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Name: BODGER, Elinor, Miss

Birth Date: 11 May 1894 Fletton, Huntingdon

Death Date: 1977 Aylesbury

First Date: 1927

Last Date: 1960

Profession: CMS missionary

Area: Wusi, Kaloleni

Book Reference: Rabai, Foster

General Information:

Rabai - Miss Bodger, arriving in 1927 on a "short service" arrangement which was to extend itself to over 30 years, painfully wrote out her first lessons for trainees at Kaloleni in the Swahili she had learned on the boat coming out.
Foster - Arrived in Kenya in October 1927 as a full CMS Missionary worker at Kaloleni. She already had had 14 years' teaching experience in England. She spent a few years at Wusi, but most of her service was at Kaloleni, where she inherited the soubriquet of "Mama" from Miss Florence Deed, who had retired in 1934. In 1952 she moved to Limuru to help at the Divinity School. She had a profound knowledge of the Giriama and their language and translated a number of books into Giriama as well as some into Swahili, despite having always had poor eyesight. In 1959 she was again at the Coast and she retired on 5th October 1960.
Gazette 6 Dec 1938 Coast Voters List

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