancaster, PA. The visitation with family will be on Friday night, the 25th at the Fellowship Hall at Calvary Fellowship Homes. We recognize that this will be Memorial Day weekend and that many of you will not be able to attend because of family plans and/or distance, but know that I and my family would love to see you if you are free. In any case, we would appreciate your prayers for a true life celebration of my dear Marjorie.

You can find directions to either of the locations mentioned above by clicking on the appropriate link:
http://www.calvarychurch.org/new/directions
http://www.calvaryhomes.org/pages/index.php?pID=499

Also, you will find Marjorie’s obituary attached. If you would like to read a longer obituary with a few more details, click on the following link.
http://www.youngfuneralhome.com/Obituraies/marjorie_isobel_jackson.htm

Very Sincerely,
Walt Jackson

Envoyé : vendredi 18 mai 2012 06:24
À : weihsien@topica.com

Objet : Fw: Evelyn Davey Huebner's 97th birthday.

From: Fern Nordmo
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2012 3:18 PM
To: weihsien@topica.com

Subject: Evelyn Davey Huebner's 97th birthday.

Mrs. Evelyn Huebner
Greenbrier
14390 N.E. 189 Pl. Apt. 102
Woodinville, WA 98072

I have not got an affirmative about an e-mail to send greetings to her — but I am sure she would welcome snail mail for her birthday — no matter if it gets there on the day or not.

We had a good visit with over a week ago. She is still in her own apartment and is very alert.

Sincerely,
Audrey Nordmo Horton

De : Natasha Petersen
Envoyé : mardi 15 mai 2012 20:20
À : weihsien ; Previte, Mary

Objet : Roll call

Mary, I believe that you are correct. We had one moring roll call, then after the escape of Humell(?) and Tipton, we had another one in the early evening.

Natasha Petersen

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De : Kay Rictor
Envoyé : mardi 15 mai 2012 01:21
À : weihsien@topica.com

Objet : Re: roll call

I remember it being twice a day
not sure of the times .....morning and evening .......exact time note sure ..

De : Natasha Petersen
Envoyé : lundi 14 mai 2012 23:29

À : weihsien

Objet : Fw: roll call

----- Original Message -----

From: Natasha Petersen
To: weihsien
Sent: Saturday, May 12, 2012 12:04 PM

Subject: roll call

Does anyone remember the number per day and the time of the roll calls in Weihsien?

Natasha Petersen

De : Donald Menzi
Envoyé : samedi 5 mai 2012 00:03
À : weihsien@topica.com ; weihsien@topica.com

Objet : Re: [english 100%] back home

Thanks Ron.

That's great. I'll add it to the Wilder material as an Editor's Note following the NY Times article. Anyone else remember this?

Donald

-----Original Message-----

From: Ron Bridge
Sent: May 4, 2012 4:06 AM
To: weihsien@topica.com

Subject: Re: [english 100%] back home



I remember it all well, by Christmas the USMC had converted 1 1/2 ton truck with rail wheels to drive along the railway NW to Peking and NE to Chingwantao to protact the line

The reference to the few flown to Tientsin ( Tianjin) was six leading business men whowere flown up from Weihsien in the closed bomb bay of a B25 MItchell of the US Army Air Corps ( my fatherwas one) after the intitial 500 or so to Tsingtao the remainder had to wait unrtil around 24 October wehn they were flown up in USAAC C 47 or the USMC equivalent the R4D. I recall it well as a I was disppointed in having to travel in a camouflaged USAAC aircarft rather than the bright aluminium of the USMC. But I was allowed in the cockpit which have me a life long love of aircraft, and in fact within 10 years I was flying the identical C47 Dakotas but this time of the Royal Air Force in the South Pacific.

Memories are made of this
Ron Bridge

De : Donald Menzi
Envoyé : vendredi 4 mai 2012 06:28
À : weihsien@topica.com
Cc : mary

Objet : RE: [english 100%] back home

Dear Weihsieners,

As some of you know, I have been excavating the New York Times archives to provide historical context for my grandparents letters from China.

