In 1918, Miss Dee left Paine College and the work at the Bethlehem Center in Augusta. Already, others had taken the lead in the work of the Bethlehem Center. For a period of time, in the latter part of 1918, and in 1919 and 1920, she was in Savannah, GA. Material in her box provided proof of her whereabouts, but no explanation of what she was actually doing there.
In the records of the Women’s Missionary Council, I only saw the cryptic message that she had received a call for missionary work to “far away France,” and the World War One came to an end in 1918. The “records” in Miss Dee’s box consisted mainly of post cards that she received from a sailor in the Belgian navy. They were, for the most part, written in French. I am grateful to my cousin, Lillian Corti, who has expertise in the French language, for helping my decipher those cards. But, of course, we had only one side of the correspondence—the cards she received.
The sailor referred to Miss Dee as “Mon Grande Soeur”—my big sister–, and I was able to learn that there was a “big sister” project that was a ministry to soldiers and sailors. It was a kind of “pen pals” operation. At a later time, I will decide whether it is will help to actually place contents and or images of the cards on this site, but will delay that decision for now. Writing postcards could not have been her main occupation in Savannah. I have to yet investigated whether she was involved in teaching somewhere in Savannah, but had no clue about where that would have been. I have not yet found any church related work that she was doing there, although I may have overlooked it during my short time in the archives of the Women’s Missionary Council.
For me these were a couple of mysterious years. I would love to have assistance in finding out what Miss Dee did in Savannah during this time! She discontinued her studies at Peabody during this time, but resumed them and got her Master’s degree in 1921, at age 40.
I have included this post, although incomplete, in order to describe the broad outline of the life of Mary Christine De Bardeleben. I plan to develop it further. I would welcome any information that anyone has dealing with this part of her life.
Recent Comments