As I was reading through local newspapers in preparation for
the Circa 1920 exhibition, a story “Gillets En Route to Africa” from the Daily
Gazette Times of September 4, 1918 caught my eye. As donors to the Horner collection often have
interesting personal stories, I was eager to read more about the Gillets.
Ira Gillet,
born in Ohio in 1889, transferred to Oregon State University when his parents
moved to Tangent in 1911. At OSU, he was
president of the Cosmopolitan Club and organized a campus branch of the YMCA
and the first student volunteer missionary board. He then attended Oberlin’s
School of Theology. After graduation and ordination, he married Edith Riggs,
the daughter and granddaughter of missionaries to Turkey. Missionary work could
be dangerous. Edith's grandfather, Elias
Riggs, a linguist who translated the Bible into Turkish, was killed by a
band of “brigands” who thought he possessed “booty.” They found he carried only
a Bible.
Even
recognizing the dangers, Ira and Edith Gillet became missionaries and sailed
from Seattle to Inhambane, a city on the southeast coast of Africa. From there they traveled 30 miles inland to
the Kambini Missionary School. The country at that time was controlled by
Portugal (and known as Portuguese East Africa) which did not provide much
education to native Africans. The Kambini school offered primary education and
vocational training in several fields.
Ira brought information on agricultural practices from OSU and taught carpentry
skills; Edith taught kindergarten.
 |
| Ira and Edith Gillet |
Methodist Sunday schools in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho
contributions bought the Gillets a truck which was equipped with over-sized
tires and built-in bunks and cupboards which would allow them to travel to
distant communities. Here's what the Gillets said about the truck in their
newsletter:
“It is too bad to cover up any of that bright red enamel
with any other paint. Especially so when
one remembers the taste of the folks who will run down the path to watch for
the coming of their truck through the African bush. But the top, at least, must have a coat of
aluminum—just one more attempt to keep the inside as cool as possible. And then one of the panels must also have a
coat of aluminum to serve as the screen at night when pictures of the life of
Christ are shown to groups large and small as they sit on the sand beneath the
coconut and cashew trees, delighted, amazed, and deeply impressed.
"There is another panel on the other side, and that must have
a coat of blackboard paint. After all,
this is a Movable School; and what is school without a blackboard on which to
write songs, recipes, and sketches of the work in hand?”
After 41 years, the Gillets retired from missionary work and
returned to Oregon in 1959. On their
departure the community at Kambini presented Ira Gillet with this walking
stick, inscribed with his name. The
stick also has a detachable metal blade so that it could be used in place of a
native firewood hatchet.
In addition, one of the women presented the Gillets with the
leopard skin shown in the photograph above.
The Gillets passed on her message in one of their newsletters:
“Take this to America with you and show it wherever you
go. This is our greeting to all of your
friends. Tell them for us that we think
this is a beautiful skin. It is neither
white entirely nor black entirely: it is
both black and white. That is why it is
so pretty. So it is with God’s great
human family. We are not all white, and
not all of us are black. But if the
black folks and the white folks will help each other and live together in
harmony, then God’s family will be beautiful.”
This post started out with a newspaper article about the
Gillets' departure for Mozambique. The country is again the subject of a newspaper story as a devastating cyclone has
ravaged the area. The next post will have more on the Gillets in Mozambique and
their contributions to the Horner Collection.
By
Martha Fraundorf, Volunteer for Benton County Historical Society, Philomath,
Oregon
My name is Edith Riggs Barakat. My parents named me for my father's sister Edith Clara Riggs Gillet because she never had any children. Just to notify you that you have some wrong information in regards to Edith's grandfather. Elias Riggs, the linguist was her paternal grandfather and died in 1901. Her maternal grandfather was Justin Wright Parsons. He was killed in 1849 by bandits in the desert 7 hours from, his home in Bajkejak. His camel was loaded with sacks of bibles which the bandits thought were goldbricks.
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