View entry
Name: HUFSCHMITT, Florent
Birth Date: 8.11.1865 Steinbourg, Alsace
Death Date: 2.6.1896 Bagamoyo
Nationality: German
First Date: 1892
Last Date: 1896
Profession: Missionary
Area: Zanzibar, Bagamoyo
General Information:
North - Holy Ghost Fathers - Arr. Zanzibar from France 1892; Zanzibar Mission at first and then Bagamoyo; d. 2/6/1896 Bagamoyo - blackwater fever
Henry J. Koren, Spiritan East African Memorial, 1994: After his classical studies at Cellule, he did his theology at Chevilly; ordained a priest, he pronounced his vows in August 1892 at Orly. His assignment sent him to East Africa. After staying some time in Zanzibar, he went to Bagamoyo. When he could make himself understood in Swahili, he took over the care of the orphans. He was a strict disciplinarian, perhaps too strict, but that was only a particular instance of the disciplined way he approached everything. His religious instructions were always most carefully prepared and very successful. When the bishop of Mocambique paid a visit to Bagamoyo and offered a Sunday Mass there, he said afterward: "Not even in a whole year can I ever in my cathedral distribute as many Holy Communions as I have given out here in a single Mass."
His organizational talents showed themselves in the famine year of 1894 when inland people flocked to Bagamoyo for help. Providentially, shortly before a rich Indian, Sewa Hadji, had given the mission large tracts of land that had been granted to him by the German authorities after the Bushiri troubles. Father was asked to organize the distribution of these lands to the refugees, and he did so admirably.Moreover, to prevent possible future disputes over the boundaries of these lands at a time when there was not yet any government registration of land, he meticulously and accurately measured each of the tracks. Then he was transferred to Mandera. He had always declined to take quinine, saying that a man of his robust constitution did not need any. In Mandera he had to pay the price for his folly. His hasty transport to Magamoyo did not help; he died there of blackwater fever.