BOEYE, Katherine

BOEYE, WARD

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 11/11/2014 at 00:24:59

The Globe Gazette
Mason City, Cerro Gordo County, Iowa
Saturday, June 08, 1940, Page 16

THEY STARTED HERE
No. 12 in a Mason City Series of Success Stories

KATHERINE BOEYE, Missionary, Traveler

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A career that combines the satisfaction of being of great service to one's fellow men with the excitement and adventure of life in a little known and little traveled part of the world is a rarity. But it is the type of career that has been fashioned by at least one former Mason Cityan - Katherine Boeye, Methodist missionary-teacher to China.

Still a young woman as many North Iowans who have seen her here on two recent visits can testify, Miss Boeye in the last 15 years has done more and seen more than many persons will in a lifetime.

The former local girl was born in Morrison, Ill. [1900], the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. J. F. Boeye, both natives of Clear Lake. Her childhood was spent in Fort Worth, Tex., where her father was in charge of a Methodist church, and her high school and college work were taken in Lincoln, Nebr., where Dr. Boeye was first a pastor and later superintendent of the district of the Methodist church there.

* * *
After attending Nebraska Wesleyan university [majoring in psychology], where she attained membership in Phi Kappa Phi scholastic fraternity and was a member of the Alpha Gamma Delta social sorority, Miss Boeye began to teach at Adams, Nebr., and then a year in the Mason City high school. Her father had come to Mason City in 1922, the year she was graduated from college.

From Mason City - it was while she was here that she decided on missionary work - Katherine Boeye went to Columbia university, earning an M. A. degree in religious education as a preparation for the work she had decided upon.

The fall of 1925 found Katherine Boeye enroute to China where she spent a year in language study in Nanking. It was about this time that civil war flared in China and during her second year, in which she was doing half time teaching in addition to her own study, the fighting began to be felt in Nanking.

* * *
The forces of Gen. Chiang Kai Sheck, now China's leader, were working northward from Canton with a vanguard of communist troops aiding in the fight to unify the country.

It was this communist group that entered Nanking and brought about a reign of terror for all foreigners in the city, for these troops were convinced that the evils of China were due to the presence of white people. It was necessary for the whites to flee to save their lives when teh southern forces entered the city. Some of them failed to leave in time.

Chinese friends hid some of those whites who failed to go aboard river gunboats, as did Miss Boeye, and by so doing saved many lives at the risk of their own. But Nanking was no longer safe, so the missionary-teacher went to Korea with a group of war refugees.

* * *
It was the excesses of the communist troops at Nanking that brought about the split between Chiang Kai Sheck and the communist regime which was healed temporarily only by the recent Japanese invastion.

Korea was only a stopping point for Miss Boeye, foron her arrival there she learned of a need for teachers in the mission schools at Singapore. In a week's time she was on herway to the Straits Settlements.

In Singapore she taught one year in the Methodist girls school, with her classes consisting mostly of Chinese girls, a few Indians and a sprinkling of Malayan pupils. She found Malaya to be one of the most fascinating spots in the world, for it is at the crossroads of the seven seas.

In June of 1928, Katherine Boeye was back in Nanking where Chiang Kai Shek was undertaking to build a new and unified China. She stayed there until 1931 when she returned to this country for a two year furlough. The return trip was made by way of Burma, India, Egypt, Palestine, Italy, Switzerland, France and England, spending a little time - as much as a month in India - in each place.

* * *
In this country she studied and did deputation work for the church before returning to the Orient. In Nanking again, she took up her work in the Methodist girls high school, where whe taught English, the only foreign language studied by the Chinese.

Four years later, in the spring of 1937, the former Mason City girl had the opportunity - a rare privilege - to make a trip west by auto into Szechuen province, near the Tibetan border, over a recently completed highway. The road had just been finished and was the first of its kind to reach the great west from Shanghai.

Leaving Nanking in July with a party of seven, Miss Boeye traveled west through villages where while people had never been seen and into mountainous country, hitherto inaccessible to the outside world, where bandits were still undeniably dangerous. Fortunately, although they had two or three scares, the members of the party were not molested.

The rugged scenery occupied most of their attention, for may parts of the county had never before been seen by foreigners.

Fifteen hundred miles and several weeks later, they arrived at Chunking - now China's war capital. There they learned that earth shaking events that have turned the whole course of China's history had transpired - war was on between China and the invading Japanese.

There was no change of returning ot Nanking, so Miss Boeye stayed in Chungking, teaching in a mission school there. Soon refugees began to pour into the city and it became part of her duties to meet them and help her Chinese friends

The first year of war was mainly marked by the influx of pitiable refugess who crowded into the west, empty handed, sick, weary, and anxious to find a haven from the bombs and bullets of the Japanese.

* * *
The second year was vastly different, for the invaders' hate followed to Chunking and Japanese planes soared over the city and laid many deadly eggs.

The first bombers came in January, 1939, when a bomb demolished the school in which Katherine Boeye was teaching. Only the fact that the mission home in which she was taking shelter was on top of a hill saved her from being killed by a second bomb which fell 30 yards away. The force of the explosion was largely spent against the side of the hill instead of against the building as would have been the case if it had been on the level.

The pupils of the school were then moved into the country for safety, but the presence of former Nanking pupils in another school a short distance away kept Katherine Boeye from going with them. She stayed in Chunking. And in May she became a veteran of air raids and the death and destruction they bring. Incendiary bombs killed and burned many persons to death in the May raids.

* * *
It was during an air raid and the raging fire which resulted from the incendiary bombs used, that Katherine Boeye sought refuge in quarters that later turned out to be those of Madame Chiang Kai Shek, American educated wife of the Chinese leader and called one of the greatest women in the world. Later, Miss Boeye, as representative of an American organization, was privileged to present Madame Chiang with a medal given in recognition of her services to humanity.

Finally her furlough came dueand she left for home. Being 800 miles from a railroad and with war conditions making it impossible for automobile travel, it was necessary to fly. Despite the fact that passenger planes were being attacked on sight by Japanese planes and part of the flight had to be made over Japanese held territoy, the passengers were safely moved through to Hong Kong, but only after six hours of flight. Two hours of the flying were over Japanese held areas and were made in the darkness at 16,000 feet.

* * *
From Hong Kong, Miss Boeye shipped to Shanghai and then to the United States, arriving here in July, 1939. Since that time she has been telling the story throughout the Middle West of the rape of China and of the fine work being done by the servants of Christ in that far away land.

Miss Boeye is now headquarted in Ottumwa, where Dr. Boeye is district superintendent of the Methodist church. She makes frequent speaking trips from Ottumwa to Iowa and Missouri points.

Thus reads the story - to date - of Katherine Boeye. It is a graphic, moving story, telling as it does of service where a helping hand is so badly needed. And there is one thing certain about it - it is far from being completed.

NOTE: In 1948, Katherine Boeye married Ralph Ansel Ward, the Methodist Bishop of Chekiang, Kiangsu, Anhweit and Kiangsi provinces. The Wards lived in Shanghai until 1950. They worked in Hong Kong from 1951 to 1958. Katherine worked from 1960 to 1964 to establish a school for girls in Taiwan, where she lived until 1967.

Photograph courtesy of Globe-Gazette

Transcription and note by Sharon R. Becker, May of 2014

Cerro Gordo Biographies maintained by Lynn Diemer-Mathews.
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