Only a five-footer, but he stood tall in missionary service
Charles Sumner and Emily Early Buchanan with daughters, left to right, Ellace Earlene
(Dr Douglas Wingeier's mother), Elma and Elsa. - From Dr Wingeier's family collection.
'MY MATERNAL grandfather,
Charles S. Buchanan, was a pioneer missionary on the island of
Java in the Dutch East Indies … in the early 20th century.
He was a hunchback, standing less than five feet tall.
Whether his severe curvature of the spine was genetic or due to
an injury or the heavy farm work he was forced to do as a child
to support his orphaned siblings, I do not know. What I do know
is that he had a transforming experience with Jesus Christ and
a strong call to missionary service.
Charles was born in 1869, attended public schools in and around
Delaware, Ohio, received a one-year teacher's certificate to teach
in the schools of Allen County, Ohio, in 1889, and graduated from
Ohio Wesleyan University in 1896. Because of his physical handicap,
he was not accepted for missionary service by the Board of Missions,
so soon after graduating from college, he paid his own passage
to Singapore and there was hired to teach at Anglo-Chinese School,
later becoming its principal.
A year later, in 1897, a young woman named Emily Early, with whom
Charles had fallen in love back in Ohio, also arrived in Singapore.
And on Oct 30, 1897, they were married in what is now Wesley Methodist
Church, Singapore. Guests were invited by Sophia Blackmore to
a reception at the Deaconess Home that day, and the young couple
took up residence on Dec 1 at "Bellevue"…
My mother, Ellace Earlene Buchanan, was born in 1901 in a mission
bungalow up the hill from Orchard Road … The family returned
to the States on furlough in 1901-02, during which Charles and
Emily were accepted as full-fledged missionaries by the Board
of Missions …
Returning to Singapore to resume his teaching and Malay ministries,
Charles was made ACS Principal, a post he held from1903 to 1905.
He was also named "missionary-at-large" until reassigned
elsewhere in the Mission to develop new work in Java.
During the 10 years as a teacher, he increasingly felt led to
work among the poorer Malay people. So, with their three small
daughters, the family moved into a Malay attap hut in Telok Blangah,
a small kampong near the sea so as better to learn their language,
adopt their lifestyle and earn their acceptance. Most of the villagers
were employed as clerks in shops and stores in the city or were
policemen or sailors, though some were fishermen, and one was
a commission merchant on a small scale - his teacher, Inche Abu
Hassan.
Charles continued to support his family and his ministry by teaching
at ACS, travelling back and forth from Telok Blangah to ACS by
trolley.
All this time, husband and wife had come and gone among these
people in their homes and they in theirs. They had gone on fishing
excursions with them, been by invitation at their weddings, had
taken pictures for them, conversed with them on almost every subject.
Their purpose was to get acquainted with their customs, their
habits of thought, their prejudices, their beliefs, the tenets
of their religion as understood by themselves, and so forth.
They learned that openness and frankness were necessary to get
on with them, dignified and independent people who were less likely
to look askance at one who treated them as a friend and equal
to oneself …
Once, his wife visited a sick woman living on a distant hill and
persuaded the reluctant family to let her see a doctor. Even the
resistant mother-in-law asked the doctor to examine her eyes,
while the two children were treated for malaria. Soon, the woman
was on her feet caring for her family again.
Mrs Buchanan was able to talk to the women about their families,
their ills, their troubles and sorrows in their homes, in her
home, in the homes of their friends, and even in the little boat
in which they had gone fishing, or bathing or for pleasure.' -
From notes on "Charles Sumner & Emily Early Buchanan".
Earnest Lau, the
Associate Editor of Methodist Message, is also the Archivist of
The Methodist Church in Singapore.