Letter to Dad - July 1, 2009

Nancy and the boys are looking forward to spending ten days in Chicago starting this Friday. They plan to see the Museum of Science and Industry, Lincoln Park, Zoo, Great America theme park, and relatives in the area. Zach plans to see Northwestern University, one of his college choices. We signed the boys up for their classes. Ben is now three years ahead of his peers in math, and will be taking a high school course—talent that surely didn’t come from me! I’ll probably spend the week moping around the house and trying to work down my honey-do list. Kitty will keep me company.

We’re happy that Peter will be joining his family shortly.

I’m glad you liked my reflections on the ethics of suicide. Like most of what I write, I wrote it quickly-- but it is really the result of many years of thinking, and it grew out of a project I gave myself at Willow Creek’s ironically name Camp Paradise, in Northern Michigan in 1987. My goal was to read through the entire Bible looking for my life-theme that “you matter to God”. One day at the camp, I saw what looked like a star slowly sweep almost parallel to the horizon and then ignite into a flare of orange and purple before descending into the woods miles away. The next day, the paper reported that a Soviet satellite had come through the atmosphere near where we camped. In Arizona, stars of the Milky Way spangle the firmament like salt strewn on onyx. I’m starting to teach my boys what little I know about astronomy. I can show them Pleides in the Taurus Constellation, Vega in Lyra, and Deneb in the constellation of the Swan. One night, I’ll show Zachary and Benjamin a haze of light in the constellation of Hercules. That haze is a great nebula—the light of 50,000 suns 30,000 light years away. In the Grand Canyon State, as in South Dakota, no one grows up without knowing size and distance. (I recall my awe when I saw the Canyon for the first time in 1992, at night under a full moon, the boundless chasm disappearing into a bottomless sea of black while the ridges and mesas were etched in silver and red.) Australia is also a home to vastness. In contrast to my urban experiences, where property is measured by the square foot, my cousin Barbara, the daughter of Uncle Frank White, live on an 11,500-acre cattle station in western Queensland. In the wilds of the western United States or eastern Australia, we learn the relative size of a person compared with the lay of the land. Under an immense sky, a man is small and at the mercy of God. And he is wrong if he thinks otherwise.

There is star that shines brightly in the velvety black of the Arizona sky. It’s a symbol of our future, for one day our descendants may well pioneer among the stars as our fathers did in the Dakotas. And this star is a symbol of our past. Pointing upwards from the two stars, Merak and Dubhe, on the outer edge of the Big Dipper, the Pole Star is positioned one degree from the north celestial pole. This magnitude two star has guided mariners for hundreds of years, sparkling with constancy in the purpling dusk and the diamond night. It’s one star that will never fall. In Lamentations chapter three, clouds of gloom part to reveal a sunbeam of hope: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness.” And the song that was sung so many times at Norbeck echoes those verses:

Thou changest not,
Thy compassions, they fail not:
As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be.

As children, we would sing “This little light of mine/I’m going to let it shine.” And what others will see from our little light is our Christian heritage. (“We are all worms,” Winston Churchill said. “But some of us are glow-worms.”) Eloise and LeRoy Nelson, in their 1986 Christmas card, chart this legacy, our spiritual roots:

Jesus
Apostles
Early Church Fathers
Augustine
Ansgar
St. Francis
Martin Luther
Olaus Petri
Philip Spener
C. O. Rosenius
N. P. Wik

To which of course I should add Harold Wik.

My cousins conclude their card with these words: “And so we build our lives on the foundation of those who have come before us, just as our forebears built on the heritage passed on to them. And now it’s our duty to pass this on to our children—to be another link in the long chain that started with Jesus’ birth.” The Star in the East that twinkled over a manger 2,000 years ago and the Star of the North that guided the captains of ships that brought our ancestors to this country 100 years ago retain their meaning today. And, I hope, will do so for our children’s children until the end of time. It’s this guiding star from which came the name of the ship that took our maternal ancestors to America in 1869– the SS Guiding Star.

Here is some more of Our Story, written about five years ago.

Towards the end of their time in Malaysia, my parents helped the boat people that fled Viet Nam after the war came to an end. After about 70 years of combined service, they returned by way of Athens, Jerusalem, and Amsterdam to retire in the United States on May 17, 1982. “At Singapore, we changed planes for the flight to Athens where we spent four days,” my parents wrote in a circular shortly after their trip. “The main tourist attraction there is the Acropolis. Nearby was Mars Hill, which we climbed and read Paul’s sermon as recorded in Acts 17:22-34. We also visited the National Archeological Museum at Athens and took a bus trip to Delphi, a round trip of about 200 miles. On May 3, we flew to Tel Aviv and when the plane touched down many passengers clapped their hands. The next day, we took a guided walking tour outside the walls of the old city. On two occasions, we walked completely around the old walls. This takes about 45 minutes. On Sunday morning, we joined a large group of Christian worshipers at the Garden Tomb for a Sunday morning service, and were thankful that the tomb in which our Lord was laid is empty. Christ is risen! While we remained based at Jerusalem during our stay in Israel, we were able to visit such places as Bethlehem, Jericho, Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, and Masada by the Dead Sea. While we did not need to visit Israel to validate our Christian faith, the trip did add to our understanding of our Judeo-Christian heritage.” Mom and Dad later flew on to Amsterdam where they visited famous masterpieces in the National Art Museum and marveled at the beautiful tulip fields. I’m so glad that Mom and Dad were able to visit Israel as it puts a fitting cap on their many years of Christian service. “Truly goodness and mercy have been following us a family and will continue to do so,” they wrote in their last letter from Malaysia, dated April 25th. Thirteen days earlier, Paul and Joyce sent them a telegram informing them of their new grandchild: “PETER NATHANIAL BORN 723 AM APRIL 12 9 LBS 8 OZ 21-1/2 INCHES ALL ARE WELL LOVE PAUL AND JOYCE”. My parents noted in a letter to me that “we appreciate Joyce with her talents and high aspirations. She has put a lot of sparkle into our family.”
Today, both of my parents now in their 80s live active lives in Roslyn, a suburb north of Philadelphia, residing at their home at 1561 Birchwood Avenue. The death of Grandma left Mom money to buy the home. They paid $49,000 for the left side of the 25 year-old ranch duplex, on a lot 39 by 110 feet. Twenty years later, the other side of the duplex sold for about $150,000. Mom enjoys walking to Willow Grove Mall a few blocks away where she can greet a dozen or so of the regulars while Dad likes tending his garden in the back yard of tomatoes and lettuce. He also likes the routine, exercise, augmentation of income, and occasional opportunities for witnessing by working part-time removing trash from some local strip-malls. “Spud, I think you’re the only in the family who is still working,” Uncle Reyn wrote Dad in 1994. “The rest of us are unemployed and on welfare, all waiting for a raise in Social Security.” Ten years later, Dad was still toiling at his jobs at Regents Park and elsewhere. Mom and Dad are both involved in Berachah in Cheltenham, their local church, and the lives of their four children and seven grandchildren. (My sister Anne Birch and her family and brothers Paul and his family and Tim live in the area, all within about an hour of each other.)

