(1905) First Baptism in Chucheng

The Lindbergs baptized their first convert in Chucheng, an old woman who was brave enough to convert and be baptized to a foreigners religion in front of her friends, relatives and acquaintances. With her a young soldier of the Imperial Manchu army was also baptized. Thus began the church in Chucheng.

On September 18 the first boys school was started with an enrollment of four.

Edith's Childhood

The children were taken care of by the amma, Hu-da-sa (sp!!!!). When Edith was very small there were others. Hu-da-sa was with the family for many years, eventually became a Bible-woman.

Every time Edith would come back from school, her alma would come and hug her and say, "Hua-di kung ni li la." or "My friend has come." Hu-da-sa was very sweet. Hedvig was teaching in the school. John was either in his study or in the country. They seemed never to be home.

Edith remembers her childhood home quite well. There was the big pot with lotus lily blossoms in an enormous tub, made out of ceramic. Upon entering the house the dining room was to the right. The front room and bedroom were to the left as was her father's study. In the windows in the living room in spring (or winter) Hedvig always had narcissus bulbs. The narcissus were in rectangular ceramic bowls about 8 1/2" long, 6" wide, 3" deep and the pot itself 1/4" thick, painted with a landscape of mountains, and three little shacks and trees on one side and peonies on the other side in rose color with a little bird poking its beak in the foliage looking for a tasty morsel. On each end were written Chinese characters. These bowls were filled with pebbles and water with two or three bulbs placed on top of the pebbles and placed in the darkness until a shoot started coming up from the bulb, then placed in the window ² . They bloomed magnificently. The Chinese used to bring the bulbs to Hedvig as presents, but Hedvig's bulbs always seemed to bloom bigger and better, and were much admired. Their bulbs probably didn't bloom so well because of location and possibly because of the fact their houses were colder. Though mostly having narcissus, she also had hyacinths, though hyacinths she had later on; you couldn't get them earlier.

An organ which had been made in Sweden and shipped to China, possible along with the goods of another missionary, stood in the living room. Margaret used to play as a girl the hymns that the family sang.³

In her bedroom window were live geraniums, and begonias, purple, pink, red, white. There was a very large window and a very wide table. Table added to the . . . whatever it was. Didn't matter what time of year, the flowers always seemed to be in bloom. Attached to the wall were narrow, rectangular bamboo cages with canaries. The canaries laid eggs. Hedvig always had canaries [because of the eggs hatching?].

If you looked passed the geraniums in an adjoining room or perhaps it was a small out building -- perhaps this was where the wood pile or coal was kept -- wild violets grew. They were so awesome it seemed they should have been painted. Hedvig loved flowers and gardening though didn't always have time to do it. The kids also were involved in the garden; they had to go to the well to carry the water to water the flowers.

On the far was of the sitting room sat a coach and above the couch on the wall a black deep pile with the eight Chinese immortals which family traditions says is over 300 years old.⁴ When Edith was a girl the room had a small stove, used to heat the room for family prayers in the morning after breakfast, and for Johan Alfred's study. [Len. Move chapters about Dollan to a later chapter when she was a girl. Dollan remembers later the room as being very cold. In the ceiling hung a large brass lamp with a glass globe. The lamp could be lowered for lighting and pulled up toward the ceiling again to give light to the room.]

In her father's room there was a bookcase to the left with books of many kinds. [But there was one medical book the was of more interest to little Dollan than any other. When everyone was doing something else, even if it was the dead of winter and the room was very cold little Dollan used to sneak into the room and read chapters of that book. The illustrations were not photographs but drawn pictures, including the different stages of pregnancy. Dollan was scared petrified that the grownups would find her in that library reading this forbidden book, and a subject matter never discussed with children so young. This is probably how she got the interest for nursing. The book was small, possibly 6x3 inches, with a very worn brown cover. She would come into his study, make a left, and the book was in and among all the other books. She would get everyone very involved in their conversations, rush off and read a few more pages. The minute she heard any noise, her heart started pounding and she ran out thinking of some excuse why she was in the office if asked. Actually, Johan Alfred wouldn't have minded, though Hellen would have. They shielded you from everything about how the body was made up or anything unless you got sick and learned the hard way.]

The book that fascinated Edith as a girl was the History of Sweden and Queen Kristina including pictures of of the queen.

