This Is a Complete Transcript of the Oral History Interview with Lydia Christine Wire Maillefer (CN 328 T2) for the Billy Graham Center Archives

This is a complete transcript of the oral history interview with Lydia Christine Wire Maillefer (CN 328 T2) for the Billy Graham Center Archives. No spoken words which were recorded are omitted. In a very few cases, the transcribers could not understand what was said, in which case [unclear] was inserted. Also, grunts and verbal hesitations such as “ah” or “um” are usually omitted. Readers of this transcript should remember that this is a transcript of spoken English, which follows a different rhythm and even rule than written English.

. . . Three dots indicate an interruption or break in the train of thought within the sentence of the speaker.

. . . . Four dots indicate what the transcriber believes to be the end of an incomplete sentence.

( ) Word in parentheses are asides made by the speaker.

[ ] Words in brackets are comments made by the transcriber.

This transcript was created by Bob Shuster and a student worker and was completed in May 2016.

Please note: This oral history interview expresses the personal memories and opinions of the interviewee and does not necessarily represent the views or policies of the Billy Graham Center Archives or Wheaton College.

Collection 328, Tape 2. Oral history interview with Lydia Maillefer by Paul A. Ericksen on June 2, 1986.

ERICKSEN: This is an oral history interview with Lydia Christine Wire Maillefer by Paul Ericksen for the Missionary Sources Collection of Wheaton College. This interview took place at the offices of the Billy Graham Center Archives at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois on June 2nd, 1986 at eight forty-five a.m. Well, Mrs. Maillefer, I=d like to begin by going back to your days at Wheaton.

MAILLEFER: Okay.

ERICKSEN: Why did you come to Wheaton?

MAILLEFER: Well, I suppose proximity, which meant familiarity. I grew up just thirty miles north-east of here. And there were about four or five of us from our church who came out that year.

ERICKSEN: Had you ever been to Wheaton before for a visit?

MAILLEFER: No, they didn=t have a senior visit days at the...in that time. I didn=t...there wasn=t room for me in the dorms. I guess I was on the shirt-tail list of those accepted. And so they told me I could come if I could find my own room. So my pastor=s wife came out with me, and we found a room near the college. So my first year, I stayed off campus.

ERICKSEN: And where was that?

MAILLEFER: On Michigan...Michigan Ave., just near where the furlough homes are now.

ERICKSEN: Oh. Do you recall what your first impressions of Wheaton were?

MAILLEFER: You mean as far as buildings and classes or social or what do you mean? Everything?

ERICKSEN: Each.

MAILLEFER: Well, I was not impressed with Blanchard. I remember being quite disturbed to see such an old, decrepit building, coming out of a very modern high school on the North Shore, but, of course, that grows on you. Some of the classrooms, of course, were not too mod either then, because of being in Blanchard. It=s quite a different school now. Socially, I think I was disappointed, because I had come out of a huge, very non-Christian high school of two thousand four hundred students, and there were only twenty of us that we could find in the whole school who were Christians. So I was looking for utopia, which it wasn=t. But later on, of course, I realized that that=s...it=s what you make it. And academically, I don=t think I was disappointed, although as I look back now, I don=t think some of the courses were...were too...really needed...met my need for being a missionary.

ERICKSEN: Can you think of any examples?

MAILLEFER: Well, I think specifically of General Psychology or Intro...Introduction to to Psychology, or something like that. It certainly wasn=t what I would have expected, when I hear what my daughter got in her classes now. I remember being very overwhelmed by the old professors who were sitting on Edman platform, and there seemed to have been a fair grouping of really elderly professors, and I was quite awed by them, coming out of a...a high school that had more younger teachers.

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

MAILLEFER: Which, I suppose is all right. You sort of think, AWell, I=ve really come to the halls of learning of the white-haired people.@

ERICKSEN: Any professors which stand out from your time here?

MAILLEFER: I think Dr. [James M.] Murk in the Sociology Department. And Dr. [Joseph P.] Free I had for Archeology. I took Archeology and Anthropology Introduction my first year, and I didn=t even know what the words meant. [clears throat] I was very impressed with the Archeology course. Not the Anthropology. I don=t think that was what I needed my first year of college. I don=t think I was ready for that kind of a course, but it was required for Christian Ed. But the person who influenced my life the most was certainly Mrs. [Mingon B.] Mackenzie, from the [Women=s] Glee Club, because I was in the Glee Club four years, and her gracious ways and her very aristocratic bearing was a tremendous example to all of us.

ERICKSEN: Can you think of any incident which illustrates those?

MAILLEFER: You mean from Mrs. Mackenzie?

ERICKSEN: Mackenzie, yes.

