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Name: ZIPPER, Solanus (Brother)

Birth Date: 11.8.1871 Kinzheim, Alsace
Death Date: 18.3.1947 Nairobi
Nationality: German
First Date: 1890
Profession: St. Austin's Mission, Spiritan missionary
Area: Nairobi, Kiambu
Book Reference: KAD, Red 31, EAHB 1906, North, Red Book 1912
General Information:
EAHB 1906 - S. Zipper - Kikuyu
North - arr. Zanzibar from France for Tununguo Mission, GEA Oct 1890; Moved to Bura Mission 1892; transferred to St. Austin's Nairobi 1902; credited with the first successful introduction of coffee to the Nairobi area. An earlier attempt by John Paterson at the Scottish Mission had failed.
Red Book 1912 - S. Zipper - Kyambu
St Austin's cemetery, Nairobi Last Name: ZEPPER [sic] Given Name: Br Solanus Birth: 11 Aug 1871 Death: 18 Mar 1947
AGED: YR: 75, MO: 7, DA: 7 Cemetery: St Austin's Cemetery Notes: Credited with the first successful introduction of coffee to the Nairobi area.
Henry J. Koren, Spiritan East African Memorial, 1994 After making his vows on September 8, 1890 at Chevilly, he received his appointment to the Vicariate of North Zanguebar. He was one of the nine Spiritan Fathers and Brothers who embarked from Marseille on October 12 of the same year for that mission. Bp. de Courmont placed him at Tununguo for his apprenticeship. Two years later we find him at Bura, in Kenya, where he remained for about ten years. He helped in the construction work during his first few years there, but also took care of the mission's plantations. When constructions were finished, agricultural concerns became his main occupation, as well as the maintenance of the mission. Transferred to St. Austin's, Nairobi by 1902, he rendered the same type of service so well and so faithfully that we find him still there 30 years later. Unlike other Alsatian confreres, he does not appear to have been disturbed by World War One. ln 1934 we find him in the Kiambu mission of Kenya. By then he was in his mid-sixties. Having celebrated the golden jubilee of his religious profession and of his arrival in East Africa in 1940, the faithful Brother died seven years later.