Roses bloomed in an arch. Every spring or June photos were taken there. Every year they would line up, except the children because they were in school. The roses were very tiny, in clusters. Movies of the house from the yard were filmed. One family movie shows Johan Alfred shoveling snow. But it only snowed about once every eight years so the movie of his shoveling snow is misleading.

[Another picture he showed his dog Freye. Could get a lot from the video by looking at it.]

After their bedroom was the bathroom. A wooden tub to the right with a hole in the floor for the water to drain out. Saturday was bath day for Edith in preparation for Sunday the next day. In the evening baths would start with the youngest and work up to the oldest in the same bath water. Only another bucket of hot water would be added between baths. The cook would pour in the hot water which was heated in the wash room away from the house and carried in two buckets suspended from a pole, a bian-dan. The water was heated in a huge wok by the coolie gardener who took care of the grounds. The water would first have to stay in the tub for a while to expand the wood, so water would not leak out. [Dollan took a few baths over there. Later Dollan's family had a metal tub.]

Edith had dolls, German dolls probably bought in Tsingtao. [Years later Dollan's dolls were also German] Edith had 3 small dolls. She used to feed them, change them, do all kinds of things with them. And she had a doll carriage to stroll with them.

[Dollan's had a white flannel diaper with a small pin to hold it together in the center.]

The same routine would be followed every week. All would get up a the same time and have breakfast. The amah was always in attendance. So there was no getting into trouble. Everybody got up around 7:00 in the morning. Breakfast would follow, and after breakfast, prayers in the small sitting room with the brass lamp and the heater. Edith's mother, Hedvig, would need to be at the school about 9:00. When 11:00 was approaching the adults would say they were"Kaffee-sugge" [Systran dictionary gives definition as 'heart gives"] or coffee thirsty. [Actually Edith doesn't remember having coffee at 11:00 but something else. Dollan thinks this may have been saft with a cookie.] As with the tradition of many Europeans, the main meal was at noon.

At the noon meal Edith's family would have meat and potatoes and soup, a very European diet. Often potatoes and rice would be served at the same time, and sometimes sweet potatoes. Chinese food was eaten on occasion, perhaps for special occasions. The missionaries probably needed to hang on to their old and familiar in this foreign land. Swedish meatballs potatoes and gravy were often served as was chicken, but often with curry. In winter pork was sometimes eaten, and in the summer only chicken because everything else would spoil in the heat since there was no refrigeration.

In the afternoon coffee was served though children had tea. The second cup of coffee was always poured in the saucer, a sugar cube placed in the mouth to one side, and the saucer held up to the lips and sipped. The second cup you would take time to enjoy, enjoy the aroma, taste, hold it just right, sit longer, and draw out the experience. You sort of "juta" it, enjoyed it. Supper was light with sandwiches or plättar (Swedish pancakes).

With breakfast, coffee break, lunch, coffee break and supper it seemed the family was having meals much of the day.

[In Dollan's home this was often in the lunch time, and in Edith's time plättar were often served for the evening meal.]

[In Dollan's time Chinese food was eaten much more often. The family was becoming less European.]

Some food was stored in the cellar. Though cool the cellar was not cold. Milk could not be kept down in the cellar very long, but had to be use up quickly before it spoiled. The door to the cellar was more horizontal than it was perpendicular to the ground. To open it you would pull up and out, and then you would descend some stairs to a big open room with two small storerooms at each end, and shelves. The cellar was dark and earthen and they carried a candle or lantern with them. Among the food items stored in the cellar Christmas drink was also stored.

[In Dollan's day the cellar was under Oscar's study and you could hear the corks of the ________ dricka pop off and hit the ceiling of the cellar under the floor of the study. Hellen would run down and re-cork the frothing bottles, and reseal them with some shiny golden brown stuff that would have to be cracked to reopen the bottles.]

On the other side of the bathroom was Hedvig's kitchen. [Out of the kitchen you walked out to the goat pen Dollan says.] Edith adds they kept their mule there too that would pull the Peking cart and chickens Here too was the Ma-fong or bathroom.

The house staff during Edith's childhood were the cook, table boy, muleteer, Amah, and coolie or gardener. Some of these house staff stayed with the family for years such as the cook and Amah and the muleteer. The muleteer and Johan Alfred were very close. He was called "chuk-wa" meaning "the man who drives the mule."