On February 10th 2002, we honored their fifty years of marriage with a dinner of baked sugar-cured ham and chicken marsala at Williamson Restaurant in Horsham. Sister-in-law Joyce did much of the planning and constructed a beautiful album of photographs and letters from friends and relatives. “In a time where so much is expendable, it’s wonderful to look to something that has stood the test of time,” I wrote for my family. “Your fidelity through five decades is a model to Nancy and me. And, someday, Zachary and Benjamin will also look to your example with appreciation. Your life’s journey has taken you to distant lands and fantastic adventures. But, through it all, your love for each other as endured. And from your commitment to each other has come your love for us, and I remember with fondness your tender words and actions over the years. Bukit Sepit. Rawang. Chefoo. What memories those names evoke! Ivyland. Chicago. Scottsdale. Although separated by many miles, your love for us has never wavered. And so it is therefore right that we honor and celebrate fifty amazing years of marriage. Nancy, Zachary, and Benjamin also join me in expressing their love for you and in rejoicing in this celebration.”

In 1965, we left Malaysia for Australia by the ocean liner Oranje. Tangerine and blue paper streamers between us and those on the dock stretched and snapped as the ship pulled away. After my parent’s furlough, my parents left Paul and me at a home for missionary kids in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The law office of Grubb & Guest had my parents transfer guardianships to the Grays in the Orphan’s Court of Philadelphia County, “wherefore petitioners pray your Honorable Court to enter a Decree appointing the said Kenneth T. Gray as guardian of the persons of Philip G. Wik and Paul R. Wik.” The sign facing Jacksonville Road read Happy Hollow Farm, but no one called it that, especially after a neighborhood kid painted one day over the word Hollow, as if the farm was an institution for the “differently abled”. We called it “Ivyland”, after the name of the small town where we got our mail. The borough of Ivyland takes on aspects of a Victorian painting at Christmas time, with streets lit by luminaries, and skating and caroling. The boarding home was a colonial-era Georgian mansion on a country farm of about thirty acres. The walls were white with the classic green shutters that are familiar to many colonial homes in Bucks County. It had a two-acre lake fed by a stream that bisected the property, a large red barn with pigeons cooing in the rafters, horses and pastures, and between ten and fifteen other MKs. We went to the local public schools, and I graduated in 1973 from Council Rock High School, in Newtown. Although I was in the choir and the drama club (I was Edward in Charles Dicken’s Christmas Carol), most of my extracurricular activities revolved around Ivyland, with my five-mile paper route and eight pet rabbits.

“I do not think you will have to do much to prepare the children for the new adjustment,” Kenneth Gray wrote to my parents in 1965. “We have animals (ten rabbits, six horses, chickens, ducks, goats, and cats) down here, and the barn and the family are usually sufficient drawing cards for the kids to spend a good deal of their free time down here. We’ve yet to see a child really homesick, for there is almost too much life throbbing around here for them to be lonely for more than an occasional moment.
“There have been trips to the shore, with hilarious times of riding the breakers or sunning on the sand—drinking in the beauty of the riot of color that is Longwood Gardens-- fountains, colored lights, and gorgeous flowers everywhere. Other times, we have gone to Philadelphia, and push buttons in the Benjamin Franklin museum, where there is a seemingly endless array of electrical gadgets to demonstrate some principle or other. All these activities afford wonderful opportunities to get to know the kids better, hearing their chatter and enjoying their enthusiasm.

“Your enthusiasm for the place is the best preparation that you can possibly give your kids. Keep in mind that the sacrifice is on your part far more than on theirs. Our family is very happy, and the kids adjust to life here at home in a wonderful way. You are the ones who take the gaff, and, believe me, we feel for you, but our field experience helps us to know that there is no real alternative worth considering. We have also had enough experience here at home to realize that the educating of children all the way through high school on the field is not without very serious problems for the children when they come home to the States for further education.”

We seemed to have adapted well to our new surroundings, as we read in a letter from Maybeth Gray to Aunt Elsie in 1967: “Paul and Philip both seem happily settled in. They obviously have a good time. The snow and ice-skating has been sheer joy to them, and it’s fun to see them laughing and shouting as they toboggan or skate or build snow forts. I was measuring and weighing Philip this evening—a ritual we go through on the night I wash their hair and he really is gaining and getting taller—at least an inch taller than last September and several pounds heavier too. He weighs 72 pounds now . . . Best wishes to you and your work and thank you so much for all your interest in the Wik boys. You have been so good to them and I know they really appreciate it.”

Christmas in Ivyland was special. Presents piled high around the towering Christmas tree. Outside, neighbors cut figure eights with us on the ice to the music of Broadway tunes, Strauss waltzes, and Gilbert and Sullivan:

My good little butter cup
My dear little butter cup

I earned a few battle wounds playing ice hockey, including stitches in my chin and a gouge in my leg.

To get a flavor of the holidays, here are excerpts from letters I wrote in 1970, 1971, and 1972:

“Two weeks ago, we decorated our ten foot evergreen tree with lights, tinsel, and colored balls,” I wrote in 1970. “A small layer of icy snow is on the ground with periodic flurries helps set the Christmas scene. We have had great fun sledding on the hills. The ice isn’t strong enough to skate on yet. Many people are home for the holidays from college. For Christmas, we had about 40 people eating here. My favorite gifts were the presents you gave me—clothes, games, gloves, a radio, and a book about a lioness called Born Free.

