North - Gardener; arr. Zanzibar 2/11/1904; Matumi Mission, Kikuyu; transferred to Ufiomi, GEA, 1907

Henry J. Koren, Spiritan East African Memorial, 1994: A gardener by trade, he went to Knechtsteden in 19O2 when he was nearly 26 years old. He made his vows there on June 21 ,1904. On October 10, 1904 he sailed for the North Zanguebar vicariate, where he was assigned to the new mission at Matumi among the Kikuyu. Afier the creation of the new vicariate of Bagamoyo we find him in 1906 at Kibosho. The following year, however, Bp. Frangois Vogt selected him and Fr. Ferdinand Dürr to open a new mission at Ufiomi and repeated his transfer to a new mission again in 1912 to Useri. The reason undoubtedly was his expertise in agriculture: there were vegetable gardens and plantations to be laid out so that the new missions would be able to support themselves. \l/hen World War One began in August 1914, he was called up for military service in German East Africa and, after the defeat of the German troops in 1916, he appears to have been interned as an enemy alien (although his name does not appear on the list of Spiritans who underwent this fate). However, when peace came he could retum and resume his work as an Alsatian Frenchman. He then served for more thn 30 years at Rombo and Uru. Retired in 1952 at the age of 75, he died there afier more than half a century of service in East Africa.