Peyton Adams Eubank
Missionary - Africa 1882 - 1892

Memories of a Missionary Tour of Duty in Africa: 1882 - 1892
by Laura Boardman Houchens Eubank
Wife of Rev. Peyton Adams Eubank
Missionaries To Nigeria 1882
Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board, Richmond, VA.

This Story Started 49 Years Ago

(Page 26)

I am stopping a moment to explain that it is just forty-nine years ago today (May 4, 1931) that the story of which I am writing had its beginnings.

We were married forty-nine years ago tonight at the home of my parents, Jesse C. and Amanda Houchens, near Sturgeon, Boone County, Missouri. (Wedding Picture) I was trusting my life to the care of one of the best men God ever made, and never once in the thirty-three years he was with me did he fail me in faithfulness and tender care. He was all that I had hoped or thought that any man could be. I had no fear. But at the same time, I was leaving that night perhaps forever, my childhood home, my father and mother, my brother and five sisters with their tender love and with the knowledge that they were almost heartbroken of giving me up. So, it was with mingled feelings that I left my home that evening in May, 1882.

We took the train that night for Louisville, Ky. where both my husband and my brother were to graduate from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary two days later. We reached there on the evening of the 5th; on the 8th they were graduated. We took dinner that day at the house of President John A, Broadus, one of the greatest Ministers of the Faith. The next day we went to East church and for the first time heard Dr. J. P. Greene preach, who was at that time Pastor. Later he was to become President of William Jewell College and in later years a near neighbor and good friend. On May 8th we went to Winchester, Kentucky and for a few weeks visited the many relatives of my husband. Whom I had never met. Later we returned to Missouri for a brief visit with my own dear people. Then the final "Good bye" on which it is not pleasant to dwell; even at this remote period.

Page 27

It is strange to think that I, who left that day for the dangerous and deadly climate of Africa, am the only one left of that family of mine who parted that day. Then a brief stop again at Winchester, Ky. where. my husband was ordained on June 23rd, then another good-bye to dear ones there; then on to New York where this story has already begun.

This evening at dinner my son recalled, as he never fails to do with all - these anniversary of tender memories, that wedding day of 49 years ago. -- A as we six thought these, himself, his wife, and three little girls, he asked me to tell the story of that day. And I told them more in detail than I have ever done before, the story of that day. Somehow, I am so constricted that I do not like to talk much about things that are very dear to my heart., And so, I have talked little about the the things that I feel most - of the dear husband who left me nearly seventeen years ago in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, where he was Pastor of the Calvary Baptist Church. Strange that he has been gone half as long as he was with me. Also of the dear daughter, Jessie May, who was loaded to us for eighteen beautiful years -- years of love and devotion, years of happiness and usefulness with all their beautiful promise, then faded as suddenly as a " flower plucked from its stem. Then there was little Paul -- always "little Paul" for he never grew up.- He was taken when 17 months old. But I shall see them again.


August 2000 - Notes - WRE Jr.

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