MAILLEFER: Oh, I think many. She was a...she really instilled in us the need of living for Christ on our tour. Not so much that we would be blatant evangelists, in one way or another, but that we would portray a gracious, Christ-like spirit, especially in the homes that we visited, and that was really instilled in us, even down to how we should leave the beds in the morning, and going into a home, we shouldn=t sit like stumps on a log. If we couldn=t think of anything to say, we should look around at some object in the room that interested us, and then ask them about it, and that would get the conversation going, and so much of all that was a real help to me, having now been a world traveler and having to be in many, many homes. And then, of course, all the music that I did with her over four years was a...has come to use in a way that I would never have expected it, because I didn=t...I got into a lot of music overseas with the Africans, and then, later on, with Mks [missionary kids]. And although I wasn=t a music major, a lot of what she taught us just sort of went in by practical experience, and I was able to use that in choirs with young people to a tremendous point that I think that young people, both Africans and missionary kids, profited from what I learned from her, just because I was able to participate with them in music, although I

ERICKSEN: Were there any students which had a particular influence on you or...who were a real influence on campus?

MAILLEFER: Well, being in a class of...the illustrious, I guess I should say, of >49, there were a lot of...veterans who came back the year that I started school, >cause that was right at the end of the war. So there were older students who were very serious as to their goals in life and becoming missionaries, Frank Freed and Paul...(what=s his name?)...[J. Richard ADick@] Reed who started ELWA [a missionary radio station in Liberia]. Can=t remember his first name. And I think we young immature high school graduates stood back and sort of waited for them to lead. I was very surprised, later on, to see people like Ed McCully become a missionary, because that was certainly not his interest when he was in campus. He was sort of big man on the football team with his white...white convertible I almost think it was. Anyway, it was sort of a big man on campus. I didn=t enter into the missionary activities, the Student Missionary Fellowship, because I...I wanted to be a missionary, but I didn=t want the missionary image. I didn=t want people to think that I was a...sort of a holier than thou person, and it was interesting to me to read later on, after Jim Elliot died, how he was just the opposite on campus for quite a while. He felt that he shouldn=t relate to other people, because he wanted to be holy and single-minded in his purpose to get to the mission field, and yet, later on, he became...he realized that that was not the way he was going to attract people to Christ or to the mission field, but my feelings were just the opposite.

ERICKSEN: Do you remember how you came to that decision?

MAILLEFER: No. Not really. I don=t think I ever even went to any of the meetings to see what the kids were like.

ERICKSEN: Were there missionaries that you had seen prior to getting to Wheaton that you didn=t want to be like?

MAILLEFER: Yes, I suppose. There were still the old-time image of the missionary in the outdated clothes and hair-do. But I had also been very impressed by Bob Savage and his wife who...the young Savage, who came up from HCJB [missionary radio station in Ecuador] when I was in high school, and they were very with it for those days, and I think were an influence in my life, that I did...I wanted to be that kind of person. Fortunately, that old styled idea of a missionary has now rather disappeared.

ERICKSEN: You said that you expected to find a utopia, but you didn=t. How would you describe the spiritual environment of the campus?

MAILLEFER: I think the thing that surprised me the most, coming out of a...of a non-Christian environment, was the inattention in chapel meetings, the fact that people sat and read and studied. And the cheating that went on in classes. To me...which was rather silly of me, but the idea that people would sit and cheat on a bible test in Old Testament Survey just to me was the ultimate. But I could sort of handle those things. I think the fact that I didn=t...I didn=t find my social place in camp...on campus, I don=t think, especially my first year, was a disturbance. I didn=t find people as fulfilling my social needs as much as I had hoped, in the way of dating or with other girls. But part of that problem was living off campus. And I was very glad when I heard later on that they insisted that all freshmen live on campus. But of course, now that has been reneged again, so maybe they=ll...maybe they=ll change that eventually too. And I was glad to see this Fischer Dorm where the freshman could...could really be assisted in finding friends. But that was...that was the price I had to pay for...for finding my own room, I think, partly.

ERICKSEN: And how long did you live over there?

MAILLEFER: Just a year. Then, my second year was very good, because I was in North Hall and found a...a peer group of girls that I really enjoyed.

ERICKSEN: What was dating like on Wheaton when you were here?

MAILLEFER: I would say it=s...it was just about like it is now. Because it was very interesting to me to...we were at home my daughter=s sophomore year at Wheaton, and she was living on camp...no, it was her freshman year, and she was living on campus, even though we were just a mile off campus, right near where I had lived my freshman year. And there were the same grumbles. You know, the girls are cliquey, and the boys don=t date us, and.... But they have...had still come a long way by the activities that they planned with the different floors at Fischer.

ERICKSEN: What sorts of things were planned when you were here?

MAILLEFER: Nothing. There...there were just class parties once in a while, you know, but there was nothing in the way of group...grouping the kids together to get them to know the different groups, so my salvation really was the Women=s Glee Club for my social outlet.

ERICKSEN: [Pauses] You mentioned a little bit about the academic environment on campus. Can you talk a little more about how you perceived that?

