Elizabeth Margaret NANCE (née KENNINGTON, aka Beth) [1917-2013]

Dear Kennington,

Thank you for the update. I have made you the owner of the pages for your family members, so you can click "Edit" above, and add any updates.

If your mother's memories of Stanley are still online, please could you let us know the link to their new website? Or if they're not, they'll be very welcome here as part of the collection of wartime diaries and memoirs: http://gwulo.com/list-of-diaries

Regards, David

Thanks for the new link, the memoir is a very interesting read.

Regards, David

Beth Nance died on May 16th, 2013, aged 95 (born August 29th, 1917 in Lushan.)

https://www.oregonlive.com/living/index.ssf/2013/05/lifestory_elizabeth_beth_nance.html

On 14 February 1943, evangelist, John D. Kennington, a former resident of China, gave a talk at the Apostolic Church in Nelson, B. C., Canada about his sister's (Elizabeth Nance) capture and treatment by the Japanese after the fall of Hong Kong. A short article of the speech can be viewed here in the Nelson Daily News dated 16 February.

Elizabeth Kennington was born in 1917 to missionary parents in what was then known as Kuling, Liangsi Province, China, (today Lushan, Jiangxi).  She grew up with her siblings (eventually 8) listening to stories her father told of the missionary ‘greats’, Jonathan Goforth, John G Paton, Hudson Taylor and others.

She was home schooled, learning Chinese in the process, and was sure enough of her faith to be baptised at the age of eight.

When the civil war began in China in 1927, the family returned to Seattle, USA, where father pastored a church and Beth attended high school.  By the age of 16 she was set on being a missionary herself.  She therefore attended Western Theological Seminary, and got to know a young man named Ancil Nance, who had offered to transport her to and from classes.  They fell in love and became engaged in 1938.  He was 14 years older.   He also enrolled at the seminary and they married in 1939.

Hong Kong Years

In December of that year, Beth was expecting their first child and they sailed for Hong Kong, fully planning their final destination would be somewhere in Yunnan Province, but two things stopped them in Hong Kong; they lacked the money for the train fare into China and the Japanese had bombed the railway line to their destination.  The coming war with Japan was to keep them in Hong Kong longer than they expected.

In Hong Kong they lodged for a while with another American family and in February 1940 their first daughter, Winifred, was born in the Matilda Hospital, whose services were free to missionaries. 

Through attending the English-speaking Emmanuel Mission Church in Nathan Road, they got to know Dr Lechmere Clift and his wife Winifred, and like other missionaries in Hong Kong, found the Clifts’ Christian Book Room next door a place of great interest.  Beth, who had library training and a particular enthusiasm for books, was given charge of the bookstore and ran it for nearly two years.  The Nance family also moved in with the Clifts and boarded with them for a while.  The Clifts' amah, Ah Ching, gave welcome assistance with little Winifred.  Beth and she communicated with the little Cantonese/ English they each knew.

The Nance’s first son was born in June of 1941, (Matilda Hospital), and named after his father Ancil.  Beth managed to run the bookstore until a week before his birth.  They left the Clifts' and moved into an apartment at 9 Hill Wood Road, just by Nathan Road.  

By this time hostilities with Japan were looming and the British government was urging British women and children to evacuate.  The Nances were not for leaving however, and their first intimation of hostilities was when they heard the air raid sirens sounding when the Japanese attacked Kai Tak airport on 8^th December.

They managed to remain in their apartment in Kowloon for 3 weeks before transferring to Stanley internment camp in January 1942.  Their friends, the  German Koeppen family, had put in a good word for them with the Japanese officer Okamoto, who oversaw their move, and they were permitted to take quite a bit more equipment/tools with them than most, which Ancil, being of practical and inventive nature, used to good effect during the internment, making chairs and other bits of furniture for fellow internees, along with other items which made camp life easier.

Once in Stanley, they, along with other Americans, occupied 3 apartment buildings, formerly used by the prison workers and their  families, which became known as ‘the American Blocks.’ Their room, 145 Block A-3, was a long way from the Japanese garrison and proved ideal for Christian meetings.  Winifred Clift resumed her weekly Bible studies for the women, which she had run in peace time.  In Beth’s view she was a thorough and inspiring Bible teacher.  They had a small pump organ and started a daily prayer meeting each evening, which continued for two years until things tightened up.

