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“...twice a year by the CHEFOO SCHOOLS ASSOCIATION
Edited By Dorothy Cox
34 Pirie Road West Bergholt Colchester Essex UK CO6 3TA
THE CHEFOO SCHOOLS (Founded In 1880)
Chefoo was established by the China Inland Mission at Chefoo (Yantai) in Northern China to provide an education for the children of missionaries and the business and diplomatic communities. In 1951 the school left China to relocate in South East Asia. Two Chefoo Schools are currently operating as junior schools in Japan and Malaysia under the Overseas Missionary Fellowship.
CHEFOO SCHOOLS ASSOCIATION (Founded In 1908)
To operate as an association for all former scholars and past and present members of the staffs of the Chefoo Schools.
To sustain interest amongst its members in matters concerning the Schools and in one another.
To afford means whereby its members are kept in touch with each other and with the Schools.
To promote friendly relationship between all persons in any way connected with the Schools.
Membership in the Association...”
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“...children are busily searching the grounds for tadpoles, insects and other small creatures for their ‘miniature zoo’.
As we rejoice with the children in the wonderful surroundings the Lord has given us here, our minds often turn these days to the special meetings being held next month to decide the future of Chefoo School, Nanae. More and more families now work in cities where they can commute to an international school, whilst more families, especially Asian ones, are now choosing local Japanese schools. Having seen so many wonderful blessings that God has brought to the children's lives during their lives here, we, and our OMF leaders in Japan, would love to see Chefoo School continuing here at Nanae. Yet, with only 8 children expected in September and questionnaires to parents of pre-school OMF children suggesting a continuing fall in numbers below this in the next few years, much discussion has been going on about whether the time has come to close Chefoo School here in Nanae and to set up...”
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“...Chefoo, but to the actual site of the building, as an
acknowledgement of kindness shown the Chinese wounded during the war.
The foundation stone of the Boys’ School building was laid on 15 June 1896, and subsequently Foundation Day was observed every year with boat races, tennis tournaments and a cricket match against the Settlement.
Leaving for Internment
We now jump half a century to the next Japanese War. Jimmy Bruce, in his Birds in the Fowler’s Net, recalls that when in November 1942 the schools and staff were moving from the compound to internment in Temple Hill, they discovered “that we were desperately short of electric light bulbs". He and Robin Hoyte were despatched back to the compound by bike “on a mission to collect some precious light bulbs from the empty buildings”. He tells us that having completed his mission, he climbed to the weathercock of the Boys’ School and “scratched a faint JB on the figurehead before sliding and climbing downwards to join my companion”.
He nostalgically...”
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“...1996 - I spent four weeks in Malaysia and Singapore. It was wonderful being able to return to Chefoo and then to catch up with many local friends. In true style I was well fed! This time two UK friends joined me and we met up with people whom they had met when visiting me at Chefoo. 1996 also saw a visit from HEATHER CALDER - New Zealand. We had a great time catching up and enabling Heather to experience the British ‘Marble Hill’ summer concert! (This is held outside.)
I am now on the Chefoo Schools Association Committee and would love to see you younger people attend the annual reunion. Do put it in your diary for 13 September 1997.
Work, church and covenanters remain the same, as well as singing with the All Souls’ Choir and cycling for charity.
ANDREW FEWSTER (Malaysia 1976-82) Having worked in Christian radio in Leeds for two years, I’m now trying to find secular media work in Leicester to keep me going. At present I’m working two days a week at ‘Leicester Sound’ -the local commercial...”
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“...position with Signal Pharmaceuticals in San Diego.
Complications are in store for the WARNER family. On 5 July GRACE (WARNER) HARRIS (1970-76) and GARETH (1974-79) will see younger sister MAREE marry Gareth Walters. Gareth Warner’s wife is Marie, so now there will be a Gareth and Marie Warner, and a Gareth and Maree Walters on the same family tree. Gareth and Maree were both on the OMF GO Team (for young people) led by AVERIL BENNETT (Kuling, 1947-51) that ran outreach programmes in Thai high schools last December.
Likewise families continue to grow. Peter and SONIA (MUNRO) WINSLADE (1977-79) have had their first child - Larissa Kate born 17 April. Peter and Sonia are now in Tauranga where Peter teaches at Bethlehem College. Andrew and ANNE (HEWLETT) SUSSEX (1973-74) also have their first - Luke, born on March 31. Future reunions involving the Cameronian Chefusians will probably need more space for the offspring than for their parents, with recent or pending additions to the families of SCOTT...”
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“...exploded and he was killed. Frank was hurt, but not badly, and William must have been a little further away, because he was not hurt at all. It certainly shook us all up that one of the people we all knew very well had been killed. I have copied out the obituary which I read in a magazine a short time ago because it mentions John, and also Edna Rist’s father who died about this time.
“At the close of the Easter holidays, and again at the close of the summer term, a dark shadow was cast over the schools by bereavement. In the first instance John Richardson, aged nine, son of the present CIM business manager at Chefoo, was fatally injured by the explosion of a bomb which was evidently left by a Chinese soldier off the Ninghi Road, and which John picked up and threw away. He had been attending the Prep School since 1925. News of the serious condition of affairs in Kansu and of the danger incurred by missionaries from exposure to risk of disease increased in volume during the term. Finally Mr....”
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“...known as “Wilder Major”.
Amos, the father, was a onetime editor of the Wisconsin State Journal, before being appointed U.S. Consul-General to Hong Kong, in 1906, and subsequently to Shanghai. The older Wilder children went to school in Hong Kong, then when their father moved to Shanghai, Theodore and Thornton were enrolled at Chefoo. They were there in the years 1911 and 1912.
Carrington Goodrich wrote to the Chefusian, after Wilder Minor’s death, that he “.... was a loyal member of the Chefoo Schools Association, and enclosed the following excerpts from December 8th 1975's New York Times:
‘In 1915 he entered Oberlin College, Ohio, and already he was writing one-act plays for his sisters to act in. Two years later he transferred to Yale, had a year in the Coast Artillery in World War I and took his degree in 1920. At Yale he continued his omnivorous reading, turned out plays and came under the influence of Professor William Lyons Phelps, the distinguished teacher. Said the professor of his...”
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“...Chefoo Schools Association (Founded in 1908)
PRESIDENT James H Taylor III
Vice-Presidents
S Gordon Martin, John J Miller, Mary L C Nicoll, Norman Cliff
Principals of the Chefoo Schools Judith A Spear (Japan); Anne Latimer (Malaysia)
GREAT BRITAIN BRANCH AND COUNCIL Chairman: Theodore P Welch 56 School Lane Toft Cambridge CB3 7RE Secretary: Josephine Houghton 19 Riffhams Drive Great Baddow Chelmsford Essex CM2 7DE Treasurer: Ruth (Crockett) Green 15 Abbotsford Road Goodmayes Ilford Essex IG3 9SN News/Magazine Editor: Dorothy L Cox 34 Pirie Road West Bergholt Colchester Essex CO6 3TA
NORTH AMERICA BRANCH
Chairman: David Michell
395 St Germain Avenue Toronto Ontario M5N 1W8 Secretary: David Grant
Ontario Pioneer Camp RR#1 Port Sydney Ontario POB 1L0 Treasurer: Ian Grant 27 Little Avenue Barrie Ontario L4N 4M7 News Editor: Ruth (Dykema) Engler #103 5700-200th St. Langley B.C. V3A 7S6
AUSTRALIA BRANCH
Chairman: Theo Hayman 22 Alice Street Macquarie Fields NSW 2564 Secretary-Treasurer: Faith...”
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