MAILLEFER: I think it was good. It was certainly up to the standard of what I had come out of...out of New Trier High School [in Winnetka, Illinois], which was supposed to be one of the best high schools in the country, they told us. I wasn=t an A student. Probably, I didn=t try hard enough to be an A student. But I think the courses were good. [Pauses] Some of it was just a little bit cranking out what was supposed to be expected of you, but I think that=s true in any academic situation.

ERICKSEN: Were there any hot theological issues making the rounds when you were here?

MAILLEFER: Only [pauses] eternal security. First, the Calvinistic versus an Arminian position. I can remember the guys standing in...especially the men, standing in a...a...what was our eating line, SAGA now [SAGA was the College=s food service when this interview was recorded.] , fussing about it, and I...I thought how silly they were, because it was something that couldn=t be solved, and it was just something they liked to...to push around, and they=re still doing it. So, I think...I don=t think there was much that I knew of anyway. I took some Bible courses all the way through college because of being a Christian Ed major, but I don=t remember them.... Or do you mean from the standpoint of the school=s theological position?

ERICKSEN: I didn=t have that mind when I asked....

MAILLEFER: I don=t...I don=t think there was anything that I can remember, and we didn=t have any...of course, that was way back in the days when there wasn=t much in the way of rebellion from students. We accepted the...the standards on separation as being something that we had to accept coming to Wheaton, and it was the same as my church, so I had no problem with it. But of course, there were some who didn=t accept that, just as there have been over the years.

ERICKSEN: Now, you=re referring to the pledge?

MAILLEFER: Yeah.

ERICKSEN: The Wheaton revival occurred the year after you graduated.

MAILLEFER: Uh-huh.

ERICKSEN: Was there any hint of that coming?

MAILLEFER: I wouldn=t say so. I don=t think so. I was at home then. I was going to Northwestern U that fall, and when the revival broke out that evening, one of the fellows from our church who was still out here called me late that evening and told me that it had started. And so, I came out the next day and was in some of the meetings. And a...a couple of people who were seniors then did make it a point to come to me in the spirit of their revival and make confessions of some silly little thing that they felt they had wronged me in, and I could relate to that because we had had some semblance of revival in our church and in my youthful revival spirit I felt that I needed to make some things right too. But as I look back on them now, I think some of them wouldn=t have been necessary. I think some of them hurt more than they help. One fellow that I had dated, for instance, called me up and said something about he was sorry that his date hadn=t been in the right spirit, or something like that. I mean it was...it was unnecessary, but I think that=s the way the Bible sometimes hits people. And you become overzealous. But it was...it was good I think. But I wasn=t on campus to know what it was...the...really the effects of it.

ERICKSEN: What...what do you remember of the meeting...the meetings that you were in?

MAILLEFER: I came out one evening when most of it was just testimonies of people standing up and confessing their shortcomings of one kind and another, so I didn=t really...you know, that went on for hours, so I didn=t stay through the whole thing.

ERICKSEN: Okay. You mentioned in your last interview that...I...I...I can=t remember the exact circumstances, but you made an appointment to meet with Dr. Edman. What impressions do you recall of him, apart from that?

MAILLEFER: Well, about all the superlatives you could put a man, I guess. He was certainly a...a most gracious, humble, brilliant man, I think. Was a real influence in all of our lives, especially with some of his little cliches that we=d never forget like Anever doubt in the dark what God has told you in the light@ and Ait=s always too soon to quit.@ Those seem...those seem rather silly now, but they made their way into our hearts in many ways. And everybody looked forward to his chapel talks. And I think a lot of that came through just because of his wonderful spirit and because of his own experiences in own...his own life on the mission field and coming home.

ERICKSEN: Did you have much personal contact with him apart from your appointment?

MAILLEFER: No. That was the only.... No.

ERICKSEN: What...what pranks were there on campus while you were here?

MAILLEFER: Mainly the ones with the...the junior/senior bench. And, course our senior retreat. Our senior sneak was I think a wonderful experience which they don=t have any more. Trying to get off campus without them knowing it, and pranks that were played on our senior president Ed McCully when we were on our retreat.

ERICKSEN: Such as?

MAILLEFER: Well, he had just arrived from a...a contest in...something to do with public speaking. I=ve forgotten exactly what it was. Some kind of a debate that he had won, and so when he arrived late for the sneak, they threw him in the lake to humble him. [Clears throat] We had a lot of pranks in our...on our fourth floor because the lights had to be out at a certain hour and the dorm mother was strict, and so we would enjoy sneaking into somebody=s room and then disappearing under the bed so that she wouldn=t know that we were still there. And freshman week was I think fun. It was certainly not anything like the hazing on a non-Christian campus. I can remember that I was made to carry an alarm clock that week. I guess we all were. And my alarm clock went off during devotions, which we had, of course, the beginning of every class. And the teacher was my Lit [Literature] teacher. Forgotten what her name was. But of course she was highly indignant and prayed for me right in the devotions that the Lord would soften my heart to that kind of pranks, which I hadn=t done on purpose. So those...but those add up to your college experience, I think.

