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Ray has another article about Laurel and Laurie Gray and their adventures and hardships as missionaries. We also have pictures of three Jerrems members visiting Washington D.C. for the inauguration ceremonies of Donald J. Trump in January. They traveled from Florida.
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LAUREL GRAY SECOND ARTICLE
Here is a later photo of Laurel and Laurie at Kwato near Milne Bay (Laurel is second from the left).
This article continues the story of Laurel and the late Laurie Gray following on from my article in the previous Jerrems journal. When Laurel received her copy of that Journal she emailed me to say “Dear Ray, I was very moved by your latest Jerrems Journal, thank you for honouring Laurie so beautifully and understanding the message of the hat and boots! “. Encouraged by Laurel’s enthusiastic reaction and from comments by other readers, I have written this article to continue the story of Laurie and Laurie’s adventures. Previous article. Readers will recollect that my previous article recounted the couple’s adventures in Saroa (50 km east of Port Moresby). That article concentrated on Laurie’s dramatic dash along an overgrown military road to Port Moresby to see Laurel and their newborn son David.
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Summary of this article
This article continues their story in Saroa, drawing on different aspects which I have grouped together to provide a series of snapshots starting when Laurie first arrived by himself in the area in mid-1956, to be joined two years later by Laurel, through to …….The book “The Bright Morning Star” which has provided the information is 350 pages long and is chock full of interesting anecdotes, so I have found it challenging to know where to start. Saroa. A good place to start is to briefly describe the area, which is dissected by the Kemp Welch River pictured in the previous article. There were a number of villages, administered by a Government District Officer. There were also several Mission Stations in the area, and a very basic hospital at nearby Rigo, where the military road commenced. Local commerce centred around copra and rubber plantations. The roads, such as they were, were boggy and the four wheel drive capabilities of Laurie’s Landrover were fully tested. |
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The Saroa Mission House
Here is a photo of a very happy Keith, the youngest of the Gray children. The Mission House was to the casual eye a comparatively modern weatherboard cottage, with glass windows. However it had some quirks. Early in the peace they could not work out why the water had a funny taste, until they found a very dead rat in the water tank. Snakes, which ranged in the area from black snakes to very unfriendly death adders and taipans, also provided a challenge. The bathroom which Laurie had set up, where he hoped to have water piped into and out of the bathroom was good, however they found that snakes likes to hide in the pipe and this was a bit of a problem. But worse was to come. There was a tree over the top of the roof of the outhouse toilet in the backyard. The tree was a favourite place for snakes to live and when one went to the toilet one had to check the tree to ensure that there wasn’t a snake ready to slide down. On the plus side, at an early stage Laurie had brought in a kerosene fridge which had a very small freezing section which was very suitable for holding home-made ice cream. Payback, cargo cult Despite being only 50 km from Port Moresby, and having been exposed to Government administrators and missionaries for many years, the local population still clung onto some of their old traditions. One of these was “payback”, where real or imagined wrongs were met with retaliation. In one instance a football team from a village in Laurie’s area was playing football against a team from a nearby village one Saturday morning when a player fell over and his tooth was knocked out. After the match, and no doubt after due consideration, the victim’s team stormed around to the other team’s village, grabbed a player and pulled one of his teeth out. Due protocol having been observed, everybody was happy. In one of Laurie’s villages there were some “cargo cult” adherents who clung to the fond hope that the Australian Government would send them vast amounts of supplies. This had its origin in the Second World War when the American soldiers were well known for handing out surplus supplies and equipment.
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Spearing Although it was not exactly payback, a spearing took place at a plantation on the Kemp Welch River, not far from Saroa. To quote from the book:
“There had been a dispute between two men about the distribution of a pig and one man caught a spear in the back, the spear was barbed and had a head of half inch steel reinforcing. The spear had gone through bone and punctured the lung of the victim. Peter Brownlie (the plantation owner) had placed the spear in a vice and cut off all but 18 inches (50 cm) of the shaft. Peter then placed the man in his Landrover and took him to the hospital at Rigo, where he was treated and sent to Port Moresby. The roads were in very bad condition at the time, the drive was very rough and the man must have been in intense pain because he kept begging Peter to stop the car and let him out to lie down and die. The man was operated on at the Port Moresby Hospital and he made a complete recovery. The man who threw the spear was put on trial for assault but was allowed to go free because it was considered to be a case of native justice”. |
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Bush food Naturally enough, food was important. Native foods were prevalent, and were supplemented by tinned food brought in from Port Moresby. Laurie and Laurel were on a limited budget, being paid an allowance by the London Missionary Society, so they mostly ate local food. At his first New Year at Saroa, while Laurel was still in Australia, Laurie was pleased to reciprocate the hospitality of the Brownlies with “a feast of fowl, pickled pork and some wallaby, with peaches and ice cream for dessert”. Health Perhaps the climate was partly to blame, because the Grays suffered a number of complaints while they were in PNG, including malaria, dengue fever and hepatitis. However they were much better off than the locals, particularly the hill tribes that Laurie visited on patrol (I will describe this in a later article). Even so, the coastal people suffered particularly from skin complaints. This was graphically demonstrated to Laurie when he attended a huge meeting (known as a Heboa) of about 1000 locals who met each year to pledge their contributions to the local administration. Many of the locals had a nasty skin disease and very soon there was a long line waiting at the missionaries’ clinic, where the missionaries used a staggering 12 gallons (55 litres) of ointment. There were also many ulcers and boils to treat with rather painful penicillin injections. The high incidence of the skin disease must have been very disappointing to the missionaries because they had placed a lot of emphasis on the need for washing and use of soap. |
Scorpions and centipedes There were other poisonous creatures in the area, in addition to snakes. The giant centipede was very poisonous (see above photo). However it was brightly coloured and easy to see. Laurie had once been travelling in a truck. He was standing on the tray at the back while his friends drove the truck. Suddenly his friends opened the doors and jumped out, leaving Laurie hanging onto the cab of the truck as it careered down the hill. The truck was eventually stopped by a tree, and while Laurie was recovering from the shock his friends ran down apologetically. They had been comfortably sitting in the truck driving along when they both noticed, at the same time, a centipede sitting on the seat between them. Without thinking they had both opened their doors and jumped out! Conclusion In a later article I will tell you about Laurie’s adventures while he was on patrol in the hills and mountains behind Saroa.
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Jerrems at the Donald J. Trump Inauguration
Warren and Mia Jerrems, and Susan Jerrems Begat went to Washington to attend the parade and other inauguration ceremonies for incoming President Donald J. Trump.
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