“Thank you so much for the gift of the art supplies,” I wrote in 1971. “We didn’t get any snow this Christmas. As a matter of fact, the temperature is about fifty degrees. We did the play The Christmas Carol at the intermediate school in Newtown. On Wednesday night, we put on the lay for the public. On Christmas Eve, we went to a candlelight service at church. When we came home, we opened our stockings. On Christmas day after diner, we opened our presents. I received many things but I especially liked the paint supplies you sent me.”

“I hope you had a merry Christmas in Malaysia,” I wrote in 1972. “On the 16th, the concert choir (in which I sing baritone) put on a Christmas concert. All the Christmas trimmings this year were homemade. Frankly, the result was a mess. Naturally, everyone likes their own creation of half-baked ginger-bread men, fermenting cherries, and roasted popcorn. Periodically, groups of carol singers would start to howl in front of our house. Once, a group of seven came caroling on horses. We woke up early on Christmas morning, ate breakfast, had our devotions, and opened our presents. At about four o’clock in the afternoon, we ate the annual Christmas bird. The Christmas in Ivyland, although quite enjoyable, is but a glimmer of the grand Christmas we had in August in Malaysia together!”

The Grays retired in 1971 to Stroud, Canada. In April, 1973, Ken lifted the oxygen mask off his face and said to Maybeth “Now I’m going home.” There was no funeral as Ken had made arrangements to donate his body to science, but there was a memorial service. In a letter to my parents at the time, I wrote “I shall always remember Uncle Ken for his dynamic, caring personality spiced with a pinch of whimsy. I shall never forget how he helped me countless times in school—on my science projects, on reports, and at home—weeding, seeding the corn, mowing, racking leaves. The fun we had in the snow on Christmas day, reading Dickens around the cackling fire at night, going to Canada’s Expo, New Hampshire’s White Hills, the New Jersey shore, Longwood Gardens, and the operettas in Philadelphia shall always remain in my memory, and I will feel a loss.”

In 1987, an Ivyland Alumni Fred Fry passed on Maybeth Gray’s address. (Leslie Lyle, Maybeth’s brother, was a missionary who traveled with Dad from Shanghai to Hong Kong.) “You get the sense from Fred’s letter that Ivyland casts long shadows over the lives of those who lived there,” I wrote to Maybeth. “That’s certainly true with me. On balance, however, I think the Ivyland experience was good for me. I probably wasn’t the easiest person to manage, and it must have been hard to run things-- taking care of a dozen kids with different abilities, ages, temperaments, and backgrounds, the mansion, and the farm. This is a roundabout way of saying ‘thank you’ for your contribution in raising me during my formative years.

“As time goes by, the past recedes into a misty nostalgia bringing back a collage of associations. Do you remember these snapshots from the past?

Sledding on the hill by the Big House
Canoeing, fishing, swimming, skating
Our pet cats, rabbits, and horses
Our dogs Dale (beagle), Rufus (Irish setter), and Friskie (mixed)
Building elaborate hay tunnels on the second floor of the barn
Chicken picking under a full moon
Uncle Ken playing “Red River Valley” on the living room piano
The mountain of presents around the fifteen-foot Christmas tree
The Gate House, where we would stay during furloughs
Dorney Park with its rickety wooden roller coaster
Salty breezes and taffy on Ocean City’s boardwalk
Sipping a malt at the Tanner Brothers Farm Store in Northampton
Strawberry and cherry picking on a blue and gold autumn day
Annual trips to downtown Philadelphia to see Gilbert & Sullivan
The Philadelphia Zoo and museums
Marcia Haynes, David Cox, Beth Carlson, David Almond
Canada geese swooping down over the lake in autumn
Summer vacations in Franconia Notch, New Hampshire

I’m sure we could go on forever.”

“What a surprise!” Maybeth wrote. “A delightful surprise! After these 16 or more years, it was just great to hear from you and get caught up on your life history so far!”

In the summer of 1972, my sister and I visited my parents in Malaysia. We visited many familiar places of our childhood, including Rawang, Chefoo, and Port Dickson. On the flight from Singapore to Bahrain, the British Caledonian Boeing 707 with its 197 passengers had to make an emergency landing at Changi airport because of a fuel line rupture. We spent a few days at the swank Imperial Hotel, before flying on to London. We visited Westminster Abbey, St. Mary’s, Number Ten Downing Street, The Mall, Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, and took a trip down the Thames before flying on to Philadelphia. In all, I’ve lived in Malaysia with my parents for just under nine years.

The mission sold Ivyland in 1982. The grounds have been subdivided, the barn razed, and the mansion remodeled. “It’s in a state of decay, with the old marble mantels long gone, paint pealing, extensive water damage, and an overall look of faded grandeur,” I wrote in 1993, before the remodeling began in earnest. “The lake hasn’t been maintained and is half empty. A paved road called Gwyn Lynn Drive meanders through the old horse pastures, now replaced by ten homes selling for $450,000 each. (The Big House is now 148 Gwyn Lynn Drive, but the entire property was 186 and then later 657 Jacksonville Road during my time.) The mansion is on one acre and an additional twelve acres of wetlands were sold to a doctor’s group for $350,000. (In the mid-50s, the OMF bought the farm for about $60,000 and by the mid-70 it was appraised for under $150,000.) Brambles and poison ivy cover the lawn. (When I had just arrived in Ivyland at the age of ten, I made the mistake of confusing the Malaysian vines with Pennsylvanian vines, and made good use of calamine lotion. I thought we should modify the name Ivyland by the word Poison!) Most of the old trees still exist and I could still see some of the remains of my old tree houses.”

