1928-01-19: ​​~TOUR STOPS~---images---audio---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
​This page is not a currently a stop in any Tour.  But it's still worth your attention!
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1928-01-19​: ​tour stops---~IMAGES~---audio---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
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1928-01-19: tour stops---images---~AUDIO~---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
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1928-01-19: ​tour stops---images---audio---~TRANSCRIPT~---notes---links---site navigation
Upper lefthand corner:
Noted WPS
Me too K.F.S.

The letter:
Missão de Chissamba,
Catabola, Bié, Angola,
Via Lobito, Portuguese West Africa.
Jan 19, 1928.

My dear Miss Stokey,

It is now many months since I received your kind letter of August 18th.  I appreciated your writing very much and I wrote to you on Oct. 7th but I never posted the letter.

We had hoped to be married in December.  Early in October a letter arrived from the Woman’s Board asking me to remain at Chissamba Hospital until Dr. Strangway arrives.  This of course I am doing although Fred and I were disappointed.  As my letter to you contained all our plans I thought it better to write another and so the time has passed.

I have enjoyed very much reading your letters which Fred has shared with me and we have found especially interesting and entertaining the Fern-bank News.  I’m very anxious to meet Margaret, Kathleen, Billy, and Roger.

During the Christmas season we had very happy holidays at Sachikela.  Esther (Mrs. McAllister) invited Elizabeth (Miss Read), Mary (Miss Hurlbut, Dondi), Amelia (Miss De Morais, Chileso), Mr. Ralph Wilson, Dondi, Fred and I for about a ten-day house-party and we were all young folks together and surely had a jolly time.  We called everyone by their first name and a real family spirit seemed to exist.

It is a very mountainous district and the scenery is beautiful.  We were all fond of the big Out-of-Doors so one morning after an early breakfast we began to climb Mt. Elende (cloud).  We did it very slowly indeed.  Fred took the position in front so that some excitable and inexperienced person would not begin too rapidly and be tired out before reaching the top.  Just before noon we arrived at the summit, where we found the boy with a basket of delicious eats and another lad with a kettle of water, brought from the last stream.  This is such a pretty brook, bubbling over stones, as it dashes between banks covered with a deep green growth of shrubs, vines and ferns.  There are many monkeys in these mountains but we didn’t happen to see any.

We soon had a good fire and the aroma of coffee filled the air.  We enjoyed ourselves in the shade of some low trees during the afternoon while someone took their turn at reading aloud.  It was very interesting to watch the rain, just like filmy curtains moving up the various distant valleys while the sun shone brightly upon us.

Another day Fred, Elizabeth and I went to the marsh after an early breakfast to hunt wild geese.  We thought one would be quite acceptable for our Xmas dinner.  Alas we caught no goose but we had heaps of fun and new experiences.  Fred carried his gun, and he had only one shot for it.  Elizabeth + I had one between us with plenty of shot, but no one in the party was accustomed to using it.

For some time we walked through the woods and at last came upon a very small stretch of open water.  We saw two birds, but they also saw us and flew away across the swamp.  Soon we decided that they did not intend to return and perhaps it would be well for us to cross to the other side and perhaps find another pond.  Elizabeth and I wore our khaki hiking suits, and high top boots so we didn’t mind following Fred through water which rose above our knees as he broke a path through reeds which were fourteen and sixteen feet high.  It was certainly the first time I had done such a thing and occasionally we girls would miss our footing and sink down into mud and slime or else sit down.  But we enjoyed every minute.  At last we reached the other side and did some scouting around.  We saw two fine reed-buck scampering off to seek shelter among the tall reeds.  We traced their tracks and found they had been lying under a low bush very close to our path.  Fred was disgusted to think he had lost them.  Soon we noticed a fowl flying around and then settle out amongst the reeds so we decided there was a pond over there.  Fred went out again into the swamp and climbed a tree, then motioned for us to do likewise.  We were rewarded by seeing four or five fine large geese and three or four cute goslings on the water.  Oh how Fred wished that he had a shot gun instead of a rifle.

