KIT Newsletter

Vol XVIII No 2 April 2006

The KIT Newsletter, an Activity of the KIT Information Service, A Project of the Peregrine Foundation
P.O. Box 460141 San Francisco, CA 94146-0141 telephone: (415) 386-6072 http://www.perefound.org
Newsletter Staff: Charles Lamar, David E. Ostrom, Miriam Arnold Holmes, Nadine Moonje Pleil, Erdmuthe Arnold, Ben Cavanna
The KIT Newsletter is an open forum for fact and opinion. It encourages the expression of all views, both from within and from outside
the Bruderhof. The opinions expressed in the letters that we publish are those of the correspondents and do not necessarily reflect
those of KIT editors or staff. Yearly suggested donation rates (4 issues): $15 USA; $20Canada;
$25 International mailed from USA; 10 mailed from UK to Europe.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Keep In Touch ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Whole KIT and Caboodle ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~Table of Contents~~~~~
Linda Lord Jackson
ErdmutheArnold
Elizabeth Bohlken-Zumpe
Bill and Tif Peters - article
Lee Maria Kleiss by Susan Lees

1
1
1
2
4

UK KIT 14-17 July 2006

KIT: We have secured Hesterworth in
Shropshire for our summer EuroKIT get
together on the weekend of 14 - 17 July,
2006 Friday afternoon to Monday morning.
Hesterworth, as those who attended in
2002 will remember, is made up of eleven
self-catering units ranging in size of accommodation from two-person units up to one
eight-person unit. There is also a large communal dining/sitting room which we will hire
as well.
All the units have now been booked. If
you still require accommodation, we may
be able to find some for you. Please contact Ben Cavanna on 07968 342013
bencavanna@aol.com. Details of the
venue and location etc can be found on
the web at: http://www.hesterworth.co.uk
If you dont have internet, call Hesterworth.
The phone number is 01588 660487. The
owners are Roger and Shiela Davies.

Erdmuthe Arnold, 4/1/06: Hanne-Marie

Bohlken died early this morning.
My cousin Bette just called and told me
that her daughter Hanne-Marie passed away
peacefully in the first hours of this morning.
Bette asked me to let you know so many
of you carried the burden of Hannas deathly
illness with Bette and Hans during the past
years.
The whole family was around HanneMarie this morning, and all were able to say
good-bye. She died in the arms of her partner, Kees de Jong. She no longer had to suffer pain, as morphine was given whenever
needed. Anneke and Jurgen, both trained
nurses, came to Ameland to look after their
sister during the last days of her life.
For her parents, Hans and Bette, the
loss of their youngest daughter is very, very
hard. Bette just said to me in tears, Why
couldnt I go instead of her?
Hanne-Marie celebrated her thirtieth
birthday on September 24th this past year.
She will be buried next Wednesday afternoon (April 5 th ) on her beloved island
Ameland. She organized everything herself,
also her funeral, completing one task every
day.

Elizabeth Bohlken-Zumpe, 4/12/06:

Dear friends far and near!
Hans and I want to thank you for all
your love and support and the many greetings by mail, e-mail and telephone
Just a short update from here. It is exactly two weeks ago today, that I sent my
last note from here, Drachten.
When we returned to Ameland we found
Hanna very sick and in much pain. She refused a morphine pump, which gives a
steady flow against the terrible pain, as she
was scared she might not be clear in her head.
Our son -in-law Kees was very tired, so Hans
stayed up with Hanna all night. Anneke and
Jurgen came Wednesday, as it is possible to
get home-care-vacation in the case of nursing a family member in Holland. It could not
have been more peaceful and serene in the
house. Wednesday and Thursday she made
arrangements for her burial. She wanted three
special songs to be played. She chose a place
to rest (by map) in the graveyard in Ameland.
She also wanted to take leave of her colleagues that day and have a lawyer take
down a statement about her personal assets.
The pain got too much for her as the
liver, kidney and lungs had stopped func-

Linda Lord Jackson, 3/26/06: Arthur Lord:

Our dad,Arthur Lord, died early Friday morning. His health had been getting worse over
the past few weeks. He died during the early
hours of March 25th, having been unconscious for several days before that. The previous weekend, the family had been together,
and had all spent time with him.
He missed mum so much over the past
six years. Now they are together again.
KIT: Next issue we hope to run something
about Arthur and Mildreds life story.