Edith had no Chinese friends as a girl. She did have her brother Erik, who was three years younger. Her sister Margaret and the rest of the kids were soon off to school in Chefoo.

Hedvig didn't teach Edith to knit. She learned in school though she taught her how to do the "continental" ________. [Hedvig had taught Dollan how to knit]

Hedvig would make the children's clothes including the girls' dresses. Making the children's clothes made sense because Hedvig had some training as a seamstress in Stockholm after she was fired from her teaching job because she had become a Baptist. [Dollan mentions her knitting winter mittens. In winter wore "combinations" which were very warm. They were "Jaeger" possibly German make.] Otherwise everything was made.

[Dollan mentions long wool stockings that "itched you to death". Boots were worn with these with shoe laces going all the way up to the top. Edith wore these too.]

There were no shops as we know shops. In Chefoo Edith needed a pair of shoes because hers were getting too tight. She was walking very badly, kind of stumbling along and the teacher said, "Why are you walking like that?"

"My shoes are too small!"

She had outgrown her shoes. The shoe maker was called in. He laid out a piece of paper and told Edith to place her bare foot on it and he traced the foot onto the paper. He then went back to his shop and made the shoes, but made them a little bit longer than the foot actually was so that she would not so quickly grown out of them. Edith was about eleven at this time. The shoes would be made according to European styles.

This was one of the few or perhaps the only time that Edith got new shoes. Normally, all shoes and clothes were handed down from the oldest to the next youngest. Edith got to wear all of Margaret's old clothes, for instance.In no hand-me-downs were not available[???]. Johan Alfred and later Oscar's old suits would be taken apart, the pieces dry cleaned, and made into clothes for the girls. The material was often so worn, it would be shiny in the seat area. These would be turned inside out and sewn into clothing. These were made with manual foot peddle sewing machines, because there was no electricity.¹

When they went go Sweden on furlough, they would pick up material to bring back to China.

Edith's earliest memories were of Sweden or going to Sweden as a little girl. She was five by then.

The Church

On Sunday morning everyone went to church. Edith doesn't remember going to church in afternoon when she was small. She traveled in the Peking cart to church but this wasn't any distance. Edith hardly remembers anything about the church except that women always sat on the right and the men on the left. The old church was not "open", probably meaning that the church was not one big open long hall, but rather went at a right angle.Two rows reserved for the school girls and two and a half rows for the boys. A potbelly stove stood toward the front (in the old or the new church?).

The new church organ came from Sweden and was imported directly. This organ and the one in the Rinell' home came from the same factory.³

The language spoken in church was of course, Chinese.

Personalities as Children

Oscar had fun and enjoyed life.

Egron was more solemn though developed into having more of a good time. And he had a good sense of humor later. He went to Sweden when Edith was eleven. Edith really didn't know him for a long time.

Sister Margaret was capable, people liked her and she had a nice personality. She was caring, and Edith enjoyed her. Edith and she were very good friends, not just sisters. Margaret usually took the lead because she was older. Both sisters must have been fairly mature because they had single women living with them for a while. ___ Petersson(sp) lived with them for a while for instance and she and Margaret became quite good friends.

Their brother Erik was sickly a good part of the time. Hard to know what he was like though because they were all in school a good part of the time.

AlternativeText

Maria and David Edén
and daughter Margit
China
circa 1905
Click Image

Maria and David Edén

David who arrived only two years previously with his wife Maria became seriously ill with smallpox. Maria took care of him in daytime, John Afred Rinell and Swordsson watched over him at night. Hedvig took care of their little girl. Later they moved into the Nanguan house, but were transferred to Zhucheng, where the Lindbergs were missionaries. David's health continued to be poor. The family moved back to Sweden. David eventually recovered and worked made in baptist churches in Sweden and Finland.

Edén Family in China circa 1905

The Techniques of the Mission

According to the book A century of Christian Missions in China the Christian message was spread by:

Preaching in every place, distributing tracts and Gospels. Uses a good staff of natives as colporteurs and evangelists. In 1900, began a day-school with five pupils ; now there are boys' and girls' boarding-schools in the city, and three village day-schools. In 1901, outsiders helped to build a chapel. Since then the natives have built two new chapels themselves.