Beatrice Lillian Alexander

     Beatrice Lillian Alexander was born on 24 February 1888.¹ She married, at age 31, Elmer George Boyer, age 28, son of John M. Boyer and Mary Ann Stabler, on Thursday, 4 September 1919 at Vancouver, Clark County, Washington.² Beatrice Lillian Alexander died on 27 May 1977 at age 89 years, 3 months and 3 days.¹
     She and Elmer George Boyer were a missionaries in the Belgian Congo, Africa for 30 years between 1930 and 1960. Beatrice Lillian (Alexander) Boyer Letter

11 May 2021

In going through my grandmother’s papers, I found a letter written to her in 1933 by a Mrs. Elmer G. Boyer. I did some research and found that the writer was Beatrice Lillian Alexander (24 Feb 1888 - 27 May 1977) who married Rev. Elmer George Boyer (13 Jun 1891 - 19 Nov 1973) on 4 Sep 1919. They were Christian (Disciples of Christ) missionaries in Africa; the letter was posted from what was then known as the Belgian Congo. The letter (the text of which follows) is ten pages long, written in beautiful penmanship and full of interesting details about a trip they took to small villages in the bush.

I have no idea how my grandmother (Maude Wharton Baughman) knew of Mrs. Boyer. My grandmother was a member of the Disciples of Christ church in Indiana, so perhaps she heard of Mrs. Boyer and wrote to her. The fact that she held onto the letter would indicate that she found it historically valuable. I’m hopeful that descendants of siblings of Lillian Alexander Boyer (and/or Elmer Boyer) will be able to read her words after so many years.


Kathryn Baughman Wilkens
Upland, California

(Postmark illegible)
return address:
Mrs. E. G. Boyer
Wema, D. C. C. M.
Coquilhatville
Congo Belge, W. C. Africa

Addressee:
Mrs. Maud E. Baughman
221 S. 12
New Castle, Indiana

Etats Unis d’Amerique

Wema, Africa

October 29, 1933

Dear Mrs. Baughman & friends at New Castle:

After a three weeks trip into our village work I return to find your interesting letter awaiting me. I want you to go along with Mr. Boyer and I on this trip but how inadequate my words are to describe the things which we saw and experienced.

The day was hot. But in getting our carriers started with our beds, food, clothing, and camp outfit and our house locked up, it was nine o’clock before we got started. We rode our bicycles, so we could go faster than the carriers when the paths were good, but when we encountered hills, swamps, and forests where it was necessary to walk then they walk faster than we do.

I went on ahead of Mr. Boyer and at the first village some of the school children accompanied me a long ways into the forest. They will have school vacation while we are gone and seem to be sorrowful instead of glad.

We ate our lunch of bread and butter and hard boiled eggs by the side of a beautiful creek. That night we stayed in the chief’s large mud house. The people crowded around and regarded us curiously but friendly. That night we had a meeting in their midst and quite a crowd gathered.

The second day we traveled on through forests and swamps and villages until we were tired and stayed with another chief and had a meeting in their village.

The third day we reached our first teachers and their little band of Christians. The teachers had only been in this village three months so part of their time had been spent making them a temporary leaf house and clearing away the forest so that they could have a garden. We had a meeting that night and the next day being Sunday we stayed with them starting the day with an early morning prayer meeting. Then about seven o’clock we walked at least a mile to a beautiful river and baptized a man and his wife. The man was a blacksmith making the knives and anklets for the heathen village. He said that he had heard the words of God for a long time and one day the words entered his heart and he couldn’t rest until he became a Christian. So he gave up his work as blacksmith for the heathen village, gave up three of his four wives. The fourth wife wanted to become a Christian too so they were both baptized and united in Christian marriage.

Then we wended our way back thru the grand old forest, thru the heathen village, past the houses of the Christians to the large leaf building where we had the Church service. The people sat on poles, leaves, sticks, the ground and sat as quietly as tho’ on the most comfortable of seats. In the afternoon the Christians had four meetings in different parts of the heathen village which was a very long one. The two we went to were well attended. One of the most frequent questions was as to whether I was a woman.