ERICKSEN: Do you...what do you recall of the city of Wheaton?

MAILLEFER: Not much. We didn=t go downtown very often. Of course, I...I always lived in the...the s...in the dorm after my first year, so I never needed to go looking for a food shop. And we used to go downtown to the Prince Castle [actual name of the restaurant was Prince Ice Cream Castle] to get ice cream, and that was about it. Not having any car, I didn=t get very far afield. I did work for a lady, doing some housework about a mile north of campus, and that=s about as far as I strayed. I thought Mrs. Mackenzie=s house on President [Street]...I thought that was a long ways to walk, which was ridiculous, >cause now there are apartments farther than that. But the town seemed very small-townish...

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

MAILLEFER: ...to me, didn=t really relate to us as students at all.

ERICKSEN: Was there any...tension in the relationship between the city and the college?

MAILLEFER: No. I don=t...I don=t remember hearing of anything through the paper at all, or....

ERICKSEN: Did you get into the...into Chicago much or go home?

MAILLEFER: I went home probably, oh I suppose, once a month or so. Usually, my father came to get me, because that only took one hour, because we=d go on the diagonal. But if I had to go home on the...what was then the Roaring Elgin [the Elgin Railroad], then it was almost three hours by the time I got downtown and caught the other electric train out to Winnetka. And because there were several of us from my church, we could pool our efforts to get home more often. It...the...the older I got in school, the less I went home, which I think is probably true of most students, because we become more involved. [clears throat]

ERICKSEN: Uh huh. When you look back on your time here at Wheaton, is there anything...any incidents that still make you laugh?

MAILLEFER: Well, basically, I guess, our A>49er Days,@ which were a lot of fun, dressing up as...in the spirit of >49 [1849]. And fortunately my mother had a lot of old authentic dresses from about that period that she=d collected, so I was able to help several friends into costumes, and the fellas had their beards, and we all really entered into the spirit of the thing.

ERICKSEN: How long did that go on?

MAILLEFER: Oh, I think probably a week, as I remember it, not more than that.

ERICKSEN: What do you think Wheaton contributed to your thinking and planning for the mission field?

MAILLEFER: Well, I think through the missionary speakers that I heard I became more and more sure that I wanted to go to the mission field. I=m not too sure that my Christian Ed major helped a whole lot. I think probably I would have done just well sticking with a Bible major, but

ERICKSEN: What was it about.... I=m sorry.

MAILLEFER: I think the Bible courses were very effective. I used some of my notes from Bible Survey for many years. And my course with Dr. [Merrill] Tenney in [the Gospel of] John. A course that I had with Dr. [Samuel] Schultz, which I don=t remember the name of. And...there was a Mrs... Miss [Alice K.] Spalding, I think, who taught [the New Testament book of] Hebrews and my course in [the Gospel] of Mark on how to study. I think those were all a tremendous help.

ERICKSEN: What was it about the Christian Ed degree that didn=t seem to quite jive with what you needed?

MAILLEFER: I think they then were trying to train youth workers for the churches, and most of those, as we looked forward to it then, were supposed to be young women. And of course, today, there are no youth workers that I know of in churches...youth directors, youth pastors, who are women. But I did that the first year. I was out then after I finished Northwestern, and I think I could have used more help in how to organize programs for the young people and get them motivated to form their own programs, rather than taking, for example, a grueling course that we had was on History of Christian Ed through the years and making long graphs and that kind of thing. But I was...I was in the Christian Ed program during a...a weak period. The Lebar sisters [Lois E. And Mary E., professors of Christian Education] were on leave, as I recall, and Dr. [Rebecca Russell] Price only taught part of Christian...the History of Christian Ed, and then she became ill. So, it was...it was a weak time and as I mentioned before I...if I had to do it over again, if I ever have counseling to young people, I tell them never to major in Christian Ed as an undergrad major. I think you would do better in something more specific, and then do that in Grad School, where you really know what your goals are. We had a practice teaching course, where we had to go out to some churches and teached [sic] some released time bible studies, which of course doesn=t exist anymore. That I found helpful because that really made me get into teaching, but I=d already done...been doing some of that in my own church. But it was good to do it under guidance.

ERICKSEN: You=ve been back to Wheaton, when you=ve come home on furloughs. How have you seen the college change?

MAILLEFER: Well, I took one grad school course last time I was home. We=ve lived in Wheaton now four different furloughs. Every furlough we=ve been home, we=ve been fortunate enough to get in these furlough homes. But only once have I...had I...did I take a course there. I took...taken my kids over to the conservatory for music lessons when we=ve been home, and I=ve been to some of the various programs on campus. And I=ve read their Record as it=s come home with our kids, and now our daughter working here. I think, from what I=ve seen, from when our daughter was here, of course it=s...has a lot higher academic standards now. We saw it through the sixties, with the bare-footed funny dress on campus and coming back now to more of a yuppy type of life goal. I think on the whole I=m impressed with what I hear when I walk around campus. I=ve mentioned several times to people that I=ve heard bits of conversation even being yelled at one another ten,

ERICKSEN: Were the academic rigors as intense when you were here?

