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Name: HÉMERY, Alain (Father)

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Birth Date: 15.4.1872 Elliant, Brittany

Death Date: 16.4.1934 Chevilly, France

First Date: 1897

Profession: Holy Ghost Fathers Nairobi Mission ; Bura mission near Voi 1897; at first meeting of

Area: Nairobi, Bura

Book Reference: North, Baur, Henry J. Koren, Spiritan East Africa Memorial, 1994

General Information:

Baur - 1899 arrived in Nairobi with Fr. Blanchard and Bishop Allgeyer. Transferred to Zanzibar in 1903
Henry J. Koren, Spiritan East African Memorial,1994 He entered the congregation at Beauvais in 1884, continued his studies at Merville and Langonnet and finished them at Chevilly. After his ordination he made his vows on August 15, 1896 at Orly and was appointed to East Africa. Sailing from Marseille on September 10 of the same year, he was sent to Bura in Kenya's Taita mountain region. He established there a network of catechists in nine villages, visiting all of them each week, over mountains and vales no matter how tiring these safaris were. ln 1899 we find him in what is now the big city of Nairobi, but just then it was still little more than a railroad station between Mombasa and Uganda. Bp. Allgeyer had placed him in charge of the new mission to be founded there. While Br Solanus took care of the material building up, he established contact with the Kikuyu, leaming tnelr tanguage so well that he could publish its first grammar and dictionary in 1903. 

ln 1903 the bishop called him to his headquarters in Zanzibar to be his secretary and procurator for the vicariate. As such, he handled the delicate matter of the arrival of the Consolata Fathers in Kenya. He became an important man in the atfairs of the vicariate; for instance, he laid the foundation for the church's future in Nairobi by buying the land needed for its coffee plantation, and agricultural school, its trade school, etc.

After ten years in Africa, he went on leave in 1907 and was transferred to Haiti. There he served as a 'very capable bursar of the college' when in 1915 USA troops landed on the island to restore order, he played a.conciliatory role between Haitians and Americans that made both sides grateful for his presence. His health broken after twenty years of service in Haiti, he left for France. He continued to act as chaplain to the tuberculosis sanatoria near Bligny until his strength gave out in 1934. Retired to Chevilly, he died there a few months later.

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