Soon we recrossed the swamp and found a boy had arrived with a hamper of food.  Needless to say we all had good appetites.  We spent the afternoon in woods which protected us from the scorching hot sun.  We arrive home about 7 P.M. tired, but having had a very happy day.

I should judge from what Fred has told me about you Alma, that you too would have thoroughly enjoyed such a day.

Now we are all back at our own stations and hard at work once more.  At Chissamba we have just finished our week of prayer.  Mr. Steed had invited all the chiefs in this district to come as his guests from Wednesday until Friday.

​We had some interesting times indeed.  At one impressive meeting a witch-doctor came up to the platform to explain how he had used his fetishes in the past.  And to tell the people that there is no power in them, that he wanted to follow Jesus Christ.  I wish you could have seen some of the expressions of these forty heathen chiefs as they heard this man revealing their secrets before hundreds of people.  Many of them were very angry because they make large sums of money through the witch doctor.  The African’s life is governed by fear in these superstitious beliefs until he becomes a Christian and even then it is very hard work to cast aside all his fears.

At the hospital we are busy now with Pneumonia cases amongst the women and severe types of Malarial fevers amongst the babies.

Alma I wish you would share this letter with your sister Eva and I shall try to write to her in the not too far distant future.  I appreciated very much both of your letters and hope that you’ll write again so that we may become better acquainted.

Very sincerely,

Sibyl Hosking
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1928-01-19​: ​​​tour stops---images---audio---transcript---~NOTES~---links---site navigation
1.
Early in October a letter arrived from the Woman’s Board asking me to remain at Chissamba Hospital until Dr. Strangway arrives.
Here's the letter that Sibyl mentions:
2.
We called everyone by their first name
Oh my!

3.
We were all fond of the big Out-of-Doors so one morning after an early breakfast we began to climb Mt. Elende (cloud).

Serra do Elende is a mountain and is located in Huambo, Angola. The estimate terrain elevation above seal level is 1970 metres. Variant forms of spelling for Serra do Elende or in other languages: Elende, Serra do Elende, Elende, Serra do Elende.

​A scenic spot, apparently, but I couldn’t find much about it. 

4.
Another day Fred, Elizabeth and I went to the marsh after an early breakfast to hunt wild geese.  We thought one would be quite acceptable for our Xmas dinner.  Alas we caught no goose but we had heaps of fun and new experiences.  Fred carried his gun, and he had only one shot for it.  Elizabeth + I had one between us with plenty of shot, but no one in the party was accustomed to using it.
I like to imagine Fred hunting in Africa, and thinking about gun sights, and eventually coming up with an idea for a better one:
5.
Alma I wish you would share this letter with your sister Eva
As you can see from the initials at the top of the letter, Alma shared this first letter from the future family member with Will and Kathleen as well.

6.
Alma liked this letter, as we learn in:
7.
As I noted above, Fred's descendants (and some of Will's descendants, too) like outdoor activities.  Here's the cover of a CD-ROM for a family canoe trip that I came across while doing some tidying in my house.  Fred's oldest grandson, my second cousin Fred, did it.
I asked the family if they had any memories of this canoe trip.  Note: I wasn't on the trip, because I don't do outdoorsy stuff.

My brother Roger responded:

Ah yes! The great leech incident! 

Sarah [Roger's daughter] decided she was deathly afraid of leeches, but Ray M. assured her there were no leeches in rivers so it was safe for her to swim. Not that the leeches were any great threat anyway. At the end of the trip we were camped beside some lake and swam. Sarah got out of the water and found some small, but apparently about the size of a hippopotamus, leech on her. Not happy. At all. Ray’s laconic comment: “I said rivers. This is a lake”. 

Yup, I don't do outdoorsy stuff.

Another note: As it turns out, Roger's story happened in some other canoe trip, not the 2006 one, but I still like it.
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