I enjoyed climbing some of the two-hundred year trees. A row of mature oaks, pines, sycamores, and spruces mark the path of the original gravel road that now runs through the back yards of the houses that were built in the 1990s. I climbed some of these trees. The lake is now called Spring Mill Pond and no doubt it will someday be but a marsh. But, when I was a kid, it was perhaps six feet higher and far broader and wider, maintained by an input pipe from a dam at the far end of the property that has since washed away. What memories we have of that lake! I learned to swim in that lake and we had a diving board, dock from which to fish for Sunnies, home-made rafts, and canoes. The bottom of the lake was black goop and yellow algae spread across the lake as the summer months went by. But we still loved that lake with its willow trees and painted turtles. In contrast to the almost impassable brambles of today, a dozen horses would keep the pastures surrounding the lake trimmed to look like a park. In the winter time, we would sled down the hills from Almshouse Road toward the lake or skate and play ice-hockey with the kids from Traymore. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that sometimes hundreds of people would crowd that lake in the winter, while music played from loud-speakers throughout the day.

Towards Hunt Drive was the remains of an ancient carriage house. I used to find weathered nails amid the brick. When I went to Churchville Elementary, I would wait for the school bus at Hunt Drive and North Traymore Avenue. But for middle and high school, we would trek through the fall leaves to the end of the lane on Jacksonville Road. Two white stone pillars that no longer exist marked the entrance of our property. Moving leftward was the garden where we weeded carrots and cabbage, the 1950s era ranch called the Canfield House, a shed for tractors and plows, a gasoline fuel pump, and a large sixty-foot-high L-shaped barn. It was brown stone with red wooden walls trimmed in white and with massive interior beams. Further in the back was a pen for chick. At the bottom level of the barn were work shops, stalls for the horses, pens for the chickens, and cages for my rabbits. On the top level was bales of hay. Paul would drive the tractor that pulled the carts up the dirt ramp. We would often arrange these bales into tunnels, sometimes going down thirty feet. We used to play kick the can near the manure pile that was behind the barn. There was also more farm land for corn and potatoes. Continuing our walk in memory was the two-story brick Lane House, which was also of colonial-era vintage. We would stay here on furlough. Today, it has been resurfaced with brown-stone, but the walls used to be white plaster.

The gravel path ended in a circle around the Big House. The only other structures was a horse shed behind the barbed wire and a crumbling smoke house below the lake that is still a home to suckers and toads. I would mow this lawn and join the others in raking the fall leaves. Next to the dock with a diving board below the large Eastern White Pine that still exists were several picnic tables and canoes.

As we open the door to the Big House, we would see a couch with perhaps the Daily Courier, Christian Science Monitor, and back editions of Popular Mechanics. To the left was the living room with its high ceilings, fireplace, many books, and a grand piano. Here is where we would celebrate Christmas. On the other side was the dining room with the marble fireplace. At Christmas time, Maybeth would thread the many cards together to deck the room. We would find letters from our parents and also lists of chores that would be posted each day on the bulletin board, such as “Pots & Pans” or the much dreaded “Eggs”. A staircase ascended to the rooms above. I was adept at sliding down the banisters from my room on the top floor near the roof floor by floor. Moving past the dining room was the powder room – a room that probably hasn’t changed much over the years—and the kitchen—a room that has probably changed a great deal. Ken would snip our hair here while Maybeth and Pat would bake the pies or mix the ice-tea. I remember the distinctive bang! of the screen door when I came in with by school books each days. Stairs for the servants would ascend from one side of the kitchen. On the other side, Dale, our friendly, corpulent beagle, would gaze into the fireplace. My bedroom was always on the top floor, while the girls enjoyed slightly more opulence in the floor beneath. In the back was a walk in freezer—an entire room kept to negative ten degrees. We also had shelves where we could keep our things, such as boots, gloves, and school books.

I enjoyed taking black and white pictures with my twin lens Yashika camera. But perhaps my favorite pastime was biking. I bought a red three-speed Schwinn and put it to good use, making money by distributing The Daily Intelligencer for a few years. I especially enjoyed going on bike hikes, sometimes as far away as New Hope and New Jersey. I bought quite a number of antiques at the flea markets in Lahaska and that honed my interest in American history. I biked with David Cox (whose father worked for twenty-one years among the Mien (Yao) of North Thailand after fighting piracy as a chief officer in the British Navy along the China coast before he joining the CIM). But generally I traveled alone, usually on the back roads that even today retain their verdant beauty. Sometimes, I just had to leave what my brother Tim calls “a feudalistic dreamland” with its weeding and its rules and peddle furiously with the brisk autumn wind in my face through flurries of gold and red leaves down the curving Dark Hollow Road to the Neshaminy Creek.

It is hard to believe that as I write this in 2005, some Ivyland alumni are now in their sixties. “I personally like it when my kids put my wheelchair close to the fire with my dentures close by so that I can munch on health snacks that Anne finds in Prevention Magazine,” Fred Fry writes, with tongue firmly in cheek. “As my head droops in exhaustion, usually about 6:30 or so, I drift off into my memories. Many of my fondest are from that era so many years ago in the big white house …or was it grey…with the Whites…or was it the Grays …? “ “Someone could, and should, write a book about Ivyland,” Fred continues “Is that native Bucks County resident, James Michener, still in business? Who built that big white house? Who lived in it between 1790 and 1958? Our era would occupy many chapters. Who took the marble mantles? Where did all the wood and stone from the barn go? Do the current occupants of those $450,000 homes even know that there was a time when an old John Deere tractor would drag a line of sleds through the snow on the sites where they now watch Oprah and water their petunias?

“I wonder if on some quiet mornings, their eyes play tricks on them and they think they see silent, misty figures up in the trees, riding horses, fishing off the dock, taking out the garbage, ice skating to the amplified Strauss waltzes, playing tackle football, painting shutters, doing dishes, putting together jigsaw puzzles, swimming, studying, driving trash to the dump in the cut-off Chevy, feeding a roly-poly beagle, playing capture-the-flag in the barn, walking the quarter mile to the bus stop at 6:45, gazing longingly at Bobbie Arbor, mowing the lawn a stocky balding bespectacled man doing his accounts at his desk in the hall, a woman in her mid-twenties doing laundry, a lady with her graying hair in a bun reading stories to her own infant daughter, spreading manure behind that same John Deere, celebrating twenty to thirty birthdays a year, stringing barbed wire and yes—slaughtering, picking, and gutting chickens. I wonder.

“If there were, they’d all have names that are very real—Maybeth and Ken, Bob, Peter, Bill, David, Wendy, Pierre, John and Josie, Ian, Doris, Ruth, Pat, John, Esther, Anne, Miriam, Marcia, Paul, Beth, Sue, Timothy, Pam, Margaret, David, James, Ralph, Kathryn, Ian, Sylvia, Rachel, and many, many more.”

