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Name: LAMMER, Charles (Rev. Father)
Birth Date: 10.4.1882 Artelshelm, Alsace
Death Date: 27.7.1968 Nairobi
First Date: 1910
Profession: Catholic Mission, Bura
Area: Mangu, Chania Bridge
Book Reference: Red 25, Hut, Red 22, North
General Information:
Web: HGM Holy Ghost Mission: The Spiritans in Nairobi But Fr. Cayzac at Mangu needs some rest after 15 years of labour. He must leave his "beloved Kikuyus." He closes his last entry in the journal, asking, is this provisional or definitive? Fr. Charles Lammer from Mangu takes over without much enthusiasm. His missionary career had been interrupted by several years of imprisonment in India during the war-years, but it will last right up to 1968 when he will have retired back to Mangu. By then, four- fifths of its population will be Catholic. But for now, however, he cannot understand Fr. Cayzac's regrets at not returning to Kikuyu. He has been appointed to Castlehead Junior Seminary in England. Christmas 1925, there will be no firewoks for Christmas night. No bonfire. On the 31st, he ponders gloomily: "We are surrounded by nothingness on two sides, the past and the future; and the present, what is it?" His morale slowly improves in the New Year. In May, the following year, he will have the pleasure of baptizing a large group of young men. But all are immigrants! Some Luo, and the Kikuyu, not from Kiambu but workers from Metumi! All the same, he has begun to provide two Masses on Sundays while awaiting a new church.
In 1932, Fr. Lammer has the joy of his 25th Year Jubilee of Priesthood. His joy is tempered by the death in turn of three Spiritan Brothers who had worked in All Saints: Martial, Theodomir and finally Kilian in February 1933.