Part II - Seven Years of Solitude (1939-1946)

Anna Bøg did not receive any response from Elise Bahnson to her reply of August, 1943. Therefore on November 25, 1943, she once again wrote from Siuyen to Elise Bahnson in Denmark. The D.M.S. published both Anna Bøg's letter and some explanatory notes by Elise Bahnson in the missionary newspaper in early 1944.

Here is the text of the letter and explanation:

Anna Bøg's Letter

"My dear L.

"Since the stoppage I have only received one letter from you, dated April 7, 1943. I wrote to you in August this year. There have been a few letters from Pastor Morthensen with many greetings from missionary families.

"Everything is much changed from the time you were out here. You would not recognize the place. All the various church communities are thrown together into one Manchurian church. Management resides in the capital.

"All the missionaries are unemployed. We live as private persons, as we have not received Hsü-K'e (preaching license). In Siuyen, only Evangelist Li has a preaching license. Thus the work is entirely at a standstill with the exception of the Sunday worship service. It is good that we still have it. But we need to come to the Lord's table.

"I miss work unspeakably much. Hou and P'ei are both gone. The congregation does well with self-support, but is much lacking in self-management. So many of the old workers have gone off and new ones have not arrived. I never imagined that it would come to this.

"Lai-Chen (the blind Bible Woman) is still here, she knits. Necessity has taught the Chinese to spin goat wool. She has much more knitting than she can handle, so others help her. She and old Mrs. Meng look after and in on the Christian women.

"Mrs. Wang from China is taking my women's Sunday school class. She is a good at it and capable; the women like her.

"Here there is a little Sunday School with a flock of faithful young girls to teach.

"In the autumn, I suddenly became ill with a high fever and lay in the hospital for almost three weeks. It was good it was not the long typhoid fever. I was very ill by the time I started to recover and it took several weeks to get back to normal. Now I am well again, and my strength has returned. The women were touchingly good to me.

"Some young people come here and I study God's Word with them. And almost every day old Mrs. Kuo's little granddaughter comes here to play with me. She is a little more than a year old and a little sunbeam. Old Mrs. Kuo still lives here, but she dines at her son's.

"On Thursday afternoons all the ladies from the hospital come to my house for coffee. On Saturdays, Mrs. Helga Christensen comes. On Sundays I go out there. Gudrun Budtz Christensen often comes in; we pray together.

"Everything is so expensive, so expensive. We cannot buy clothes. We have enough to eat. We get every 24 pounds of flour and one pound of sugar per month. We make coffee from beans.

"I received a Red Cross letter from Bøgh in Pjedsted and your letter -- that's all. Greet all the dear friends.

"A thousand affectionate greetings. - Old Mrs. Kuo, Lai-Chen and Ch'en-Shu-Yün send their greetings. Yours sincerely, Anna."

Elise Bahnson's Explanation of Anna Bøg's Letter

"Hou and P'ei have for many years been Bible Women in Siuyen. After 1940, Miss Hou was in charge of work in town and Miss P'ei in charge of rural work. But in the summer they both departed. Chao-Lai-Chen is also a trained Bible woman like Chang-Kuei-Ch'ing: they are both from the Home for the Blind in Mukden. She [Chang-Kuei-Ch'ing] was sick a couple of years ago and so far as I understand it has since been back at the Home for the Blind, while Chao-Lai-Chen is still in Suiyen, but has not been given a preaching license. Kuo-Chen-Yü is our old retired Bible Woman. When she retired as Bible Woman, she stayed at the mission to be of help.

"Our pastor, Reverend Shun, was a good year ago moved to Antung. Reverend Hung from Pitsaikou came in his stead, but Miss [Helga] Johansen wrote that his preaching license was taken away. Siuyen therefore has no minister.

"Ch'en-Shu-Yün is a young Christian girl who may help the blind woman to knit. In 1936, these two faithful little girls came with their mother and were instructed for baptism. Since then, they have been faithful in the congregation.

"Widow Meng-Ching-Ming is a friend of the blind. In all the years we have had blind Bible Women, she has been very faithful to go into town with them. She is very loyal and has a loving disposition towards the blind and the blind love her. She herself has no children but lives with some kinsmen.

"An affectionate greeting to all the friends. Should we not urge each other to persevere in intercession for the Chinese as well as our emissaries, that they have all the help from above that they can possibly have? Elise Bahnson."

Anna Bøg's reference to the "stoppage" is significant. Missionary daughter Kirsten Berggreen Buch explained to us some of the restraints to which the Japanese subjected the Danish missionaries who remained in Manchuria. These included travel restrictions, censorship, and rationing:

"The Danish and Norwegian missionaries were 'locked in' at their home towns and were not permitted to travel anywhere. My father [Rev. Niels Buch], as chairman, had to ask the police permission every time he had to go for a committee meeting, etc. He could only travel on the 1st, 11th, or the 21st of the month, and had to be back the following 11th, 21st or 1st. (Some of the missionaries were sent to prison . . . and food was insufficient, rationed, especially in the area of [Antung, Siuyen, Takushan]. Several of the missionaries there got the beri-beri. And the connection with Denmark was limited. The Danish Missionary Society had to send all messages through the Danish Foreign Ministry directly to the Danish Consulate in Harbin, in English of course, and my father then sent the messages from home to the missionaries in small bits to each of them. "

The reason the messages had to be "in English of course" was that the English was more accessible to the Japanese officials than Danish. The requirement that all correspondence be in English applied to internal as well as international communication. Until early 1944, Anna Bøg's accounting letters to Axel Christensen had been in Danish. Beginning in 1944, she continued to write to him but the letters were in English.