MAILLEFER: No, far, far from it.

ERICKSEN: There wasn=t as much competition.

MAILLEFER: No. It was still known as a very good school, and there were some of my peers that didn=t get in because they weren=t of that standard. But I don=t think the teaching or the students were of the stay...stature that they are now, and I think, after leaving here, and the...the literature courses that I had here which were carefully screened so that we didn=t read anything worldly as such, and then I had to go to Northwestern U and took the most awful...I mean I thought it was just a litera...English Literature course, but I had to read the most awful sexy books, and I think if I had had somewhere in between the two and had them perhaps analyzed with a Christian teacher, I don=t think I would have been so overwhelmed by the awful stuff that the teacher enjoyed giving to us on a non-Christian campus. But that was the...that was the nature of the day. I mean, if they had tried to bring in something like that, probably the support for the school would have gone down the drain. But I think they did bend over backwards to keep up from being exposed to non-Christian writing, which I=m not too sure was too wise.

ERICKSEN: Okay. Before we skip back to Africa, anything else you=d like to say about your time here at Wheaton?

MAILLEFER: No, I don=t think so. I...I=m glad I went to Wheaton, and I...I learned a lot that I have used over the years. Any school has its failure, but I think it was a...a good school for me. And it...oh, it made me what I am. My brother started at Wheaton, and he lost out spiritually, I think, and he does not have a whole lot of good to say about Wheaton. But I maintain that it=s what you make of it. And I could have gone out the back dorm window. Some of the girls did and got themselves into trouble. A few. But I chose to mix with a different group. And I think that=s true for any student coming to any Christian school.

ERICKSEN: One last question. What...what course did you take on your last furlough?

MAILLEFER: Cross...Intercultural Communications with Dr. [David] Hesselgrave here at the Grad School.

ERICKSEN: How did you find that jibed with your experience?

MAILLEFER: Well, I knew Dr. Hesselgrave, because he=s a peer of mine in Free Church missions, and he was teaching up at Trinity. And...it was very good for me. Not so much what I learned in the class. But...watch...hearing what the other grad students had to say. Most of them had had a few months at least over seas, and all of them were very young. I mean they were barely out of their bachelor=s work...undergraduate work, I would say. So it was refreshing to see their ideas of what mission should be, and I sort of feel rather old and gray...gray-haired and much more experienced in thinking, AWell, you poor young thing. You know, you=ve got a lot to learn.@ Which is a bad attitude to take, but we sort of have to be careful about. But it was refreshing to see these young people who really have a goal of...of entering into the...the tremendous mission work that=s needed today.

ERICKSEN: Okay. Back to Africa. When you left...is that...when you left the Congo, as I guess it still was when you were there....

MAILLEFER: No, it was Zaire when we left for good.

ERICKSEN: When you left for good. I mean thinking back to 1960.

MAILLEFER: Okay.

ERICKSEN: You weren=t married yet.

MAILLEFER: No. That was still Congo.

ERICKSEN: Now, the rebellion took place in 1960, is that...?

MAILLEFER: Uh-huh. Well, that was the independence revolution.

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

MAILLEFER: But the...what they call the rebellion was in >64....

ERICKSEN: Oh, I see.

MAILLEFER: When the Simba was instigating rebellion.

ERICKSEN: What state...what was the state of things when you left for your furlough in 1960?

MAILLEFER: The Belgians were trying to prepare the Congolese to take over. One of my teachers, who had also been a former student of mine, put in his candidature for the parliament, and

© 2017. The Billy Graham Center Archives. All rights reserved. This transcript may be reused with the following publication credit: Used by permission of the Billy Graham Center Archives, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL. BGC Archives CN 328, T2 Transcript - Page 12 he was a...a son of one of our pastors, who had had six years of primary school and then had had four years of teacher=s education. And I had taught him in both situations some. So he had ten years of education and about two years of teaching experience. And he...he was...made himself one of the candidates for the first parliament, along with several other students of mine, and they were elected. And of course, we were overwhelmed. There were only about less than a dozen university graduates in all of Congo then, so we felt along with the Belgians that they certainly weren=t ready for it. And I think most of us missionaries who had come out of the colonial course in Europe had been indoctrinated enough by the Belgians, and I think we agreed that what the Belgian=s philosophy was a good one. It was rather unique in...in Africa. They felt that they should raise the level of the masses slowly, from the ground up, and start a lot of elementary school, rather than train a small core of elite who could swing the country any way they wanted. So the Belgians were working toward raising the standard of Congo, but they had no clue that independence would come so soon, so they=ve been condemned worldwide for not having any leaders trained, such as Kenya and Nigeria did. They had a lot of better trained people. But I still defend the Belgian position because of the size of the country. They really needed to raise the level of the masses slowly, and logistically, to try to train a...a small elite that would take over that huge co...country would just have been terribly difficult. So I felt that they were doing a good job. The roads were maintained. There were big plantations. The people were made to work for a small salary in one way or another, either in a plantation or they were made to keep gardens that they could have enough food for themselves and have some kind of a cash crop. Each man was made to keep a part of the road, so that there was some semblance of communication in this tremendous land. But all that disappeared when they got their independence, because they thought that, now they had arrived, everything would land in their laps free, and so everything collapsed. So that the country was in better state than it had...that it had...than it had ever been before or since right prior to independence.

