MOM’S MEMOIRS – IRENE LOUISE (NEE KUCKKAN) MUELLER
(Continued)
 
Mom’s Autobiography – Chapter 12 – In Book, Page 29

In Nyasaland, President Kennedy Assassinated, Stephanie Born, Schools, Debbie Hurt, Snakes, Gary Nelson Hurt, Malawi and Zambia Independence, Missionary Conferences

And so the mission work in Nyasaland continued; I say “continued” because the mailing list and our African Lutherans who had moved from Northern Rhodesia had brought the Word of God with them to their friends and relatives. Both Ray Cox and my husband had services for the English-speaking people in the Nelsons’ house, and they also went out to the bush and at first served a group of Africans which Mr. Cylice Bowman, a “pastor” of that congregation, had gotten together. They were all very interested in hearing the pure Word of God. What a joy it was to worship with them. From the very beginning, our mission work in Nyasaland was blessed!

While we were in Blantyre, President John Kennedy was shot November 23, 1963. Dick, being a ham radio operator, heard it on his ham radio in the car and came running into the house to tell us. This happened when Mr. Nelson, the head of the Peace Corps in Nyasaland, was having a meeting with the Peace Corps volunteers in town. So Dick drove there to tell them. That news broke up the meeting.

The Cox family and our family arrived in Nyasaland June 16, 1963. Both Lois and I were pregnant. Bradley William Cox was born December 15th. His brothers and sisters are Gregory, Lynnea, Michael, and Leonard. Our Stephanie was born December 4th. Her brothers and sisters at that time were Deborah, Richard, Timothy, and Susan (Steven wasn’t born yet). We had a European doctor, but by the time he arrived at the Blantyre hospital, Stephanie had arrived. The nurse had delivered her. Dr. Mowschenson arrived and said, “Ach, I see the baby is here!” Both Bradley and Steph were baptized on the same Sunday, becoming heirs of eternal salvation….another blessing!

When our beautiful little baby, Stephanie, was only about a month old, she had a lot of Putsi fly larvae under her skin on her chest and back. Please see AFRICAN TRIP – Excerpt from Wednesday, April 3, 1957. We took her to Dr. Mowschenson, a European doctor, but were told we just had to wait until the larvae matured enough to squeeze them out. That’s what we did.

Our older children, Debbie, Dickie, and now Timmy went to St. Andrew’s School, a government school, which was not too far from where we lived.  They even learned some French there, and came home and said, “Bonjour, Madame” and “Bonjour, Monsieur”. There were spread-out “monkey bars” on the playground, and the school children had much fun on them. I do remember that someone (not one of our children) was hurt when playing on them.

The children could walk home from school, and one day the boys proudly came home with a huge chameleon they found on the road. Ah, yes, it was beautiful in their eyes. It sat on the curtains above the window in their room, and every time I went in there, it stuck out its tongue and hissed at me with its long tongue sticking out. One day it disappeared, and I got the blame. Did they really think I would touch that thing? To this day I will not even touch a snake. We don’t know what happened to the chameleon, but one day when I took the children to a little zoo in Blantyre, there was one just like it. Was it their chameleon – we didn’t know.

One day when Dick was at the Cox home and Ray and he were translating our Lutheran literature from English into Chinyanja, Debbie was playing below the house with Rita Nelson, our neighbor girl, when she came screaming to the house. I ran out, and her hand was bleeding terribly. She and Rita had been playing in a shallow creek. She fell down and cut her hand on glass. I bandaged it to stop the bleeding, called Dick to quickly come to the hospital, and ran over to the neighbor’s to ask her to take us to the hospital. Dick came, and so did Dr. Mowschenson. Dick kept asking if the tendons were cut because it was a very bad cut in the palm of her hand (we had a Physiology course taught by Coach Len Umnus at Northwestern Prep, so we knew something about the human body). The doctor said, “No”, and sewed up her hand. Later on she could not bend two fingers, so when we went on furlough, we took Debbie to a Madison, Wisconsin, hospital. They operated on one finger. The finger improved, but Debbie was so terribly sick that she said that she would not have the other finger operated on. The Lord again took care of us. Debbie can do almost everything with her hand.

One day I heard the Africans shouting, so I went outside to find out why. They were all running along a hedge and shouting, “Njoka! Njoka!”, which means snake. The snake, which probably was a mamba, because it was going very fast, was crawling through the long hedge near our house. They went after it all through the hedge, and probably killed it.

There was a Country Club in Blantyre with the only swimming pool in town. The fee was very reasonable, so we joined it. Our neighbor children, Gary, and Rita Nelson, also went swimming there. One day we weren’t there yet, but as we entered the gate, we heard screaming. Gary had climbed up on the pool house, and jumped on a water faucet which didn’t have the top on it on the cement around the pool. When we arrived, they were getting his foot off the faucet, and then took him to the hospital. Gary Nelson later became a policeman in Washington, D. C. where the Nelsons lived after they returned to the United States.

Dick and Ray went to Missionaries’ Conferences in Lusaka, Northern Rhodesia, 650 miles from Blantyre. They would be gone at least a week. During that time, I carried on with our daily duties, getting the children off to school, cooking, baking, etc. I bought a lot of puzzles for us to put together (there wasn’t television in Nyasaland). We would put them together and leave the last piece for their Daddy to put in when he came back. Since we didn’t have a second car, sometimes the children and I would walk to town from Sunnyside, cutting across the golf course, if we needed groceries. You can imagine how happy everyone was when Daddy came back from his trip, usually with a gift for each one of us!

NYASALAND INDEPENDENCE (NOW MALAWI)

Prince Philip (the Duke of Edinburgh) came for Nyasaland’s Independence from England. Independence was granted to Nyasaland July 6, 1964, and then it became Malawi. One day Dick and I were walking and stopped when a limousine in front of us stopped in front of us and out stepped Prince Philip! That was quite a thrill! The big celebration was held in the Blantyre stadium. Lois and I stayed home with the children, and Ray and Dick went to the stadium. Dick said he’d never forget it. The stadium was full of people. The Union Jack was flying, the lights all went out, and when they came on, there was the Malawi flag flying! The cheering in the stadium was ear-splitting! The African people were so very happy. We felt privileged to be there at that time. It was quite different from when the Congo got its independence from Belgium – thank God!

NORTHERN RHODESIA INDEPENDENCE (NOW ZAMBIA)

Northern Rhodesia also gained its Independence from England on October 24, 1964. Ray Cox and Dick were at the Lusaka stadium for that celebration too. Again, Lois and I stayed behind in Malawi with our children who were in school. Dick said that the Union Jack was flying, the lights all went out, and when they came on, there was the Zambian flag flying! Again, the stadium shook with the excitement and cheering of the people! Thank God, the Independence also went peacefully there.

Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia came to Blantyre a couple of times. When the motorcade went by, he looked at us and waved. That was quite a thrill!