ROMANCE OF CONGO RECALLED

Evening Star, Issue 20061, 29 December 1928, Page 12

ROMANCE OF CONGO RECALLED

AFRICAN WOMAN WHO MARRIED MISSIONARY One of the rare instances of marriage between a white missionary and a native fVoman convert is recalled by the death in Jamaica of tho widow of George Grenfell, the famous Congo missionary and explorer. Mrs Grenfell’s devotion to her husband, and the way in which she shared his perils when he' pushed into tho cannibal-haunted forests of the Congo nearly fifty years ago, proved that such unions can be successful. Mrs Grenfell was formerly Miss Bose Patience Edgcrley, a member of a West Indian family of African origin. For years she was responsible for the education of the women and girls at the Bolobo station of the Baptist Mission, and for a time after her husband’s death in 1907 she lived in England with her daughters. _ _ • It was stated at the Church Missionary Society offices that marriages between their missionaries and native women are practically unknown, although a few have taken placee in India and the Near East. Mr F. H. Hawkins, foreign secretary of the London Missionary Society, said that although he knew no recent instances of such marriages, there were several a century ago. “ Such marriages are not forbidden by our rules,’ he added, “ but they certainly, would not he encouraged, mainly because of the great problem of the children.”