Page 205 - The Diary of A. H. W. Behrens

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1902
with myself, the church leader, sexton, cantor and teachers formed a council of 72 men that could be called together whenever this was necessary. Now we had peace and quiet and could get our work done. We dealt with reasonable men. The big girls that had been dismissed, however, often became a nuisance for the village.
During the war years Jakobus had bricks baked and burnt for the construction of a new school house. When I returned, we immediately started building. I used contributions from the congregation to buy doors, windows and roof trusses and was scolded for this by Director E. Harms because he said that
we should have collected additional money for this purpose. But this is how it had been done during father’s times who considered this to be a need of the congregation. Jakobus on his side had delivered all bricks.
1903
After the war, the schools were in a poor state and because I wanted my children to learn proper German, I asked Pastor Haccius to send me a suitable governess with me paying for her trip to us and back and a salary of ₤ 5 per month. He found someone and sent me Miss Schramm who stayed for 3 years and then travelled back at my expense, got engaged with teacher Wilhelm Ahrens and was then sent back at the expense of the Mission to him, gave birth to two sons and returned to Germany after his death.