Bette with her two daughters September 2005. From left to right:
Hanne-Marie, Liesbeth (Bette) and Anneke van der Kruk.
5

KIT Newsletter
tioning, so she had to give in. Friday she
said: Mama we have to say goodbye now, I
will not make it much longer. Anneke said:
It is March 31st and Hanna smiled and
said: I think I will make it untilApril 1st, you
can have fun to remember me!
She was very clear up to the end, even
though she got more medication. At 12.20
AM she died in Kees arms. She had said: I
am not gone, you know. You just can not see
me. We are such little dots in the large Universe. We think ourselves so important! The
power and light beyond make it so clear that
all of us have a purpose and our own time
I guess I have just finished my task here!
Everything was so peaceful with little
candles Jurgen had lit and soft music playing. We were all around her bed: Kees and
his mother, Hans and me, and Anneke,
Jurgen and Hayo somehow it felt right
that the suffering was over. Three years of
fighting cancer is a long time. Now she found
rest!
The funeral was very touching. Seventy-two
colleagues from the Paramedic team in the
Province of Friesland came in uniform, plus
the pilots of the helicopters from the cities
Groningen and Leeuwarden, and carried her
coffin and all the many flowers, to the
gravesite, some four-hundred people joined
us and walked to the burial ground. There
was a bright blue sky with larks flying up
and down, and all the graves looked pretty,
with blooming daffodils, primroses and the
first tulips. My brother Kilian had phoned
from Leeuwarden, that they could not make
it in time, but he was in the gathering of
friends, colleagues neighbors and family. He
actually saw the ferry leave the mainland
right before his eyes. Upon his identifying
himself at the ticket office, a speed-boat was
sent to pick them up and Kilian, Lorna and
Susie were over within ten minutes, (the ferry
takes about three-quarters of an hour) a very
cold and windy trip, but in time! There was a
special bus for all the people that came to
take them to the meeting-place. It cost us
nothing; Ameland paid for almost everything, funeral and all.
It is a lovely, peaceful and wonderful burialground, with a view over the dunes and
horses in the fields. The shape is round with
a very old wall around it and two rows of
birch trees against the wall, with a path inbetween, which was filled by all the people
walking around the churchyard. When everyone was inside they then walked up the
main path to the open grave. Somehow this
too felt right!
So many people spoke about the place
Hanna had in their lives. This was comforting and made us feel that she did make a
difference with her thirty years of life, that

Vol XVIII No 2 April 2006

people especially on the island of
Ameland loved and respected her.
Our house was full, with three families,
three dogs, as well as Kees family: parents
and sisters with three children but it was
good to be together and write the cards for
Hanna. The County Council had printed a
small copy of our card and put this into the
letterboxes of all the houses on the island.
Of course there were and are many tears
as well and I am sure difficult times are still
ahead of us. Hanna was buried
th on Susies
(Zumpe) 27th birthday, April 5 . It still breaks
my heart to think of Susies lonesome death
in Phoenix.
So all in all we are thankful to have had
Hanna for thirty years; she was a gift indeed, and we will miss her sunny face daily!
We are here until Friday (Good Friday)
when we will be back to Ameland for two
weeks to find our feet. Jurgen will be there
also. Kilian made a copy of the Wheathill
Easter Songbook for me. Somehow these
hymns and songs always had a special meaning for me. I look at them and sing them to
myself and find peace in this.
I think of Mel and the death of his much
loved mother Susi as well as Linda and the
death of her dad Arthur, whom I knew well!
Much love and thank you all for your healing thoughts and wishes, Bette, for Hans
also.

The following is an article from the

Burleson CountyTribune 10/19/2005 by Roy
Sanders. It is a copyrighted article and
should not be distributed without permission of the publisher.

Chriesman musicians spread joy,

message of inspiration
Cancer survivors share their talent on
long awaited CD
There are lines in Bill Peters Song Here
Comes the Wind that offer glimpses into
the darkest corners shared by cancer victims everywhere.
You can beat the odds for a while. But
often there are inevitable thoughts of death
and final good-byes.
A million answers waiting for me,
I must go to my new home.
Worry not, Ill wait there for thee.
It wont be long.
The time has come.
The time has come...
26