The next morning we were up at four o’clock. The boy cooked our breakfast over a little bonfire while we packed our bed and boxes. As soon as it was daylight we said good-bye to the little band of Christians. The young wife of one of the teachers looked like she was about to cry. It was her first time she had gone away from home. I met her mother yesterday and she asked me about her girl and then said, “If her husband finishes his six months and returns he will have to go alone as I won’t let my daughter go again.” I have been so interested in this village but it is very hard work as the older people are afraid to let the young people become Christians because they are afraid we will train them for Christian service and they will have to leave home.

Some of the Christians went to the river with us to help row us across in a large canoe hewed out of a log. It was cool and the river was beautiful at that early morning hour. The paddlers made up songs to fit the occasion and their paddles rhythmically kept time to their boating song. We were very tired when we got in that night and after a service and a hot meal we went to bed. Our noon meal was always a cold lunch in some shady place in the forest, usually beside a stream.

The next night we reached the second place where we have teachers and Christians. They gave us such a welcome that we felt as tho’ we were arriving home. One of the teachers bro’t us a bunch of ripe bananas which tasted good to us and our weary carriers. We had a good meeting that evening. Early the next morning the wooden drum called the people together for a Bible class and prayers. Those who want to become Christians are expected to attend this early morning meeting as they know so little of Christ’s teaching concerning the Christian life. Afterwards they had school. I was glad to find that both of the evangelists’ wives could read a little. So few of the women in this part of Africa can read. We talked with the people until about 11 o’clock before leaving. I found several old people, fathers and mothers of some of our Christians, who expressed a desire to become Christians.

That night we again stayed in a heathen village. But they always listen to the Gospel message so gladly. We have so few young men trained for the ministry and so many villages asking for teachers. The three weeks we were on this trip we went through more than one hundred villages. We only have teachers in eight of them. Can you imagine the stupendous task which is awaiting Wema our newest Mission Station in Africa. We went through only a portion of the territory which Wema is expected to evangelize. We try to send two teachers to each one of these villages as they both teach school and preach. They may be able to only hold services in different parts of their own villages. When not to far they go to the villages surrounding them to hold services. We feel that two men, and their wives when they are married, should be in each village. They are so shortly out of heathenism themselves, the Christians are so few and still so weak and their heathen relatives all around them trying to draw them back into their old life, that we feel there will be less danger of the young preachers being tempted by the old life if there are two of them. And there is certainly enough work to keep both of them busy.

The next night we stayed with one of our teachers. His wife had gone home. We could see very little impression he had made on that heathen village. The few Christians were all out in the forest trying to get copal to sell to pay their tax. They have so few ways to make money that it takes them a good part of the year to gather together enough money to pay their tax. They sometimes live in the forests for months at a time in their little leaf houses.

At the next place the young preacher was alone. The older man was kept on the Mission station under the nurses care as he has been sick. We do not have a Doctor here at Wema. The most promising feature at this village was the interest of the chief. He stayed after the evening meeting to ask Mr. Boyer questions. He wanted to become a Christian but he had seven wives. When he was told a Christian could only have one wife he was very sorrowful. Then he begged if he could become a Christian if he only had two wives. But again he was told that he would have to put away all but one. Men of any position of importance always have more than one wife so you can see it means something when these men become Christians—giving up their wives means giving up their wealth as they have passed a certain amount of money for every one of these women.

In the meantime I was talking to the chief’s wives. They said, “We are only six now. One ran away with another man.” I questioned them as to the number of children they had. One wife had two children, one wife had one child, and the rest none. They marveled when I said my mother had ten children.

The second Sunday we had services in a mud church. The first time we had had services in a church since leaving home. Forked sticks with poles across served as seats. With the un-usual crowd one of the seats broke down but the people simply remained quietly seated on the mud floor and the service went on. Our carriers were all Christians and helped with the singing and we had a very good service.

I had a chance to bake bread here in an iron pot over some coals. It was very good. Also the boy went to the little creek some distance away and washed our clothes. The first thing we do when we get into the mud hut which is given to us to stay in, is to get some big leaves to lay on the floor to put our things on. We never know who has stayed in the house before us and there are so many dreadful skin diseases such as ulcers, yaws, leprosy, and the like. We always feel like the leaves have been washed by the rain and are clean.

