A Story of Passports

I wonder what the plural is for a group of passports -- a murder of crows, a flock of birds, a herd of cattle. Maybe, a story of passports?

My siblings and I went through Dad's stuff this past July, after Dad's funeral. He had made sure that we had taken most of what we wanted before he died, but a small room remained. His last home on this earth. In these remnants of our parents' lives, we sifted through various items. Then we handed our selection to Nevin to keep at his house, since Lois and I were flying home.

When we visited for Christmas, Nevin handed us back our stuff, several boxers symbolizing Dad's life. I found his collar and dickey -- a black dickey (sort of like a bib) with white collars, which he used to wear as a minister in Zimbabwe, more than 50 years ago. I tried to see if I could put it on, but the collars are faded and brittle. I am ordained, as he was, but I will stick to normal Western wear.

I found two of his pocket knives. Dad was never without a pocket knife, for use, not for show. With me, they are purely for show. I found his date books -- 50+ years of date books. In the last year of his life, he weighed himself daily and recorded his weight. He had trouble keeping his weight up, so he chronicled his daily journey to eat enough eggs and get enough protein.

Finally, I found an envelope. A large plain brown envelope with the address of BIC Missions and some stamps. Inside I found passports, dated from 1946 to 1963. Here (briefly) is their story.

1946. Just after World War Two. Mom and Dad were scheduled to travel to Africa to begin their first term in Zambia, but pent-up demand for berths made it almost impossible to find space to sail to England. Dad told me the story of how one day he and Grandfather C drove to New York to look for tickets to sail to Africa. After much searching, they found a travel agent who told them he could get them seats on an airplane -- not the way we normally travelled in those days. Dad and Grandpa drove back to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and out to Ira Musser's farm. Musser was the missions board secretary, and in charge of getting them to Africa. They found him in the field, ploughing, and asked him if they had permission to buy the tickets. he immediately told them to buy the tickets and to get seats for the rest of the missionary party also. I think their party consisted of eight people: Mom and Dad and Donna (above), Lewis and Gladys Sider (with son John), and Lulu Asper, Rhoda Lenhert, and Florence Hensel.

They flew from New York to Gander, Newfoundland, where they were unable to land because of fog. I think they went to Monckton, NB. The next day they went on to the Azores islands, two-thirds of the way to Portugal, and then on to Portugal. From Portugal they flew to Dakar, Senegal, and then on to Monrovia in Liberia.  Finally they flew to what today is called Kinshasa, Congo, and then to what is now Lubumbashi. The last stage of their journey was by train, from Lubumbashi across the border into Zambia, and then on south to their destination in Bulawayo. They arrived in Bulawayo on Christmas Day, 1946. The beginning of almost 20 years in Zambia and Zimbabwe. Their passport has the stamps from government officials chronicling their journey. A story of passports.

1950. I suspect that the passports had a five year limit, since their next passport includes me, issued four years later. They travelled on a family passport, showing and signed by David Climenhaga and Dorcas Climenhaga, and adding the names of their children, Donna and Daryl. I think I can see some weariness in my parents' faces. They had another daughter in between, who never made the passport, Dorothy Leigh, born in April 1948, and died in November, 1948. Expatriate life is often hard.

1956 (I think). Just before Denise joined the family. A typical missionary family photograph. You can see the collar and dickey my father wore, sort of like an Anglican priest. Odd, for Brethren in Christ folk, whose motto was simplicity, but understood by the people around us in a British colony. The same reason that my parents finally bought a wedding ring for mother about five years later. It stopped the English from thinking that they were not married, but "living in sin".

1957. Denise was born, and we added her to the family passport by the simple expedient of adding a picture of mother holding her, signed before the relevant American authorities. So much simpler than life is today. Denise looks unimpressed by the proceedings. I like the way that the side view shows mother's covering, a part of her dress that I took for granted for the first 15+ years of my life. I notice also (at least I think I saw this) that, when she stopped wearing the covering, it disappeared from her clothes entirely. Dad took off the collar and dickey at the same time, but it was still in his dresser drawer when he died, just over 50 years later.

1959. This photograph appeared in the book of missionary families in 1960, a copy of which sits in my office. here it served first to include Donna and then to remove her from our family passport. We must have travelled home to the USA on this passport in 1959 as a family. Donna remained in the USA when we returned to Zimbabwe the following year. As a result, she got her own passport, and had to be removed from the family passport. Again, a simple procedure, appearing before the relevant American official, who crossed her off, and it was done.

The last two passports complete the journey. I think that these were the first individual passports they held. Denise and I got individual passports at the same time. A little context. This was a period of political instability. Dad was the bishop of the church and general superintendent of the mission. If troubles of some sort or other broke out in Zimbabwe, especially in Bulawayo where we lived, individual passports enabled us to travel separately if necessary. Dad could stay behind and keep things going, while mother and Denise and I could head for South Africa and home.

I have wondered about that time. I remember getting my passport. It felt cool, and I felt grown up. I'm not sure I would have felt quite so pleased if I had known why I now had my own passport. Two years later we left Zimbabwe. I returned for three years in the 1970s, so that I was there for the beginning of the Liberation Struggle, but that's another story. A story of passports.