ERICKSEN: Now, did independence take place before you left?

MAILLEFER: No, I left the end of...let=s see, independence is the first of June, I think, or was it first of July? Forgot. Anyway, I left just several days before that, and there were already a lot of rumors that there was going to be a tremendous uprising in Kinshasa, then Leopoldville. Their stories came out to us, and even out of our biggest city, that people were exploiting this thing called independence, and they were selling tickets to independence to the people and then pocketing the money. And they were signing up on...boards that people were...exploiters were...were profiting by, saying, AWhen independence comes, you can have this man=s...this white man=s wife and his car and his house, if you sign up for them.@ So, they had the list of these men, and they would pass them around town and have the people pay that particular person coming around with a board, and people hadn=t a clue what independence meant, and so they thought they were going to become very rich and...and wealthy and...and knowledgeable and world-known if they cashed in on some of these offers that were, of course, entirely false. So there were a lot of wild rumors going around as to what was going to happen after independence, because they hardly knew what that word meant. And we had to use the French word for it, which they couldn=t say, and that deteriorated to something called lepada [?], which came out of independence and [unclear], became lepada [?], and they thought that it was something they were going to get in...on a platter. So, when independence came, I had left three or four days before, and I had some Danish porcelain that I

© 2017. The Billy Graham Center Archives. All rights reserved. This transcript may be reused with the following publication credit: Used by permission of the Billy Graham Center Archives, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL. BGC Archives CN 328, T2 Transcript - Page 13 liked out there, and so I had given it to a friend of mine, and I said, AIf there=s trouble now, you take those with you home.@ So, I said, AI want them.@ So she promised to. And sure enough, when they were then taken out of the country under U.S. air carriers, she took my little package of my Danish plates, and that=s been quite a joke over the years, because I carry them back and forth with me when there=s any kind of sign of danger. That stems from, incidentally, from a missions speaker whom I=ve forgotten the name of that some people might re...know, a missionary widow who was really a very...to me, typified a good missionary in that she was academically and socially acceptable. She wasn=t the norm of the old funny missionary. She spoke at Wheaton chapel once, and she said, AIf you=re going to the mission field, take that nice silk pillow with you.@ And she said, AI think you know what I mean.@ She said, AWhen I went to the mission field, I thought I had to have a pith helmet and a Bible and...and a...all kinds of stuff for roughing it.@ But she said, ASomebody told me, >Take your silk pillow with you.=@ She said, ATake a few of the nicer things of life with you.@ And so my porcelain plates were sort of my silk pillow. Anyway, I left on a regular furlough, because we were having to stagger furloughs at that particular time, so I was asked to go then and go home and work on my masters to come back because the Belgians were upgrading the schools. I left three or four days before independence actually took place. And I didn=t know that there had been this terrible uprising in Leopoldville until I got up one morning in Switzerland and got the newspapers out saying that they were killing especially the Catholic priests and nuns and raping them. And part of that I could easily see came out of this false ho...false hope that they had. They thought that when this thing call lepada [?] came that they could immediately take over all that the white man had in the way of possessions and status, and the Belgian...and the Catholic leaders, most of the Catholic church leaders, nuns and brothers and priest and all that, were Belgians at that time. So, they were the picture to the Africans of the Belgian government...

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

MAILLEFER: ...and so they got the rap for all this, whereas we Protestants, they knew we were not part of the Belgian government, and so we didn=t...we didn=t come in for a lot of that persecution, like the Belgians did and the Catholics. Whereas, later on, in the 1964 rebellion, then...then there were more of the Protestants that were hurt.

ERICKSEN: How did you decide to...what to do on your furlough?

MAILLEFER: Well, I went home with the idea that I was going to go to grad school...

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

MAILLEFER: ...and I knew that I would want to do it in French, because I felt that I had what I needed in the way of academic studies for this school that I was to teach in, which was training teachers. But I wanted to upgrade my French, and the...our board had agreed that that=s what I could do. So I applied to...I wanted to stay at home, and the mission wanted me to deputation as well. So I applied at University of Chicago and at Northwestern U., because those would have been the closest to home that offered a grad...graduate degree in French, and I was accepted at both places, but I decided to do it at Northwestern because that was just twenty minutes from home. They didn=t meet my needs academically either, because practically all but one teacher that I had,

ERICKSEN: Uh-huh.