“I loved the picture of your two little boys,” Maybeth wrote to me in January 1997. “I bet they are going to have a lot of fun playing together as the baby gets a bit older. Enjoy your children while they are young, for they do grow up so fast and before you know it they are leaving home. I’m fine as I go into my 84th year with no aches or pains, and just very thankful to God for good health. I do tire more easily though and am ready to go to bed when the time comes. It has been nice to hear from quite a number of our Ivyland gang and learn more of what they are doing. But I must stop. I did want to thank you so much for your newsletter and the picture of your darling boys. God bless you in the year 1997. Much love to you both and the boys. Love in Christ. Maybeth Gray.”

Three months later, I got a letter from John Cox. “I assume you will have heard about Maybeth Gray’s death on April 12,” he wrote. “Your letter was the first I heard of this and of course I feel a great deal of sadness,” I wrote back. “ My most recent letter was from January of this year, which I’ve enclosed. I was glad to have renewed our relationship over the past few years, giving me the chance to express my gratitude for her role in shaping my character and interests. Only last week I came across a paper Aunt Maybeth typed for me when I was in fifth grade. It says much for her as a Christian and a person that she is remembered fondly by so many people despite the passage of time—in my case about a quarter of a century. As one of the little boys, I only vaguely remember you. I of course recall Elizabeth and Peter, and I thought of David as one of my best friends. The shadows of Ivyland are long. And in the lingering gloaming, lights and shadows play in the kaleidoscope of memory: Uncle Ken reading “The Christmas Carol” by the fire and playing “Red River Valley” on the grand piano. Aunt Maybeth, much like the card she sent me, looking past her African Violets over the sloping green, watching us swim or play…chicken picking in the morning and an operetta in the evening…bike hikes and vacations, the barn and the lake … lots of work, lots of animals, lots of fun, some tears, but much joy as well.”

“She died on Saturday in her sleep, peacefully and without pain,” John wrote. “I called a travel agent on Monday and explained the circumstances, requesting bereavement fare. She asked Maybeth’s relationship to me, and I said she was my foster mother. The agent said, “Let’s just make that “mother,” so I didn’t argue with her.

“People in Vancouver were extraordinarily kind. Pam, Esther, and I borrowed a pick-up truck from someone at Clarendon Court (where Maybeth had lived) and ran errands with it. One of them involved making photocopied enlargements of photographs that were to be displayed at the reception following the memorial service. One of these was in color, and we were unsure how to use to color copier at the little shop where we were doing the copying. The proprietor came over to help us and paused when she saw the picture. “I know that woman,” she said. Esther told her that it was her mother and that she had just died and why were making the copies. The woman gulped and showed us what we needed to do. When we went to pay for the copies the woman told Esther that she recently had cancer and chemotherapy. “Your mother was so kind to me,” she said. “No one else was such a comfort to me.” This from a complete stranger at a shop we just happened to walk into! Esther burst into tears, and the woman became very apologetic, but none of us could explain that the tears were not so much for sorrow as for this chance encounter with evidence of Maybeth’s unfailing goodness to everyone she met. What an amazing legacy.

“The memorial service was wonderful. We sang “I Sought the Lord and Afterward I Knew” and Pam played “Amazing Grace” very impressively on her violin, beautifully accompanied by a pianist from the church. Ian delivered a wonderful eulogy. And at the end of the service, we sang “How Firm a Foundation” to a traditional American melody (rather than Adeste Fidelis) that I remembered singing with Ken around the piano at Ivyland and that I have heard many times as one of the airs that Aaron Copeland weaves into “Appalachian Spring.” We sang all six stanzas, but for the last two Pam grabbed her violin and played along by ear, inventing descants and harmony as she went. Those of us sitting at the front had been doing pretty well for the first four stanzas but we all fell silent when Pam’s violin began to sing.

“It was an utterly satisfying trip, and I was glad I was able to make it. It was sad of course and I still feel sad at the loss of Maybeth, but it was triumphant and happy at the same time. Being whom I am and doing what I do, I inevitably think of something from Shakespeare at this juncture, so I’ll close with Prospero’s loving praise of Miranda in The Tempest, because it applies so perfectly to Maybeth: “She will outstrip all praise and make it halt behind her.”

We hope you continue to be well and remain in our fondest thoughts and prayers.

I laughed, I cried, I remember SO many of the people and events (the pond, ice skating, sledding, swimming, the chickens, etc.). In fact, I remember at least at one point there were 100 chickens at the OMF, and one of the chickens -- no one seemed to know which ONE it was among the others -- layed bloody eggs. We would buy our eggs from the OMF and were told to be aware of that fact. It struck me then and I began to sing that age old hymn (though this time directing it to the OMF Chickens): "There were 90 and 9 that safely lay..."

I have fond memories of Uncle Ken and Aunt Maybeth, and of Pam (and her horse Charger). I also remember one of the smaller brown horses had a propensity to buck riders off! I also remember the manure pile outside the barn, and the fact that in the gloaming, the wretched pile became a beautiful pile of glittering fireflies! I also remember having sleep overs with Anne, and when I stayed over, I was expected to contribute to the chores of the day. I remember one time particularly: buttering countless pieces of bread to make grilled cheese sandwhiches in the oven! I also have fond memories of the barn, playing in and on the hay and the rope swing there. So much of what you wrote triggered memories I have that center on the OMF. I remember the "Happy Hollow Farms" sign as well along with the stigma attached to it. Hence, we always called it "The Mission" or "OMF." I remember the Mission lane, and the countless ruts (which were impossible to see in the rain, until l your vehicle was swallowed up)!

One of my last memories of your mother was when my family lived in Roslyn one street over from your folks. I went to visit with her one time when Anne was visiting. My husband and I were in the process of adopting from China, and I wondered if your mum could teach me to sing "Jesus loves me" in Chinese. I had learned part of it, but needed help remembering and with pronunciation. She delightedly obliged me, and sung that sweet song without hesitation or inhibition (wish I'd thought to tape it)! "Jesu Ai Wah."Thanks for sharing your musings and too your thoughts on suicide. Sometimes life can get awfully bleak, and then, unable to pray for ourselves we plead, "Holy Spirit, pray for me!"