In May 1942 came the possibility of repatriation for American internees in an exchange for Japanese prisoners.  Again the Nances felt they had a role to play by remaining.  In the wake of this decision Beth at first felt bleak, but then she heard from God and a sense of peace prevailed which lasted her to the end of the war.

In August of that year, their second son Jonathan was born in Stanley Camp.

Around Thanksgiving time, the Japanese started providing cornflour.  The British were stumped as they didn't regard it as a foodstuff, but Beth happily made home-style corn bread in a skillet.  Ancil supplemented their meagre diet with vegetables coaxed skillfully from the soil.

In February 1944 their second daughter Eunice was born in camp.

In August 1945 rumours came of the Japanese surrender.  But with so many conflicting stories, what to believe? About the middle of the month, Stanley Camp residents thought of a way to find out for certain.  Roll call next morning of the 3000 or so internees would decide it.  When 8.00 came and the expected blast of a whistle to summon them, there was absolute silence, ‘the most beautiful silence I’ve ever heard in my world.  I sat down and cried,’ wrote Beth.

In the ensuing days there were happy reunions in Hong Kong and Kowloon.  The Nances were reunited with their friends the Koeppens.  They attended the memorial ceremony at Stanley Camp which was duly recorded on film.

In September Admiral Cecil Harcourt set up a provisional military government in Hong Kong and so began the return to normality.

As people made plans for the future, the Nances uniquely decided on different courses.  Ancil saw at last an opportunity to get to Yunnan, so he stayed on in Hong Kong.  Beth wanted to return to the States for her children and herself, and to raise funding back home for their Yunnan plans.

She therefore returned to Portland, Oregon, on the Empress of Australia to Manila, and the troop ship Yarmouth to San Francisco.  Back home, she completed her seminary education, also a course in Bible translation at Camp Wycliffe.

Finally in the summer of 1948 the Nances were reunited in Hong Kong, and taking a lot of equipment with them, which included a pump organ and two bicycles, they at last flew to Kunming, Yunnan.  It was standard practice for missionaries to take a lot of their equipment with them, due to its unavailability in China; some took cars.

There they took over the running of a mission to high school students and a school for deaf, mute and blind children, but it wasn’t to last.  By 1949 China was falling rapidly to the Communists’ red army and fears back home and common sense compelled the Nances and others like them to leave.

Back in Hong Kong they, along with some other missionaries, were offered a country house in the New Territories by a wealthy Chinese Christian landowner, where they stayed for a few months.  They saw plenty to get involved with in Hong Kong and wanted to stay, but their home church was cutting its funding to them and they returned disappointed to the US.

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The 1950s saw Beth teaching in Portland public schools for 14 years, before picking up on her interest in books again at Boise School and serving as librarian there for 16 years.   Along with that she managed an MA at the University of Oregon, all the while developing an interest in and heart for African Americans.  Black American history formed a key part of her curriculum, and she had the ability to bring out the best in her students.

During the 1960s the Nances suffered two family tragedies, losing their son Jonathan in a canoeing accident in 1961 and then losing eldest daughter Winifred along with her husband and two children in an accident in their personal plane in 1968.  The deaths didn't make sense, 'but we trusted God to help us', said Beth.

Beth retired in 1982 but did not stop there.  So many of her students were in need of higher education but lacking the funding, her final achievement was the creation of the North Portland Bible College, with the assistance of Rev John Garlington Junior, where she not only lectured, but also served as librarian, secretary, office manager and publicist.  She worked without pay as she was receiving a pension at that time.  There she transformed many lives.

At 93 she wrote an account of her life, and after a life of remarkable achievement, died aged 95 in 2013.

Because this is posted on the Gwulo website, the above account, which is taken from Beth Nance's autobiography, My Life, gives priority to the time that the Nances spent in Hong Kong.

A shorter account with pictures may be found on Oregonlive.com