MAILLEFER: ...so that, by way of comparison with my days at Wheaton, I don=t think you ever get exactly what you want out of any school academically, and many of us end up doing something we...which wasn=t what we were trained for in the first place anyway. So a lot of it is just a general broadening of your knowledge and experience.

ERICKSEN: How did you meet Eric?

MAILLEFER: When I came home on furlough, I, of course, went back to my home church to worship, and he had started coming to our church while I was gone because his brother and sister had come from Switzerland and had made our church their home. And Eric had also come, but after he came to the States, six months after he got to the States, he was inducted into the American army, because at that time there was the ruling that if you were a foreigner living in the States you were subject to the draft. And when he applied for a visa to come to the States, that wasn=t the case, but the law changed, and so he was inducted into the army, and we started going together then while I was more around home than I would have been ordinarily. And I suppose the fact that he was French and I knew French was somewhat of a drawing card.

ERICKSEN: When...when did things take a turn for the more permanent?

MAILLEFER: With Eric you mean?

ERICKSEN: Regarding your relationship with him?

MAILLFER: We started dating that fall, and he had already been considering missions, because he had been into landscape gardening and there wasn=t a whole lot to do during the winter months, and so he was considering missions. And he had already gotten his eyes open when he was in France in the army. They had bible studies with the Gis [soldiers], and having come out of a very narrow minded Brethren group in Switzerland, he=d never really realized how few French speaking people know anything of Protestantism, much less being Aborn again,@ and so he met French people who had never met a Protestant-speaking...a French-speaking Protestant before. So he began to wonder, before he got back to the States from the American army, if he really shouldn=t

© 2017. The Billy Graham Center Archives. All rights reserved. This transcript may be reused with the following publication credit: Used by permission of the Billy Graham Center Archives, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL. BGC Archives CN 328, T2 Transcript - Page 15 consider missions, since he was one of these queer persons who was a French-speaking Aborn again@ Protestant. So when I came along, he was already considering missions, and during some of the time that I was home, it looked like perhaps Zaire would be closed for me anyway because of the rebel...independence war there. All of our missionaries were out for over six months, and some thought that we would never get back in again. So there was the possibility that I wouldn=t get back, but then in the spring, we decided that we would get married, but because he didn=t have the formal training necessary to be a missionary, I decided to resign, and we felt that we would go overseas either with Peace Corps or U.N. or in a lay position, where we could be a witness in a French-speaking country. And so, when I offered my resignation to our mission and said that I wanted to become engaged to this man, and I knew that I had to follow the rules to resign before doing that, they asked us to go slowly on our resignation and that they felt that they could use him in Zaire, should the doors open again. And so we did that. And it turned out that that was a great help to him, because when the inspector came into Zaire after independence for the U.N. [United Nations] to assess the program, the school program, they...inspected our schools in the Libenge, and they said, AThe schools were good but that we needed more real French-speaking people to teach, and although he wasn=t a teacher, he was our first real French-born teacher coming into our school, and then, they also said, that from then on, we would have to teach German in the schools, and he was the only one that could have fit that position too, because all the rest of us were busy learning French, and we didn=t know German. So he felt that this was a real sign from the Lord that he could be used there, so then we turned down our other applications that we had been filing with Peace Corps and U.N. and so forth, and...and went with the Free Church. So, he really got in the back door of missions through my being there, which was a thrill to us to see how it worked out, but it was a blessing to me personally when he was offered this position in Nairobi in his own right, because it made me feel good that we were then doing a job that he specifically was called to in his own position and in his own right, rather than coming in on my shirttails, so to speak.

ERICKSEN: What was it like when you got back to Zaire, and you were coming back to your station, and he was the, I guess, junior missionary?

MAILLEFER: We didn=t go through that trauma. I...I was considering that danger. We didn=t go to a mission station where I had been before. We went to a new school which had been upgraded to a teacher training school similar to the one I had been teaching in as a single person. But he didn=t have any of that problem because the Africans were so excited to have a real French speaker. And that meant that everybody wanted to talk to him in French, and he was considered far above the rest of us. And he, I=ve heard him say quite often that he didn=t go through the adjustments that some first-term missionaries went through because, when there were things that he needed to know, he sort of just got them from me, rather than struggling with them in his own way, but he did have some situations, especially his first couple weeks, that I had never had, in that because he wasn=t yet into full-time teaching, they sent him out to do a lot of the ambulance driving, which in some cases, became hearses, and he had a lot of experiences out on the road that he learned from that I never met. So we...we didn=t go through that...that struggle.

ERICKSEN: Were there any changes that you notices, as you came back of how things had changed. I know he, in his interview, said he=d never seen anything before, so it...it didn=t seem...there was nothing to compare it with.