Grace and Peace be yours in abundance,

Martha Hacken

Letter to My Dad June 12

I write to my father at least weekly, who lives in a retirement home in Lancaster, Pennslvania.

Dear Dad,

The calendar reminds me that your 93rd birthday is soon arriving. I dropped a package in the mail, which perhaps you will get sometime next week. Here is my account of your earliest days.

“Births were routine matters that caused little excitement because they happened every two years,” Reyn writes. “Babies were welcome because no expense was involved. New infants came free (F.O.B) with no payment for prenatal care, hospital fees, or doctor’s bills. In our case, Mrs. Steffenson who lived 2 ½ miles north of us acted as midwife and ushered us into the world. The absence of doctors may explain why we were all so healthy.” Dad was born June 22, 1916, in the southwest corner of the first floor of the Millard home. His birth certificate lists his father as Nicholas Wik, age 41 from Sweden, and Emma C. Olson, age 39 from Iowa. Lena Steffenson is listed as the midwife.

A picture taken about 1917 shows Dad with a fluff of hair and his mouth open in amazement. The girls look sweetly mischievous, and the older boys look handsome but bored. In another early picture, Dad with his tousled hair is a twin of our three-year-old Benjamin. Elvera holds younger brother Nick, who looks like a cherubic Santa Claus.

A family committee sometimes picked names for the babies. (“The naming committee is news to me,” Viola writes. “I was told that Mom chose our first names and Dad our second ones. They considered ‘Ella’ for me but went with ‘Viola.’ ”) I once thought dad’s middle name was a salute to Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), the Victorian poet buried in Westminster Abbey. But the romance of that name deflated when I found that Dad was called Tennyson because he was the tenth child, just as Viola was given a middle name of Octavia, the “sweetheart of Rome”, because she was the eighth child.”

I note also that father’s day arrives this year one day before your birthday. So happy father’s day as well.

We were at a pot luck yesterday at church mainly to recognize the efforts of the work team that Zach was involved in. He was involved in painting at an institution for the blind. They sent back a thank you letter with an overlay in Braille. He also worked at an animal shelter as well. Zach got a certificate for being a “cutie pie”—perhaps because he is so cheerful.
Nancy interviewed for another job at the high school on Thursday.

The book on COs was finally published, and I’ve mailed that to you. I wrote the following to Dr. Steven Taylor: “I just wanted to let you know that I received your book Acts of Conscience. All I can say is wow! What an impressive volume it is! In fact, I spent much of the evening reading it. It is well-written, thoughtful, and majesterial in its scholarship. I'm passing this along to my father as a birthday present, as he turns 93 this month.

“I was watching a documentary last night on the Tiananmen Square massacre. In reflecting on your point that acts of conscience by the WWII COs had little lasting institutional impact, the same could be said for the Beijing University students who lost their lives in 1989. And yet in both cases the potency of their ideas-- the idea of conscience and the idea of freedom-- continues to have enduring significance.

“Thanks again for your book and your scholarship. It has been my pleasure to have a small part in it.”

He responded:

“I'm delighted to learn that you like the book. I do think the lessons of the book can be generalized to various persons who have committed acts of conscience in the name of benefiting humanity. Thanks again for your help. Please send my regards to your father. ”

Here is an e-mail from Richard and Jean.

“It has been awhile since we've communicated with you re: Grace so thought perhaps an update would be timely. She has continued to improve in the lung area. She is still on oxygen at all times but there is no evidence of pneumonia at this point. On Monday of this week she moved back into the Health Care Center-the same room 204 that she was in before the hospitalization in March. She felt she could not live out her life in a hospital so it was her choice to move. While the care is not quite the same with the staff ratio being almost one on one in the hospital, she is being cared for. She is completely dependent on staff for all her personal needs. Her phone has been reinstated to her old number, so she can be reached at 605-598-4236. Her mail is still being forwarded to Steve's so Janet brings her mail and helps her open and read it. We do appreciate all your cards, letters and prayerful thoughts. She really is an "amazing" Grace. God Bless you all.”

Finally, here is a bit more of your story.

On May 1, 1946, Dad arrived in Shanghai and proceeded by rail to Chengchow, Honan province. He worked with a Mennonite relief organization on several agricultural projects, such as teaching students how to use tractors and raising milk cows. A Mennonite bulletin from 1947 describes Dad as “the fellow that eats and sleeps Chinese. Harold is our agricultural man. When he first arrived, he was assigned to the tractor project. Later, he was put on the agricultural and cotton loans. Now he is working on the heifer project.” Uncle Frank White, an Australian army officer, worked with Dad in China when Dad was serving in the Friends ambulance unit. “Australia had sent some cows as a present to China as the Japs had left nothing,” Frank writes. “One of the cows died and Harold who had a degree in animal husbandry was asked to go out with me to try and determine the cause of death—accident, exotic disease, or sabotage. To our horror and dismay, Chinese butchers had already skinning the cow with the carcass a welter of blood and gore lying on the raw side of the skin with the butchers hastily slicing off chunks of meat and packing it into buckets to sell to an unsuspecting public. To the best of my memory, we were unable to determine the cause of death.”

In 1981, Dad got a letter from James Liu from the Hengyang, Hunan Province, the People’s Republic of China. Lieu worked with Dad in the China Relief Unit, and he and his wife Hazel taught Dad Chinese. “When we saw you for the last time, that was in Shanghai,” Lieu writes. “In 1951, we went back to Hengyang and continued to work in the orphanage. After the liberation, Hazel was asked to work in one of the hospitals and I was asked to teach in one of the high schools. We are not young any more. Hazel is 70 years old and I am 77 years old. We want to live for Jesus during the rest of our lives.”

