Background of Fr. Phillip Scheffer
An account of the background of Rev. Fr. Phillip Scheffer is given in ‘Called to Witness’ by Sr. Francis Therese, 1975 p.18 to 20. It is attested that the information given was obtained from surviving sister, Mrs Catherine Flintrop, at the time the research was done by Fr. Mollenaar MHM in Holland.
In some parts, this account quotes verbatim from ‘Called to witness’ and some parts are paraphrased as deemed necessary.
Fr. Scheffer was born in Rotterdam, Holland, on 5th March, 1882. His parents, Johannes Scheffer and Maria Wilhelmina Scheffer, lived in the KRUISSTRAAT, where they kept a fruit shop. He was baptized by a Dominican priest. Baby Phillip, the second child in the family was followed by three brothers and three sisters. He was a healthy and very cheerful boy, full of pranks and jokes. His outstanding feature was his kind and affectionate nature, which endeared him to every member of his family. When a pupil of Nadorst Street School, at a very early age, Phillip became an alter server. This service which he regarded as a privilege, was a source of great joy to him.
Never was he known to be late once, his eagerness to serve on the alter made a favorable impression on the priests of the parish. He was merely twelve years old when he left St. Bartholomew’s school: his primary education was considered completed. Phillip Scheffer found himself employed by a Jew named Brandell who kept a haberdashery shop in Rotterdam.
After three years of service, much to his employer’s disappointment, Phillip realized that he must leave this type of life. Grace was working in his soul, God required something more of him. At their son’s request, Johannes and Wilhelmina Scheffer arranged for Phillip to become a boarder at the Franciscan Friar’s College in Veuray, in South of Holland. Knowing that he must continue his education, he had named this College to his parents, because the priest-tutors and the curriculum gave it the character of a seminary, a kind of stepping stone to the Franciscan Friars’ Congregation.
After successfully completing his course in Humanities, Philip entered the House of Philosophy in the Franciscan Friar’s Order and eventually was admitted to the Novitiate. He was regarded as one of the happiest and most fervent members of the noviceship. In his enthusiastic fervor, he exceeded the bounds of prudence in his use of the discipline, and his superiors decided that the Franciscan way of life was not for Phillip Scheffer.
Shortly after his leaving the Franciscans, Phillip Scheffer was accepted by the Mill Hill Foreign Missionary Society and commenced his study of Philosophy at Roosendaal College, Holland. His genial character endeared him to professors and fellow students. His religious and apostolic spirit assured his Superiors of his vocation for the Congregation and Phillip Scheffer was ordained a priest at St. Joseph’s College, Mill Hill London, England, on July 25th 1909, when he had completed his twenty seventh year.
Fr. Phillip Scheffer was appointed to the Uganda Mission field and worked in Nkokingero for a short period before his appointment to Ojola, Kavirondo, where he plunged himself whole-heartedly into his missionary labours. The austerities of the life and the epidemics of plague, caused the Mission to be transferred to Aluor. He was next appointed to South Kavirondo where he opened a Mission station at Asumbi, …Here he became something of a legend because of his forty years of apostolic labour among the people. The splendid Church dedicated to St. Therese, the Little Flower, was built by him in 1929. Close by in the …cemetery lie his mortal remains. When he died on Good Friday, 23rd March 1951 his hopes had been realized. His ‘Bawezi’ belonged to the great Franciscan family in the Franciscan Sisters of St. Joseph.
It is recorded in Burgman, 1990 p.126 that the experience of Fr. Phillip Scheffer as a Franciscan novice came in handy in his organization of the ‘Bawezi’, girls who came to him seeking to serve God. “He devised a rule of life suitable for African girls, and from 1928 on he allowed the girls to dedicate themselves to the religious life in the mission of Asumbi. Fr. Scheffer’s ‘bawezi’ flourished. Their days, from 5.00 am till 9.00 pm were filled with prayer and work. They looked after the church, the sacristy, the convent and themselves; they worked in the garden, made butter from milk, taught in the school and instructed readers.
The younger girls wore white dresses and a white head cloth; the seniors had long blue robes and a blue cross on their white veils. Other priests in the Prefecture affectionately called them the Asumbi Bluebells. Their house was a real convent with rules of silence and enclosure. The spirit among the young women was excellent. Soon there were sixteen senior sisters plus a similar number of younger aspirants.”
Fr. Phillip Scheffer and the first Novices of the Franciscan Sisters of St. Joseph in 1937
Francis Therese in ‘Called to Witness’ p.15-17 explains that the ‘Bawezi’ as organized by Fr. Scheffer had every appearance of an established sisterhood. “The senior aspirants slept in a common dormitory, which had been divided into private ‘cells’ by means of kavirondo matting. Strict enclosure was observed: no one was allowed to enter the Bawezi dormitory, excepting senior aspirants. Meals were eaten in a common refectory, which had been fitted out with one long table, with forms on either side. Strict silence was observed during meal times and one aspirant read aloud from the Scriptures in the Nilotic language.
The Horarium, which Fr. Scheffer had drawn up, was hanging in a prominent place in the refectory. When the rising bell was rung… at 5.00 am all recited three ‘Hail Mary’s with an invocation to Our Lady Immaculate. All aspirants had to be in the Mission Church in time for Morning Prayers at 5.30 am. After their breakfast porridge, all went to their various duties, which included cleaning the church, washing altar linen, host making, brick making, cooking for the school children, washing their clothes, dairy work- making butter and attending to the milk, brought from the cow shed, teaching in the school and instructing Readers in the Catechumenate.”