Get ready.
Here comes the wind.
Hear it blow, here I go.
Bill Peters, a Vietnam Veteran who suffered exposure to Agent Orange, is not supposed to be here. Diagnosed with Multiple
Myeloma, an incurable cancer of the bone
marrow, in 1994, he was given about two
years to live.
After a lifetime of writing and singing music
in a hodgepodge of genres around the world,
Peters, a Chriesman resident, cherished each
new day in the last decade as a gift - and as
one more chance to pick up the guitar and
create something new. Joining his fiddleplaying wife Elizabeth, also known as Tif,
and Robertson County dobro player Don
Ling, also a cancer survivor, the group Borderline Express was formed about three
years ago. (Ling is undergoing treatment for
a cancer on the back of his tongue, and Peters is now undergoing chemotherapy).
The Group Records
Last month, the group at last recorded a
CD in Bills home recording studio of the
songs that Burleson County residents have
heard them play live for years. Treasured
gems that most of their following know by
heart - Yellow Prairie Moon (Chriesman
was once known as Yellow Prairie) and Better Be Believing are just two examples. The
recording illustrates two truths about music
- that it has always rightfully belonged in
the domain of everyday people an back
porches and church picnics everywhere, not
just for celebrities on music videos, and that
musical freedom is about doing it yourself
and avoiding the Corporate boardrooms.
Borderline Expresss debut CD is out
there for the taking but it may not be a huge
seller. No one seems bothered by that. It was
never about making money. It was about
celebrating life and sharing influences that
shaped their musical identity for decades the Carter Family, Jimmy Rodgers, theWeavers, Hank Williams, the Beatles, Bob Dylan,
Leonard Cohen and Johnny Cash. Virtually
impossible to pigeonhole into a specific category, the group is usually considered folk,
or most likely Americana. They blend
bluegrass, western swing, traditiona1 country and other influences into their own quirky
style - sometimes with a message that goes
beyond just entertainment.
If they must be categorized Bill says they
are probably folk - because they play music for the folks.
Peters calls the CD a lifetime dream.
The only reason for playing music is to
share it with others, he says in the liner
notes. Burleson County, Texas, is the best
place this side of Heaven. We are grateful to
all the folks who made it that way. ?

KIT Newsletter
Many Travels
Sharing that music has been easy through
the years. Bill and Tifs long journey goes
back twenty-five years, when they started
as a young husband and wife team playing
all over the U.S. and abroad.
Some of those stops have included London, Chester and Liverpool in England, Paris,
Belgium and in Switzerland.
It was possible to do it for a living literally passing the hat on street corners and
in clubs, they recall.
And we only did that every few days,
Bill Peters says.
Tif recalls that people were just
more in the habit of it there.
From there it was on to a series
of clubs Lake City, Colo., and Denver
and bluegrass and folk festivals, including an extensive tour of the south
in 1979-80.
Some of those places could get
rough.
We sometimes had people
swinging at each other, but they were
kind enough not to hit us, he said.
They gravitated to the area in 1980 as
Bill found work in the oilfields. The Peters
made friends quickly and kept in touch after
leaving for long intervals. They moved back
in 1999 to be closer to Bills bone marrow
specialist in San Antonio.
Since then, they have been regulars in
live performances all over Burleson County,
particularly at the Caldwell VFW post on
Wednesday night, and on KEOS radio in
Bryan. Other venues include the Chriesman
Citizens Center, nursing homes and the VA
hospital in Temple.
Bill says the band likes those locales
because of the people and their reaction.
1 am not crazy about playing in bars.
That is not my ambition, and I can t be around
a lot of heavy smoke anyway. he said. And
there are not too many who get to the sixth
floor of the VA hospital to entertain those
guys. I like the fact that they listen and enjoy what we are doing.
Finding Inspiration
He draws his inspiration for songwriting
primarily from people from all backgrounds.
I take in everything. I am a people
watcher. Most of my inspiration comes in a
flash, he said. Something hits me in the
head, and I start writing. Once in a while I
turn out a good one.
And nothing inspires like the beauty of
the home place Bill and Tifs treasured
Chriesman or Yellow Prairie, the communitys former name, as they prefer to call it.
Yellow Prairie Moon celebrates that
remote, peaceful setting.

Foo1ed by the full moon light again,

A young rooster crows at night again,
And joins the coyotes and the o1d
dogs, singing to the train,
Bill writes.
While the bullfrog croaks the rhythm.
And the crickets bow the tune,
Ill be dancing with my darling.
Under that Yellow Prairie Moon.
Better Be believing deals with lifes
inevitab1e good-byes, and End of the Age
Don

Tif

Bill

with the apocalypse. But generally, the group

is upbeat and at times humorous. Boll Weevil and Froggy reflect the lighter fare, but
Here Comes the Wind is probably Bills
most personal work, another song about
good-byes.
Though Myeloma has forced Peters to
think about those issues, it has also given
him a new appreciation for each day in the
past ten years. He has undergone bone marrow treatments in addition to the recent
chemotherapy. And he concedes he might
even be a stronger songwriter from the experience.
Actually, a lot of these songs were
written earlier (before his illness). But this
(the illness) has inspired me in that direction, Peters said. Everybody knows you
could die tomorrow. When you face mortality dead in the eye, things change.
Tif relates her thoughts on Bills illness
in the liner notes.
He has outlived the two years of life
predicted, and we have accomplished this
goal of ours to share these songs, as well as
many other things we thought might never
happen, she said.