“In 1946, the United States sent General George C. Marshall to China to reconcile the Nationalists and the Communists,” I write in my book How to Do Business With the People’s Republic of China. “Marshall’s efforts continued until 1947 when he announced abandonment of his mediation. The U.S. State Department ordered the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from China. The civil war became more widespread. Battle raged not only for gaining territories but also for winning allegiance of populations. Within three year, the Communists forced the Kuomintang to set up a truncated regime on Taiwan. In January 1949, the Communists took Beijing without a fight." The Communist takeover of China forced Dad’s evacuation back to Shanghai in 1948. “We received good treatment at the hands of the Communists,” Dad wrote in 1947 from Kaifeng. “There is little doubt in my mind but that far reaching agrarian reforms are in order in China, and that the central government is failing in meeting the needs of the people. Nevertheless, resort to armed revolution and bloodshed as an accepted method in extending an economic or political ideology contrary to the prevailing one is, in my opinion, morally indefensible.” In 1979, Dad wrote that the “takeover was relatively bloodless as the Nationalist forces by then had little heart to resist the onslaught of the Communist armies. The CIM, which was the largest Protestant mission working in China, suffered no casualties as a result of the Communist takeover, though a number of the missionaries were held under house arrest, some like Arthur Miller for a few years.” The Chinese, Dad notes, are “patient, resilient, hard-working people. Many have learned to live with little.”

Dad was accepted into the China Inland Mission in February 1949, three months before China fell to the Communists. “We were happy to have an interview with you at our headquarter staff meeting yesterday, and after further prayer, we are prepared to accept your application and receive you as a member of the China Inland Mission”, writes Bishop Frank Houghton, the general director. You can sense Dad’s exaltation and excitement as he anticipates his adventure, in a letter written from Shanghai to Aunt Viola and Uncle Henry in February, 1949. “Greetings over the way and brace yourself for some news relative to my application to the China Inland Mission. Read—here it is … They have accepted me!” Dad ends the letter noting that “relations with my best girl are looking good. I’m now looking for the Lord to send her out to China.” In March 1951, Dad left China and three months later went to Malaya, which was then a British colony.

In October 1948, Mom went to China under the China Inland Mission, later renamed the Overseas Missionary Fellowship. In 1949, Mom wrote that “I was walking to school alone and the hot morning sun was shining brightly. As I was nearing the market place, the familiar sound of a battle plane made my ears prick up. Immediately, there were loud reports of defensive ack-ack fire. In no time the street cleared. I saw a woman quickly dart across the street to collect her children who were unconcernedly continuing their game of marbles. On other occasions, I have watched the bombs dropping. They would come down with a thundering noise above the roar of the engines, thick volumes of dark smoke marking the spot where they had fallen.” Mom saw “two large excavations where thirteen graves had been dislodged and large trees cut down” and also saw a plane crash. Mom supervised hospital wards and was also in charge of training Chinese girls. Mom and Dad met in a language school in Shanghai. They learned Mandarin and then later the Hakka dialect used by the Southern Chinese. On July 20th 1951, Dad was engaged to Mom.

My parent’s letters, now fragile and yellowing after fifty years, evokes a romance conducted with a literary flair that has today all but vanished. “Leisurely, our boat cuts her way through the calm blue seas so that traveling becomes a delight,” Mom wrote on June 23, 1951. “The scenery yesterday was a particular joy as we skirted by the islands at a very close distance. Much could be seen of the islanders in their huts surrounded by the coconut plantations while on the hill slopes farming seems to be the order of the day.

“Yesterday morning, my waking thoughts were of you and this continued throughout the whole day as I remembered your birthday. To say that I have missed you is putting it mildly. The Lord has been good to us in allowing us to have three weeks crammed full of happiness."

“Darling, you know that I would account it a small thing to circumvent the globe if that seemed necessary,” Dad wrote shortly afterwards. “I trust that God will be directing you clearly in respect to the timing of your coming to this land.

Darling, I think that you will love living here in this land. I am really beginning to fall in love with the place. So do come soon my love to share the wonders of this land with me. It’s God’s mission field for us, and my heart is really not hankering after another.”

“This is truly the happiest of all days for me,” Mom wrote from Australia on July 20, 1951. “The Lord has been good in making it clear that you are His choice so that I need not hesitate longer in answering your question. How I would love to be with you at this moment while I whisper clearly in your ear “Yes.” Harold, darling, I do belong to you and you belong to me because of Him.

“As long as I live, I will have a testimony to give concerning the Lord’s guidance as He began to unite our hearts. I cannot help but love you and now long for the day when we will share each other in a more perfect way.

“Even while I write this letter, I am wearing the ring (precious to us both) which will continue to remind me that you are not very far away, at least in thoughts.”

We hope you continue to be well and remain in our fondest thoughts and prayers.

Much Love.

Acts of Conscience

During World War II, my father was a conscientious objector. He later served in China and then later in Malay as a missionary under the China Inland Mission. He was present at the creation of two nations-- the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and Malaysia in 1952. My parents finished their missionary service helping the Vietnamese “boat people” in 1982.

My father refused to accept either combatant or non-combatant service in the military. Social ostracism was intense, universal, and unrelenting. “I had the opportunity to do some visiting with some army boys going back to the service,” Dad wrote to my aunt Elsie Wik Johnson 1941 from Dennison, Iowa. “They had been drinking and were feeling good and talkative. They wanted to know who I was and where I was going. When they found that I was a CO, we got into a little discussion that warmed up a bit. One of the boys led me to the back seat and gave me a lecture. We parted company without regrets.” And COs were not exempt from physical hazard. Among Dad’s letters is a 1943 publication by the National Service Board for Religious Objectors that mentions guinea pig experiments with COs, including the effects of starvation and malaria inoculations. In Dennison, Iowa, my father worked for four months at a Civilian Public Service Camp under Mennonite Central Committee direction. He then spent a year at a Wisconsin diary farm. The Mennonites accepted him for overseas relief work, but Congress passed legislation barring conscientious objectors from serving overseas. Dad was reassigned to camps in Indiana and also did fire prevention work in Santa Barbara, California. His next assignment was to work as a hospital attendant from three to eleven p.m. at the Philadelphia State Mental Hospital (Byberry), in the male incontinent building. The building was completely staffed by COs. On May 6, 1946, Life published an article by Albert Maisel titled, “Bedlam 1946: Most U.S. Mental Hospitals are a Shame and a Disgrace” that referenced some of what my father witnessed.

Dr. Steven J. Taylor, Director of the Center on Human Policy at Syracuse University, is publishing Acts of Conscience this Spring touches on my father’s experiences during World War II. this Spring that will touch on my father’s experiences during World War II.

