Edith Willobee (1880-1962)

Edith Jane (Flesher) Willobee was my maternal grandmother. She lived a "Harrowing" life, which is the title of a novel I've outlined about her life.  This picture was taken in 1907 (age 27) as she prepared to leave for India the first time. She was purposed and determined. Two years later Ross Willobee follows her there. They married in 1911 in India.

This was a fund raising photo of the Willobee family in India taken perhaps a year before Ross and David's death in 1921. (L-R) Ruth (my mother), Edith, David, Hope (my Aunt Hopie), Ross.

The caption, written by Ruth in later years, reads, "Graves of Ross Van Willobee and David Allen (son) at Chowki, India. On right Edith Willobee wife of Ross, on left is daughter Ruth (Willobee) Williams."  To bury her loved ones, Edith tore down the doors and window shutters on their bungalow, which Ross had recently installed, to make coffins. She had to get special permission from the local Raj because Indians do not bury their dead.

This take around 1924 (L-R) Hope, Edith, Ruth. Shortly after Edith's husband, Ross, and their little David (2 years) suddenly died, Edith had a nervous breakdown and spent 6-months bedfast. One day she swung out of bed and ordered up a ox-cart caravan to evangelize the surrounding villages. To promote that work she sent this picture to America seeking financial support for the project.  

Upon rising from her six-month long sick-bed following Ross and David's death, Edith mounted this ox-cart caravan to evangelize and start churches in the surrounding villages. She did this for six years before bringing her girls to America to attend school. Edith is on the far left, and the girls are just to the left of the dog, whom a Tiger later had for dinner. 

Edith Willobee's Fig Tree Healing. This picture and the caption on the back mostly in Edith's handwriting tells the story from 1925 while Edith and the girls were traveling in the countryside preaching and establishing churches. This was years after Ross had died of Black Water Fever, a variant of malaria fever. The caption reads with Ruth's editorial notes in [brackets]. 

[India - healed of malaria fever in 1925] Precious children here is the Fig Tree under which mama met God that never to be forgotten nite when He healed Darling Hopie (Hope Willobee Winke). Then I went in the tent layed down on my little bed and the dear Lord said to me "Why not Ussie"? [Ruth Willobee Williams] I says "Yes Lord" and Ussie was healed. Thank God. [Edit Willobee]

Edith Willobee's 1927 passport. Pictured is my mother, Ruth (15) on the left, and my Aunt, Hope (12) on the right. Their journey from central India by ox-cart, train, ferry, steamship...to America is documented in a diary that has become the basis of a future historical pice of fiction I call HARROWING. I'd have to dumb it down for Hollywood to accept it.

Edit retired from missionary service in 1942 and came to live with her daughters, dodging U-Boats as they sailed across the South Atlantic without any lights aboard at night. When Ruth got married, all three women moved in with the widower, Ben Williams.

Although she wasn't very excited about her daughter's marriage to a widower, 18-years Ruth's senior, when a little boy came along, Edith was eager to hold him, pray for him, and tell him stories that put all kinds of ideas into his little head. For 5 months old, I seem big and restless. It was 1947.

Circa 1956.

I find it interesting that the first hotel we stayed at was "Bob's" Hotel...and that the salutation listed everyone in our whole family and then closed with "...and the whole family," as if we were on a vaudeville tour with suitcases full of ventriloquist dummies. 

Over the next eight years, Edith slowly developed Parkinson's Disease, and in 1955, Ruth and Hope put her in a nursing home where we visited every Sunday for seven years until her death in 1962.

Even lying disabled in her bed, her eyes were clear and blue as she'd look up at Hope Ellen (pictured), and me (with the camera) and say, "Hope Ellen and Stanley, I'm praying for you." Today, we are the beneficiaries of those prayers that continue yet today. I imagine that for seven years she laid on her back and did nothing but pray for the people she ministered to in India, and for us.  I am convinced that I am the recipient of God's love shown "to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments." (Exodus 20:5) Thank you, Grandma!

Missionary to India 1908-1942. EDITH J. WILLOBEE. 1880-1962. Edith's grave marker in the Roselawn Cemetery, Berkley, MI. Right across Woodward Ave. from Roselawn's entrance is a Catholic basilica "Shine of the Little Flower" which renowned as a Catholic landmark. As a kid we drove by the shine a thousand times, but never darkened its doors. After becoming Catholic, on my way to work, I attended early morning Mass at Shine for years.