I was interested in the extent to which Wehsien figured in the following article about the U.S. Marines arriving in Tientsin. Do any of you remember the difficulties described in it, or were you all too young to notice?

Donald

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
October 1, 1945
Copyright © The New York Times

TIENTSIN IS JOYOUS IN HAILING MARINES

-----------------------------

First Division Is Acclaimed in Chinese City—The Reds and Nationalists Cause Friction
TIENTSIN, China, Sept. 30 (AP)—As the United States First Ma rine Division entered Tientsin today to assume police duties in northern China's political hotspot, where Chinese Nationalists and Commun ists are at bayonet points and a Japanese army is yet to surrender and be disarmed, it became appar ent that the end of the war has brought little peace or security to north China.

In the past six weeks there have been pitched battles between Japa nese regulars supported by Chinese puppet troops and well-armed "Palu" units purporting to be sol diers of the Chinese Communist Eighth Route Army. In one clash near the Tientsin race course two weeks after hostilities presumably ceased, Japanese tanks and artil lery fired for forty minutes before the Palu withdrew.

Main Rail Line Halted

Trains have been fired upon and derailed and looted. Bridges have been blown up and railroad tracks dynamited. The main line between Tientsin and Shanghai is so badly disrupted it has been impossible to send some 1,500 civilian internees from the Weihsien camp in Shan tung Province either to Shanghai or Tientsin by rail.

About one-third of the Weihsien camp internees, who include Brit ish, Nether-land, Italian and Bel gian nationals and about 200 Americans, have been moved to Tsingtao, said O. Joerg, Swiss Con sul General and International Red Cross representative at Tientsin. A few have been flown to Tientsin.

Internees from Weihsien told of an attack on the city Aug. 25 by marauders whose identity was not definitely established. They said the attackers may or may not have been troops of the Communist Eighth Route Army, which has an estimated force of 35,000 veterans in the Tientsin-Peiping area.

Many neutral sources expressed the belief that the raiding bands were lawless elements that had borrowed the name of the Communist Army to mask their own banditry. Regulars of the Eighth Route Army, however, do hold sec tions of the countryside and in order to reach the airfield outside the walled city it is necessary to pass through their lines.

The rail line between Tientsin and Peiping was cut at several points but has been restored by Japanese troops, who have posted heavy guard details along the ninety mile stretch.

One Tientsin business man said, "It is grotesque that we look to a beaten army to protect us."

United States marines and Chi nese nationalist troops, the latter flown from Kunming, were re ceived with jubilation by thou sands of Chinese. It was a gala day for the people who had been under Japanese domination since 1937.

When the first Chinese National ist troops arrived in front of the Astor Hotel, Allied Headquarters, the crowd gave them a thunderous ovation.

#

De : A. Knuppe
Envoyé : jeudi 3 mai 2012 12:32
À : weihsien@topica.com

Objet : back home

Today, May 3rd, 66 years ago, the whole de Jongh family, except my Father who stayed behind trying to start business again, arrived in Rotterdam. It had been a long journey, starting in March leaving Tientsin on a Taku tugboot ? taken over by the Brisbane and brought to Shanghai, where we embarked on the Strathmore. We had two cabins but my brother Anton slept downbelow in a hammock with all the servicemen returning home. I remember inbetween passengers were dropped off for Australia and brought on board. Also the visit to Attaca, by the Red Sea, where we received blankets, clothing and shoes, made a great impression on me. There were quite a number of Weihsieners on the ship and they undoubtedly also have these memories. After arrival in Southhampton we were taken to London, where we spent several days, before leaving for Harwich where we took the boat to Hoek van Holland, Rotterdam. It was wonderful to be back, but I remember how terribly distressing Rotterdam looked after all the bombing! You shoud see it now, a wonderful modern and booming city!

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