Shannon, Clyde Arthur – 1912-2000

BIERMA, LEMIERE, REICHT, SHANNON

Posted By: Donna Sloan Rempp
Date: 8/26/2016 at 05:16:06

Services Held
Services for Clyde Arthur Shannon were held Wednesday, June 7, 2000, at the Fairview Mennonite Home in Cambridge Ontario. Burial was in the Hagey Cemetery.
After being admitted to the Care Unit in March 1999, Clyde passed away Saturday, June 3, 2000.
The son of Glover and Mary (Bierma) Shannon, Clyde Arthur Shannon was born in Monroe, Iowa, on April 21, 1912, the youngest of four children. He was baptized in the First Baptist Church of Monroe. After high school and the Moody Bible Institute, he went to the Belgian Congo with the Unevangelized Tribes Mission (UTM), a faith mission. His church pledged his support. Since the official language of the Belgian Congo was French and he was young and single, the mission wanted him to go to Emmaus Bible School in Switzerland to learn French.
In 1935 he sailed for the Congo on a freighter with three other missionaries, one of whom died of pernicious malaria three weeks after he arrived on the mission station. On March 4, 1937, he married Elisabeth Lemiere, a fellow worker with the same mission. When WWII broke out in 1939, the door closed to the Congo and he served in southern Louisiana. The UTM dissolved at the end of 1952. The Shannons turned the work over to the Mennonite Brethren who invited them to return and work at the same station since they spoke the tribal language of the area. They had four children: two sons born in the Congo, one in Iowa and a daughter in Louisiana.
All foreigners had to leave the Congo when it obtained its independence in 1960. After two years in the U.S., the Mennonite Brethren asked them to go to Quebec. Following a fruitful year in Ste. Therese, they moved to Joliette, a town that was 98% French Canadian where they worked with the Mennonite Church until their move to Fairview November 16, 1993.
Survivors are his wife, Elisabeth; four children and their spouses: Ralph Shannon from Glen Elyn, Illinois, Jack Shannon of Marshall Island, Joy (Bill) Reicht of boulder, Colorado, and Dennis Shannon of Auburn, Alabama; 14 grandchildren; and 10 great grandchildren.
Source: Monroe Legacy; 22 June 2000