Here are Anna Bøg's letters to Axel Christensen during 1944:

February 4, 1944

"Today I received the 2,000 from Witt. Thanks for your letter of January 28. After paying out to the missionaries, the balance in the transfer account today is 1,606.90. We are all well. The winter has been rather mild up here. It saves fuel, which is so expensive this year, and kind of hard to get.

February 28, 1944

"Thanks for your letter of February 25. After paying the missionaries, the balance in the transfer account today is 309.29 plus interest 22.96, total 332.25.

"We are all well. The Hospital has finally gotten light. We are beginning to feel spring, do enjoy the milder weather.

March 14, 1944

"Thanks for your letter of February 13, 1944 with the enclosed checks, received today.

"It is not spring yet, this morning the ground was all covered with snow. We are all well. Your sister-in-law [Helga Christensen] comes to visit me several times a week.

"We all enjoy reading the newspapers.

May 4, 1944

"Thanks for two letters of April 24 and April 28.

"After paying the missionaries, the amount in the transfer account was 834.75. Then after receiving the 2,000 of April 28, today the amount is 2,834.75.

June 18, 1944

"Thanks for your two letters of June 1 and May 10. . . . The two ladies are gradually improving. A.B. [Anna Busch] was up for dinner and coffee today. Dr. M. [Dr. Marie Nielsen] came in the dining room for coffee. We had our Sunday Worship in her sick room. A.B. is very, very weak, but it seems that their [lives will] be spared this time. Your sister-in-law, G.B.C., and I took our Sunday walk. The nature is most beautiful just now. They have been extremely busy at the Hospital. Here we are only four: a blind woman, a deaf girl, [an] old woman and myself. . . .

"After paying the missionaries the balance in the transfer account today is 2,586.28."

July 28, 1944

"Thanks for your letter of July 14. After paying the missionaries, the balance in the transfer account is today 1,179.28.

"Your sister in law has had a little stomach trouble but is over it now. A. Busch is in Antung to the dentist. They are extremely busy at the Hospital.

August 20, 1944

"Thanks for your letter received today. You mentioned a letter with 3,000 from Buch. I have not received his letter yet. Have written him at once. Trust it will come yet, as without it, there is not enough money in the transfer account to pay the missionaries’ salary.

October 25, 1944

"Thanks for your letter of October 20, 1944. After paying Dr. Marie, Anna Busch and myself, the Balance in the transfer account is today 4,746.51.

At that point there was an hiatus and then in late December, 1944, Anna Bøg wrote this letter to Axel Christensen:

December 28, 1944

"After paying the missionaries the balance in the transfer account is today 3,079.41.

"We have had a nice quiet Christmas. Anna Busch sprained her ankle before Christmas. She had to stay in her room most of the time. We have very cold weather and it is rather difficult to buy wood, and it is so expensive."

Meanwhile, on December 6, 1944, Anna Bøg completed twenty-five years of missionary service. On December 11, 1944, Rev. Niels Buch, the chairman of D.M.S.’s Manchurian Mission wrote a letter in English to all the Danish missionaries in Manchuria from his base in Harbin, which included the following:

"Dear Friends,

"The following telegram was received yesterday through the Consulate: 'From Danish Missionary Society: Enquire through Buch condition Danish Missionaries. Telegram November 14th received. Christmas greetings to all. Jubilee greetings to Bøg Madsen.’

"The telegram of November 14th was from the treasurer and acknowledged the receipt of 330,000 Yen through the legation.

"Miss Bøg Madsen’s jubilee was according to the album December 6th (date of leaving Denmark, 1919). We all join with the home board in this greeting and wish we could have been in Siuyen to celebrate it. It is 25 years with only two furloughs and, after the language school, all in one place, not always easy and peaceful, often lonely, but as long as we were allowed to work, with plenty to do in city and country and happy in this work. We wish for Miss Bøg Madsen a new period of work, after a well deserved furlough, with new strength wherever and whatever it be. . . . "

There are no available accounting letters for 1945, except one. The following letter was stamped received on April 21, 1945:

"I have received 3,000 from … Buch and added the sum to the transfer account.

This was the last accounting letter on file from Anna Bøg to Axel Christensen. On August 14, 1945, Japan acknowledged defeat, and on September 2, 1945, Japan signed a formal surrender. World War II had ended.

Sources:
Bahnson, Elise; "Til Forklaring af Frk. Bøg Madsens Brev"; Dansk Missionsblad, Vol. 111, Nr. 10, March 10, 1944; pp. 138-139.
Bøg-Madsen, Anna, "Brev fra Frk. Anna Bøg Madsen," Dansk Missionsblad, Vol. 111, Nr. 10, March 10, 1944; pp. 137-138.
Bøg-Madsen, Anna; letters to Axel Christensen, 1940s, from the D.M.S. archives at the Rigsarkivet (Danish National Archives).
Buch, Kirsten Berggreen; letter to the authors; August 11, 1999.
Buch, Rev. Niels; letter to Manchurian missionaries; December 11, 1944, from the D.M.S. archives at the Rigsarkivet.

Image:
Photograph of Bible Woman Kuo-Chen-Yü (front left), Meng-Ching-Ming (front right), Maria Bjergaarde (rear left), and Anna Bøg (rear right), taken in 1936.
All D.M.S. items used with permission