Amazing Girl from Liberia
Diocesan Press Service. April 5, 1963 [IX-1]
"An amazing girl from an amazing family" is coming to the United States from Liberia in June to embark on a two-year graduate study program in Christian education. Her story of Episcopal mission work in that West African nation, was told in a recent newsletter from Prof. Howard Collins, who teaches at Cuttington College, Sucacoco, Liberia. She plans to attend St. Margaret's House in Berkeley, California.
The girl, Abeosah Bowen, graduated last year from Cuttington College, the Episcopal Church seat of higher learning in Liberia. In addition to being the most popular girl in her class, Mr. Collins reports that she left the school with high honors "and all sorts of additional prizes for her sense of responsibility, her athletic prowess, her winning personality, etc."
A member of the Vai tribe, from the region of Cape Mount, she started her schooling at the Episcopal school for girls there, the House of Bethany. "When Abeosah was only one-and-a-half years old, her father, who had worked tirelessly for the Church while hoping to become a priest, died, leaving her mother with five daughters and an unborn son," Mr. Collins writes. "Mrs. Bowen endured many years of sacrifice to give her children an education, while wisely never forgetting their tribal heritage and its necessary demands."
"Mrs. Bowen could not have done it alone, "Mr. Collins asserts. "The Episcopal mission here supported her all the way. " Today one daughter is a registered nurse; another is studying at San Francisco State College; a third is studying medicine in Sweden; and the fourth recently returned to Liberia from the University of Chicago with her doctor of philosophy degree in history, Liberia's first woman Ph. D. All the daughters attended Cuttington and the son, Philip, is in his sophomore year there.
"Whenever I think of this great lady, Mrs. Bowen, I realize the importance of our mission here, " Mr. Collins declares. "It is hard for these people to do it alone, If not almost impossible. They need us and they need you."
Prof. Collins was formerly on the English faculty of Oberlin College, Ohio. He is completing his first year as an Episcopal missionary, appointed by the Overseas Department of National Council.