The teachers here were taking care of a poor out-caste woman on the edge of the forest. One of the women told me very seriously that she talked to Satan all the time. She refused to stay with her people. The teachers’ wives carry her food. I went to see her but couldn’t make anything out of her crazy talk.

One day we came to an old village site which was so torn up and trampled by elephants that as the natives expressed it, “it was fear itself.” Great trees were toppled over as so much grass. One of the men said the elephants must have been there only a couple of hours before we were. When the elephants walk down the paths their large feet make big holes until we cannot ride our wheels but must walk. Our bicycles also must be lifted over the trees which they break down in our path. If there is any obstruction whatsoever in the path the natives simply make a path around it. Our path many times resembles the windings of a snake.

Then for three days we traveled through villages where there are no Christians and where the missionaries have not gone before. What a contrast! They had never seen missionaries before and thought we were state people and so they were afraid of us and would run away and hide. The village would appear to be deserted. One of our men told us that the Mission had tried to put an evangelist in one of these villages once but the people had thrown spears at him and tried to kill him so he was taken away. Usually with a smile and a greeting I can get a response from any of these people. But in these villages they only stared at me. If they met us in the path they turned and ran and would not answer our questions. One large strapping fellow was holding a big log upright in the path. When he looked up and saw me he let the log crash nearly striking me and dived for the forest. We would see water bottles, wood, and baskets of food from the gardens scattered along the path and we would know the people had seen us first and hid.

I was looking at a new grave perched high upon an ant hill—not really the grave as they bury the body someplace else. It was the little mud house where they keep the things of the dead man. The front was painted with red clay. A lantern hung on each side. A row of spoons both large and small were stuck clear across the front like so many pickets. I did not climb up the any hill to see what was inside. Just then a woman came along and said it was for her brother who had just been killed. He was the capita of the village and one of the heathens had run a spear through him. The state hadn’t yet replaced him with another capita so we decided not to stay in that village over night as it would be hard to get food for our carriers. Half of them were school boys who were with us.

We had to travel until late that afternoon before we found a village where they agreed for us to stay over night and would promise us food. A big heathen dance was going on here. But soon a palm branch had clouds of dust rolling out of a large mud hut as we knew they were agreeing for us to stay. I can’t describe the dance, those naked, glistening bodies rubbed with grease and red paint, twisted and leaped and gyrated to the rhythmic beat of the wooden drums.

Then after three days we came to a company post where a lone white man was staying. These men usually have a black wife and we frequently run across half-caste children. This white man said he had been in Congo fourteen years this time without going home. I said, “You must like Congo then.” He said, “No, if I had the money I’d go to Europe and stay.”

There were about thirty Christians from different villages working for this company man. They begged for someone to preach for them. One of the men had a Bible and could read a little so we told him to gather the people together for Bible reading and prayers. They met in the mud house where we were staying that night for a service in spite of a heavy rain. They were so desirous of hearing the words of God again. They went to work at six o’clock but they begged to meet in an early morning prayer meeting with us before we left. We ought to have a preacher there to strengthen them as well as to convert others as it is a large village.

For six hours I sat on a tin trunk in the bottom of a canoe while black glistening bodies rowed steadily for four hours thru a large swamp under over-hanging trees and ferns. The last two hours was in the river itself where the African sun crisped my bare arms and neck until I was almost a native myself. In the swamp it was somewhat dangerous as our bicycles would catch on over-hanging trees and vines. We ourselves could double up. Sometimes the water was so shallow the carriers would get out and shove the canoe off of submerged logs and sand. Some turns were so narrow that the canoe would have to back up to get started thru the small openings. But the foliage and vines and flowers were beautiful and so the time did not seem so long.

We still are a week from home but this letter is long enough so I will jump over intervening space. The attractive mission station gladdened our eyes, and a hot bath with lots of soap made us feel more hygienic to meet our friends and co-workers.

Sincerely yours,
Mrs. Elmer G. Boyer. According to the Social Security Administrations Death Index Beatrice's last known residence was Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon.¹