Sons and mothers
Janet Scott writes about the sorrow of bereavement and how Friends found comfort
On the 7 June 1918 the Friend contained notices of the deaths of Norman Gripper and Hugo Jackson, members of the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU) working in the Section 14 ambulance convoy. More details emerged over the following weeks. On 14 June the Friend published a report from the FAU, which contained the following:
A telegram and a pencilled note on the back of an envelope contain all the news I have received so far of the loss of two members of the Convoy, Norman Edward Gripper, who came out to the Unit in January, 1916, and worked at two of the stations of the Aide Civile Belge, prior to his joining the Convoy in June, 1916, and Hugo Harrison Jackson, who came out in December, 1914, and worked at the Sacré-Cœur and other of the Unit’s Hospitals until he became a member of the Convoy in December, 1915. They were killed on the 27th, and buried on the 28th. The car which Norman Gripper was apparently driving at the time, had to be abandoned.
Every member, not only of the Convoy, but of the whole Unit, joins me in a feeling of profound regret at the loss of two eager and devoted comrades, and in tendering an expression of the deepest sympathy to the stricken parents.
A fortnight later on 28 June the Friend was able to give more details. The Convoy had been ordered to stand by ready for an imminent German attack. At midnight orders came to carry off the sick, but meanwhile the attack had started and calls came for the cars to go to the neighbouring town. The report continued:
To get up from the central post the cars had to pass through the town, and it was there that Norman Gripper and Hugo Jackson met their death. Their car was in convoy with two others and a shell exploded close to them, killing Gripper instantaneously while Jackson lingered on for a short time, dying… without regaining consciousness. They were buried with military honours in the hospital grounds, an English Presbyterian Chaplain officiating. Four hours later the hospital was in German hands. The car was abandoned as it was severely damaged.
The report continued:
From that time up to June 1st the Convoy was almost continuously on the move through villages which were being shelled, bombed and swept by machine-gun fire, along roads terribly congested with refugees, and transport of all kinds, and where often it was only possible to move a few yards at a time.
Bereavement
So many of the costs of war were borne by mothers, in grief, in anxiety and in care for those left behind. On 14 June a letter appeared in the Friend signed simply ‘A Mother’. It shows how one woman responded to the sorrow of the loss of her son:
Dear Friend – As one who has borne the same crushing blow, the sudden loss of a beloved son, my heart goes out to all others similarly afflicted. I know how this earthly life seems a blank for evermore. Life without the dear loved one seems an impossibility. Our every thought and interest were bound up with his. But as the first shattering shock subsides, our faith steadies itself and we flee to the only refuge for bereaved souls – Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and for ever. Only in Him is any comfort to be found. But oh, how tenderly He deals with us, taking us under the shadow of His wings, and showing us how in that safe resting place we are near our beloved one who is also living there. So we come to realise something of the joy that our dear boy is experiencing in the presence of his Lord, and to give thanks constantly that he is promoted to the high joyous service of Heaven, and that the pain and agony are ours alone.
Is not this sorrow a call to us to live a life of closer communion with God, not just now and then but always?… As we do this and rest our torn hearts upon His strength, we shall… see this life in its true proportion. Such a little bit of Eternity…
So I have longed that the Lord’s comfort may be the portion of every bereaved heart. This does not mean that the sorrow will be lessened, but that we shall be upheld in the arms of Everlasting Love, and there in that safe resting place shall learn from Him all that He would teach us by it.
A missionary mother’s experience of war
The bi-monthly supplement on the missionary service of the Society in June carried reports of work in China, where there was conflict between warring bands. Dorothy H Rodwell had travelled the three day journey from her home to a city where there was medical care for the birth of her child. On 21 June she wrote in the Friend:
Henry was born about 12.30 a.m., and by 8 o’clock a battle was raging for the possession of the city. The city was held by Northerners, and the Southerners were advancing… We could hear the sound of guns; then came an explosion as a shrapnel shell burst in a field only fifty yards from the house. Before long we were in the midst of a rattle of rifle fire, which continued incessantly all day.
The Hospital and house were in the line of fire: bullets constantly hit the roofs, a number struck the house, some coming in through the windows. My room was on the sheltered side of the house, but one bullet came in through the window of another room, a partition wall, and the back of a wardrobe… we found it lying in the drawer among baby’s dresses. It was not a pleasant experience to lie there and listen to the whiz of passing bullets and the clatter as they hit the house or tiles, and you can well imagine how thankful we were when at dusk the Southerners took the city, and the bugles sounded to cease firing. Fortunately I had been able to sleep for two hours in the morning, and the night following the battle was quiet, so neither little Henry nor I seemed much the worse for the excitement.
Dorothy Rodwell went on to describe how her husband arrived a week later just in time for another battle when the Northerners regained the city. She added:
It is a great help to us to know that so many of our friends are remembering us in prayer.
Motherhood
Olaf Baker of the Emergency Committee for Helping Aliens was asked to trace a lapsed case, Mrs P. In the 5 July issue of the Friend he wrote of his search. He did not locate Mrs P, but found her friend Mrs S, a Romanian married to an Egyptian serving in the British army, who told him her friend’s story:
After the internment of her husband, owing to his German birth, and the consequent breaking up of their home, the shock to Mrs P’s nerves was so great that she went utterly to pieces. They had been a devoted couple, and at last the separation together with the loss of their home, so preyed on her mind that she several times attempted to take her life, the last time by poison… the terrified neighbours sent for the police, and she was finally taken off to the asylum.
In the meantime there was a little girl of ten, the only child, to be provided for. This Mrs S herself undertook to do, and for two years had supplied the place of a mother to the child, treating her exactly as one of her own children… the little girl was extremely depressed… [and] they found great difficulty in keeping her from brooding.
Olaf Baker commented on the curious position of a Romanian married to an Egyptian, mothering a child born of an English mother and a German father in spite of the fact that she had difficulty in providing for her own family. It was still another of those apparently endless complications induced by the war!
And finally…
On 29 June 1918, Mary Alice Coster, cook-housekeeper, wife of Jack Coster, private soldier, gave birth to a daughter, Laura, in due time mother of Janet Scott, who has compiled the reports in the ‘From the archive’ series.