Here is a description from the Spring 2009 catalog

In the mid- to late 1940s, a group of young men rattled the psychiatric establishment by beaming a public spotlight on the squalid conditions and brutality in our nation’s mental hospitals and training schools for people with psychiatric and intellectual disabilities.

In the mid- to late 1940s, a group of young men rattled the psychiatric establishment by beaming a public spotlight on the squalid conditions and brutality in our nation’s mental hospitals and training schools for people with psychiatric and intellectual disabilities. Bringing the abuses to the attention of newspapers and magazines across the country, they led a reform effort to change public attitudes and to improve the training and status of institutional staff. Prominent Americans, including Eleanor Roosevelt, ACLU founder Roger Baldwin, author Pearl S. Buck, actress Helen Hayes, and African-American activist Mary McLeod Bethune, supported the efforts of the young men.

These young men were among the 12,000 World War II conscientious objectors who chose to perform civilian public service as an alternative to fighting in what is widely regarded as America’s "good war." Three thousand of these men volunteered to work at state institutions, where they found conditions appalling. Acting on conscience a second time, they challenged America’s treatment of its citizens with severe disabilities. Acts of Conscience brings to light the extraordinary efforts of these courageous men, drawing upon extensive archival research, interviews, and personal correspondence.

The World War II conscientious objectors were not the first to expose public institutions, and they would not be the last. What distinguishes them from reformers of other eras is that their activities have faded from professional and popular memory. Steven J. Taylor’s moving account is an indispensable contribution to the historical record.

Calvary Fellowship Homes

Mom and Dad




Their New Home

Mom looks as well as I have seen her in the last few months. Here is an excerpt from a letter from Dad, written from the home on May 19th.

Time brings change. This is certainly a significant transition in our lives. I will try to supply a few details of what has happened. You may recall that Lucinda was based at Dresher Hill rehabilitation center for almost a month. Then came the change. This past Friday, Anne and Wayne drove over to Dresher to pick mup Lucinda and the belongings she had there for the drive to Lancaster. It was raining and continued to rain through much of our journey of roughly 80 miles. But the Lord brought us to Calvary Fellowhsip Homes safely.

Lucinda has improved in her ability to feed herself at meals and I would say some progress in communication but still has quite a long way to go if she is to make the next step to assisted living.

We are thankful that God is committed to meet our needs. In the good book we read "having food and raiment, let us be content."

Dad

This entire process can be like a consuming gray fog. I think it is important to compartmentalize -- to enjoy your immediate family and pets and your hobbies and put aside if for only a few hours thoughts about assisted living and dying.

I was interested to read that Mom showed emotion as you were leaving. While I was there, I never saw that, no matter how many tears were shed around her. I see that as a sign of recovery. Getting better is of course a relative term, but when I called her yesterday, her voice seemed clearer and she is now articulating compound sentences. However, Mom's cognition is no where near where she was at her prime, as the CD poignantly demonstrates.

I hope Dad continues his weekly letters, both for the discipline and because they do communciate important information. We had to smile when we put the letter we got two weeks ago up to a mirror to read it because he put the carbon paper on wrong. (Who uses carbon paper today?)

When it comes time to sell the house, Dad needs to be elsewhere. He needs to be given ample time to get the things he wants and he needs to clearly understand that when he leaves with those suitcases of things for himself and Mom, we will dispose of everything else one way or another. It is part of the paradox that is Dad that he is so tenacious onto holding onto stuff-- often broken and bad stuff such as chunks of metal and sticks of wood. I tried to throw out a box of magazines circa 1989 and Dad of course recovered them. For someone who is so spiritual, I would be hard pressed to find someone who is so materialistic. For some one who has so much faith, I would be hard pressed to find some one who is so faithless especially about family. For some one who is so frugal, I would be hard pressed to find someone who is so prone to gambling (excuse me, investing) in the stock market casino. For some one who has preached the blessings of God, I would be hard pressed to find some one who has lived a life so devoid of joy and fun. For some one who is so fearless in his faith, I would be hard pressed to find some one so fearful about the vicissitudes of life. For some one who is so gentle and kind, I would be hard pressed to find some one who as a consequence of his decisions so cruel and callous. It is these contradictions that have driven me as nothing else has to question almost everything that Dad fundamentally believes especially it terms of what it means to be a Christian and a father. From the very first breath I took, my own life has been a testimony to Dad's monstrous choices. The very week before Mom had her first stroke, I asked her if it was true that I was induced so we could go on the ocean liner to America in time and not lose our tickets. It was true, Mom said, and she added that someday she would tell me about it. Well, that day will of course no longer be. However, I have seen time again Dad putting money before health (as in the needlessly lengthy arguments for Dad to go to the hospital for his hip injury and Mom when she suffered her first stroke), religious organizations before family and people (where is the Biblical justification for boarding schools and homes?), and an ethic that seems largely predicated on the idea that ends justify the means (my cuteness as a baby was a means to win people to Christ, for example). "Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long upon the earth." But is some ways, in ways that have hurt a lot of people, Dad has not being honorable. I've talked to Dad about this, and his position generally is that he is who he is and I need to be tolerant of him. Ok, but it seems to me that contradicts the premise of his entire life-- that people with God's help can convert. I don't think he can change because I think he likes the way he is right now. Evil it has been said is the shadow cast by good, and the great good that Mom and Dad have done have created whether or not they realize it great evil, pain, and suffering as well. I have come to realize that Dad doesn't make bad decisions, as all decisions that Dad makes follow logically from his presuppositions. However, I do believe that he generally is incapable of making ethically-grounded decisions-- the right choice in distinction to the religious choice. Dad, for example, won't do laundry on Sunday but he also won't spend an extra $500 so Mom can right first class on an airline. I don't think much can be done about it now except to resolutely resolve not to pass that broken baton to my children. But it does make me so sad.

I chatted with Tim for well over a half hour yesterday. I tried to keep it light, reassurring, and encouraging. However, I suggested that he separate the mail he gets into junk mail, personal letters, and bills. Baby steps. I also urged him to extend trust and transparency on financial matters especially to Wayne so that a structure can be put into place so that he can avoid to use his word "destitution".