Pioneer

Tribute to the Memory of Mrs. Carrie Rich

[Contributed] A LINK in the narrowing circle of Papuan old-timers was snapped in the passing of Mrs. Carrie Rich.

When the Papua of to-day was still a British possession, and known as British New Guinea, she came out from Eng land to join her husband on the staff of the London Missionary Society. In those early days there was a close bond of sympathetic interest between the LMS and the “Sydney Morning Herald,” for the writer remembers a garden party given at the Fairfax home, at which Rev.

Dr. Geo. Lawes was an honoured guest.

Those were the days, too, when the names of Chalmers and Lawes were well known in the Southern cities, for both had played an importantly useful part in proclaiming the annexation of the New Guinea Territory. Alas, the very first news from outside to reach Mrs. Rich and her husband, after they had settled on their station at Fife Bay (near the eastern end of Papua) was the death of Chalmers and of his colleague Tomkins, at the hands of the cannibal people of the Aird River Delta. With them a num ber of Papuans also met martyrs’ deaths.

A few weeks before this tragic happen ing, Mr. Rich had been with Chalmers at the annual committee meetings of the mission, held that year at Daru, the head station of the Fly River district. Since Chalmers, prior to coming to Papua, had lived for many years on Rarotonga, and Mr. Rich had some Rarotonga mission teachers on his staff, he prevailed on Chalmers to send a spoken message to these teachers by means of a small re

cording phonograph.

Duly arrived back at his own station, Mr. Rich called these people to listen to the greetings from their old friend. To his shocked surprise, no sooner had the waxen cylinder been set revolving, and the resounding voice of Chalmers rang out, than all the Rarotongans burst into uncontrolled weeping.

“Why the tears?” he asked them.

It was to be told that they were sure that Chalmers was dead since he was able to speak to them without any bodily presence. Their belief was prophetic, for, shortly after that, word came down the coast of the massacre at Goaribari.

There had been other instances where South Seas members of the mission staff had met their deaths at the hands of the Papuans they had come to teach and heal; but the tragedy of the Aird Delta wrote finis to that chapter of mission history in Papua.

MR. and Mrs. Rich had the happy experience of continuity in work throughout their lives as mission aries. While others of their colleagues were called at times to work in other districts than that to which they had been at first appointed, it was permitted to the Rich couple to remain always at the station of their first appointment.

The first couple of years were spent in a semi-native house, later to be replaced by a framed house brought up to Papua by the mission steamer, “John Williams.”

With the ready-to-erect material also went an artisan to erect the building.

In connection with this building job. there was a funny incident that did not appeal to any sense of humour in the artisan. By careful .planning, the latter had made provision (overlooked in the original house plan) for carrying the kitchen stove away from and outside of the kitchen floor space.

He came across to the house, one day, cheerfully announcing that he had been able to get sufficient overhang on three

of the floor-joists to support the stove. imagine his horror, on returning to the job after lunch when he discovered that some willing-to-be-helnful native bo d y had carefully cut off the overhanging timbers “because they did not look ri|htA

That was not the only little upset the good man had on the job. One day, after laying the bearers on stump caps, so that they would be kept in place by the sheer weight of the building, he was shocked to find one of the teachers cheerfully bolting down the bearers with six-inch spikes that pierced the stump caps, and

The late Mrs. Carrie Rich.

made ingress of white ant to the build ing very much easier later on.

It is an interesting fact that, many years later, when, through ravages of white ant and weather, this frame house needed renewal, it was built with native labour and with hardwood timbers sawn and fitted from bush logs growing near the station. , .

In both these houses, the home-loving genius of Mrs. Rich created a happy home atmosphere, where their five chil dren. prior to coming to school in Syd ney, had association with the native youngsters on the station that they are never likely to forget.

THROUGHOUT a 40-years’ residence on that beautifully-situated station in Fife Bay, it was the happy privi lege of Mr. and Mrs. Rich to entertain a great number of the white residents of the Territory, as they moved to and fro along the Coast, from the Lieut.-Gov ernor and senior officials, down through the list of the service to junior patrol officers, as well as many representatives of commerce, minihg, etc.

For residents along the South-east Coast of Papua, the Mission House at Fife Bay had always an “ever-open door.

In health and in sickness they came, or were brought dying—and, in some sad cases, dead—for whatever of help or ser vice the mission could render.

During their first period of service, during which there were practically no other white settlers along the South-east Coast, all travel had to be by whaleboat, and any cases of accident or serious ill ness had to be taken* by this to the hospital at Samarai. some 50 miles distant. During the SE season, when weather permitted the journey at all, it was bound to be a matter of at least two days before the port could be" reached.

Time and again the boat, setting out to make the trip, would come back after a day or night at sea with her flag at half mast, indicating that the patient we had hoped to save had passed away, thus making any continuation of the journey useless.

WHILE on furlough in England, after that first 10 years of service, Mr.

Rich was able to secure a finely built teak launch that was a real life boat to many a Papuan resident, both white and brown. In her, the run to Samarai could generally be managed in six or seven hours.

That launch, after 34 years’ of heavy service, is still doing her duty well.

As the writer pens this brief record of some happenings on a Papuan mission station, hd recalls many men and women, both here and in the Old Land —old-timer Papuans, who will always be thankful to God that there was a mission station in Fife Bay—that this station possessed such a useful launch and willing and able crew; and—maybe most of all—that there was a gracious and kindly lady ever ready to succour and comfort the suffering, whether of her own race or of the brown people she came to serve.

HER course is run. For her, the trum pets have sounded on the other side, and we dare to believe she has received from the lips of her Lord and Master, Christ, the promised “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

At her funeral service on December 11, the presence of a gjeat number of past and present Papuan residents indicated the honour and affection in which Mrs.

Rich was held. Those present included the Administrator (Hon. Leonard Mur ray), the late Government Secretary (Mr.

H. W. Champion), the Crown Law Officer (Mr. Bignold), Mr. D. Cahill and Mr. H.

Glanville; Rev, M. A. Warren (Anglican

Board of Missions), and Rev. Gordon Robertson. The LMS was represented by Rev. Leonard Hurst and Mrs. Henry Pratt. The service was conducted by Rev. W. G. Sands, of the North Sydney Congregational Church, with which Mr. and Mrs. Rich were always identified when in Sydney.

Mrs. Rich and her husband were pioneers of whom Friedlaender speaks: We shall not travel by the road we make.

Ere, day by day, the sound of many feet Is heard upon the stones that now we break, We shall be come to where the cross roads meet.

For them, the shade of trees which now we plant; The safe, smooth journey and the cer tain goal— Yea, birthright in the land of Covenant, For us, day labour, travail of the soul.

And yet, the road is ours as never theirs.

Is not one gift on us alone bestowed?

For us the joys of joys. O pioneers!

We shall not travel—but we make the road.

Mr. K. V. Macguire, of the Fijian Administration, has been acting for three months as British Resident Commissioner in the New Hebrides, during the absence on vacation of Mr. R. W. Blandy.