MARRIED DUSKY BRIDE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 552, 3 January 1929, Page 7

MARRIED DUSKY BRIDE

SEQUEL TO AFRICAN ROMANCE One of the rare instances of marriage between a white missionary and a native woman is recalled by the death iu Jamaica of the widow of George Grenfell, the famous Congo missionary and explorer. Mrs. Grenfell’s devotion to her husband and the way in which sha shared his perils when he pushed into the cannibal-haunted forests of the Congo nearly 50 y«jars ago, proved that sucli unions can be successful. Mrß. Grenfell was formerly MissRose Patience Edgerlev, a member of a West Indian family of African origin who had returned to their native land lin 1827. j For years she was responsible for the education of the women and girls at Bolobo station of the Baptist Mission, and for a time after her husband’s death tn 1907, she lived in England ■with her daughters. Married Hottentots It was stated at the Church Mis siouary Society offices that marriages between th€iir missionaries and nativ women are practically unknown, a I though a few have taken place in India and the Near East. Mr. F. H. Hawkins, foreign secretary of the London Missionary Society, said that although he knew n«> recent instances of such marriages, there were several a century ago. ] “Chief of these,” he added, “were the* j marriages of two of the great upholders of native rights in South 1 Africa, James Read, an Essex man. who was captured by the French when first on his way to the mission field, and Dr. J. T. Vanderkemp, a ' Dutchman, who had studied in Scotland, and who laid the foundation of the South African work. “They both married Hottentot wives. “Such marriages are not forbidden i by our rules, but they certainly w’ould j not be encouraged, mainly because of