Mission life in Cree-Ojibwe country : : memories of a mother and son / / Elizabeth Bingham Young and E. Ryerson Young ; edited and with introductions by Jennifer S.H. Brown.

• Superior document: Our Lives: Diary, Memoir, and Letters
• VerfasserIn: Young, Elizabeth Bingham,; Young, E. Ryerson 1869-1962,
• TeilnehmendeR: Brown, Jennifer S. H., 1940-; Young, E. Ryerson 1869-1962,
• Place / Publishing House: Edmonton, Alberta : : AU Press,, 2014.; ©2014
• Year of Publication: 2014
• Language: English
• Series: Our lives--diary, memoir, and letters.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (337 pages) :; illustrations, maps; digital, PDF file(s).
• Notes: Includes index.

In May of 1868, Elizabeth Bingham Young and her new husband, Egerton Ryerson Young, began a long journey from Hamilton, Ontario, to the Methodist mission of Rossville. For the next eight years, Elizabeth supported her husband’s work at two mission houses, Norway House and then Berens River. Unprepared for the difficult conditions and the “eight months long” winter, and unimpressed with “eating fish twenty-one times a week,” the young Upper Canada wife rose to the challenge. In these remote outposts, she gave birth to three children, acted as a nurse and doctor, and applied both perseverance and determination to learning Cree, while also coping with poverty and short supplies within her community. Her account of mission life, as seen through the eyes of a woman, is the first of its kind to be archived and now to appear in print. Accompanying Elizabeth’s memoir, and offering a counterpoint to it, are the reminiscences of her eldest son, “Eddie.” Born at Norway House in 1869 and nursed by a Cree woman from infancy, Eddie was immersed in local Cree and Ojibwe life, culture, and language, in many ways exemplifying the process of reverse acculturation often in evidence among the children of missionaries. Like those of his mother, Eddie’s memories capture the sensory and emotional texture of mission life, providing a portrait that is startling in its immediacy. Skillfully woven together and meticulously annotated by Jennifer Brown, these two remarkable recollections of mission life are an invaluable addition to the fields of religious, missionary, and indigenous history. In their power to resurrect experience, they are also a fascination to read.

Table of Contents

Part I Untitled memoir of Elizabeth Bingham Young, 1927. Postscripts. Elizabeth Bingham Young : method in her Methodism -- Mission Wives at Rossville : some comparisions -- Part II "A missionary and his son" and subsequent reminiscences, by E. Ryerson Young. Introduction -- A missionary and his son -- Reminiscences of 1962 for the years 1876 to 1898 -- "As darkness steals upon mine eyes" : a poem by E. Ryerson Young, on his blindness -- Part III Supplementary documents and excerpts. 1 Resolution, Quarterly Board of Hamilton City East Circuit, 4 May 1868 -- 2 The Rope from Hamilton -- 3 Adventure with a Bull at Norway House -- 4 Letters of Clarissa Bingham and Sarah Bingham to Elizabeth and Egerton Young, 1868-69 -- 5 "A Great Surprise to the Missionaries Wife": Moss -- 6 Women's Work -- 7 Sandy Harte -- 8 Egerton R. Young's Illness with Typhoid, 1872 -- 9 Schooling in Rossville: The "Infant Class" and Miss Batty's Thoughts on Shawls -- 10 "Thanks to the Kind Ladies of Canada" : Egerton Young to the Christian Guardian -- 11 Transitions, 1873-74: Letters from Egerton to Elizabeth Young -- 12 Elizabeth Young's Second Account of Ontario and Berens River, 1873-76 -- 13 Two Letters from the Reverend Enoch Wood Regarding the Youngs' Appointment to Berens River -- 14 Letter from Little Mary to Egerton R. Young, 1887 -- 15 Letter from Alex Kennedy, the Youngs' Dog Driver, to Egerton R. Young, 1890 -- 16 Elizabeth Bingham Young: Appreciations and Memories.