MAILLEFER: Yeah. I don=t think...of course, I was gone two years. I left in >60, came back in >62. Some of our missionaries had already come back I think it was maybe nine months after they were first expelled or left, and the Africans had kept up the...the grounds and the church work well. Of course, there was a lot of rebuilding to be done, but nothing had been destroyed in our area, only our farthest East station, which was the Covenant station, Mission Covenant, where Dr. Paul Carlson had been taken and killed. But other than that, our stations were not disturbed, and our people are so remote because they=re in the Northwest area, where there are no roads going to the South at all. It=s all swamp between us and...and Leopoldville. So they would only have had some connection with the East, and there was really no problem in the East there, in the Northeast, compared to the problems that there were there after the >64 rebellion. So I think that we found there wasn=t a mentality among the Africans that we had to work over, like there was later on, in >67, when the peo...when the Africans became really quite anti-mission for some time other. They felt that they wanted to...to run things themselves. But now they=ve come back to wanting even more help from us.

ERICKSEN: How did having your first child change your work as a...as a missionary in the school?

MAILLEFER: Uh, it didn=t really change as much as I thought it would. I was carefully considering all that, because I had been on the field two terms, and I had watched some married women who didn=t do enough and others whom I thought did too much in the way of mission work as it related to their family situations, and so I was wondering how I would fit into this new status. When I came back, I carried a full load in teaching, although I was pregnant. And I taught up until Christmas vacation, and my baby was due about a couple weeks later, so I wasn=t hampered in my teaching. I carried a full load. I was wondering how that would affect the Africans, my being quite pregnant with a class full of almost all men, but that was no problem, and I think that was still early enough on that they still regarded us more as a white leader, whether woman or man, and so I had no problem with that, and I was in very good health. Fortunately, our doctors told me to just keep as active as I...as I could, that it was good for me. And then after the baby was born, we came back to the station, and the principal asked me to right away step back into part time teaching, just like the other married women. And I remember feeling quite overwhelmed. I thought I don=t know if I can do this, and I don=t know if I want to. And I thought maybe he was pushing me a little bit, but my own self-respect took over, and I accepted the jobs...the part-time teaching position that they offered me. And we had no problem with it because we had three or four married couples with small children at home, and we were able to schedule our classes in such a way that there was usually one parent home with the child. It was a four year course, and we had enough teachers that that could be done. So, it were really was no problem, and I...I enjoyed it, and I taught that way for four years, before we moved to Kenya.

ERICKSEN: Then you had your second child, but you had already left the country.

MAILLEFER: Uh-huh.

ERICKSEN: For that. How much of a warning did you see of what was coming?

MAILLEFER: I don=t think we really expected anything then. No, I have to think back on this now, but the year before that, we were beginning to learn that the...the Catholic teachers were given free tickets home to their home countries because of their work in the subsidized homes, and then the Protestants thought, now, why can=t we have this to, so they started asking for it. And I applied for one that summer so that I could go home with our first-born. My mother was still living, and we thought it would be nice for me to go home, but the ticket didn=t come home through until it was too late. If I had gone to Leopoldville, I would have found the ticket there, but I didn=t know that being so remote up in the bush, so I didn=t go. So the following year, we applied for, I think, fourteen tickets, something like that. (Eric can better remember because he did all the footwork that pushed him into a lot of these jobs, since he was the French speaker of the group.) And he got these tickets, and so I went ahead of him several weeks, because it fitted into the timing better that I would be finished with my traveling at least a month before the baby was due. And it was...it fit into our situation so well, because of my being RH negative [blood type], so it was good to be able to deliver the baby out of the country. And so, there was...there was, I think, no real warning, and again, it blew up after we got home, and then I got hepatitis after our baby was born, so we couldn=t go back with the ones who tried to go back. Several of our friends flew back thinking that things would be okay, and then they got there and were immediately evacuated. So, they made another over the ocean trip for nothing, which I was spared, although at the time, I was fuming that I couldn=t go because of my hepatitis. But I was spared my trip because of it.

ERICKSEN: When the talks started...when you were approached to go to Nairobi, in order for your husband to work in the Africa Evangelical Office, what responsibilities were you going to be doing?

MAILLEFER: Nothing. We were then on this evacuation furlough, and were living in a small apartment. And we had a hard time finding in Chicago, thinking it would just be for several months so we couldn=t take a lease and it turned out to be a whole year. But Eric was on deputation in Texas, and apparently the Free Church had been approached asking if any of the missions had a French-speaking missionary who could go and help Mr. Downing in Nairobi to form this conference with the mind in view that perhaps we would start an NAE [National Association of Evangelicals] there. And Clyde Taylor thenYwell, our head of our missions in Minneapolis, Dr. [Lester P.] Westlind called Eric in Texas and asked him if he would consider this position. So he called me in Chicago and he said, AWould you be willing to go to Nairobi?@ Well that to me was like going to Timbuktu. I had to sit down and think where it even was even though I studied it in Belgium in geography. And I said, AYeah, I guess so. We=re just sitting here biding time.@ Then again, it looked like we didn=t know when we would get back to Zaire. So Clyde Taylor and I think a couple others came to O=Hare airport to interview Eric….

END OF TAPE