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Name: SCHEFFER, Cornelius Philippus (Father)
Birth Date: 5.5.1882 Rotterdam, Holland
Death Date: 23.3.1951 Asumbi
Nationality: Dutch
First Date: 1909
Last Date: 1951
Profession: Mill Hill Fathers missionary at Asumbi Mission when Richard Gethin passed through on his way to Kisii in 1914. He had only recently arrived to start the mission and was finding things a bit hard.
Area: Asumbi Mission, South Nyanza, Kisii 1922-23, 1930 Kisii
Book Reference: North, Alex Mascarenhas, Directory of EA 1922-23, Gethin, Norden, KAD, Red 25, Red 31, Red 22, Leader14, Baur, Red Book 1912
General Information:
Was sent to Asumbi in 1920 to develop the Mission that Fr. Wall had started a little earlier from Nyabururu. Fr Scheffer did an excellent job for the place and when he died that Mission had schools, a Convent for the African Sisters and a Health Clinic. It was reckoned to be the best Mission Station in South Nyanza. He was a very kindly man and fond of cigars. On his way to Asumbi, he would stop at ours at Riana and always leave some sweets and fruit that he bought at Kisumu. He is buried in Asumbi and a vast area mourned his demise. Source:- Alex Mascarenhas
Directory Source:- P. Rimington
Gethin - Father Scheffer was one of the best, a Hollander, most hospitable and a very able man. He was for the remainder of his life at Asumbi and when he died there in 1951, the Mission was a show place with a large Convent, Hospital and Church with few to equal it in Kenya.
Leader14 - Mill Hill Fathers
Red Book 1912 - P. Scheffer - Kisumu
Terence Gavaghan, Of Lions and Dungbeetles, 1999 Asumbi lay in the heart of fertile Luo country and the mission was headed by an indestructible French priest, later to be Bishop at Kakamega, Father Philip Scheffer, known to all as Pilippo. He had entered for a life sentence of service and had already thrown off dysentery, Blackwater Fever and plague. In his late 50s he was ruddy and robust with the gutsy exhaling laugh of a Dutch farmer, his white cassock being equally his serviceable smock or football gear.