Ling Joins the Band

Bill and Tif teamed up with Don Ling,
an accomplished local dobro player in 2002.
Ling plays virtually every instrument, thanks
to strong family influence.
Everybody in my mothers family
played instruments and sang in church. My
37

Vol XVIII No 2 April 2006

grandmother and mother taught me music,
he recalls.
Ling remembers giving up piano lessons
at age nine because he hated practicing.
I dont like to practice today, but I do
it, he says.
Ling faced his ultimate challenge learning the dobro, largely because few in the
Brazos Valley knew how to play one. Trial
and error helped, but he got some special
tips from Uncle Josh Graves, a Nashville
virtuoso and major influence who played
with Lester Flatt and EarI Scruggs from 194859. He visited his home and even got to play
his 1929 dobro, the only dobro he
has played that sounds better than
the one he now plays.
He had wanted to play dobro
since he was five years old and heard
Pete Brother Oswald Kirby playing Tragic Death on the Highway
with Roy Acuff and the Smokey
Mountain boys. Then there was the
relentless search for the perfect instrument and strings that finally got
him the sound he wanted.
A friend in Bryan cautioned him
once that it would take five years to
perfect the dobro not what he wanted to
hear. But that proved correct, and Ling today enjoys the instrument that has given
him the most satisfaction.
I personally think Don is one of the
best dobro players in the world. Bill says.
Don first recalls first seeing Bill and Tif
at the Chriesman Community Center. Ling
encouraged Bill and Elizabeth to record their
live gems for posterity and soon began playing with them as a band member.
The group calls the CD their tunnel
vision project because of their all-consuming drive to get it finished in the past year.
Ling has overcome his own struggles
with a cancer, and like Bill, undergoes regular treatments and stays active with the music.
Don and Bill hope the CD will be appreciated by music lovers and will be inspiring
to those overcoming illness and still making
a contribution.
I think this music shows that we have
something to contribute and that this can be
dealt with, Ling says. Musically and personally, I think we are making a statement.
Bill, ever the wordsmith, feels the same.
It is still possible to seek joy, achieve
dreams and help others do the same, he
said.
For all of them, music has been the respite all along, Tiff says on the liner notes.
Cancer hates laughter, music and joy.
This is good knowledge to keep with you,
she said. Many lives would be better if we
would all sing and dance and laugh and then
sing some more.

KIT Newsletter

Lee Kleiss Memorial

This was read at the memorial service
for Lee Kleiss. Since we compiled this, some
additional evidence has surfaced which we
will be pursuing, but this is what we have so
far.
Susan Lees,
Fayetteville Friends Meeting member,
Quaker House office assistant
QUIT registrar

we would not have dared to meet in one of

these rooms. We met in the basement, which
we called the Catacombs. Some of us had to
stand at the door to watch for signs, whether
the Gestapo was appearing. With shivers I
am thinking of the time when the warning
came through that the Gestapo (secret police) was approaching. Silently, we had to
leave through different exits, not as a group,
but individually.
Besides the meetings, which were kind
of dangerous, typewritten notes were

Lee Maria Kleiss

October 21, 1926 - December 15, 2005
Lieselotte Maria Kleiss, known as Lee, was
a seeker, a refugee, a scientist, a teacher, a
mother, and a Friend.
Lee was born in Frankfurt, Germany on
October 21, 1926. Her mother Charlotte was
a social worker, her father Felix an engineer.
Felix soon vanished from his daughters life.
Charlotte said he died tragically; Lee later
suggested her father was damaged from
being held as a prisoner of war at the end of
World War One, and the marriage did not
last.
The Nazis came to power in Germany
when Lee was seven years old. Although
Lees family had been professing Christians
for several generations, both her parents had
some Jewish ancestors, and this fact caused
problems for Lee and her mother. Due to this
tainted heritage, Lee was forbidden to join
the Hitler Youth program. This kept her isolated from many of her peers, but she also
thereby avoided the groups indoctrination
in Nazi ideology.
One incident that struck home came
when Lee was not allowed to play the role of
Mary in a Christmas play because she had
Jewish ancestors. When she pointed out that
Mary was also a Jew, from the line of David,
she was sent home for being arrogant. Having been raised as a Christian, she hadnt
thought about being a Jew until that incident.
Charlotte wrote about the growing fear
of the Gestapo and government spies during these years, and the frequent disappearance of neighbors and acquaintances, who
were denounced for disloyalty and never
seen again. As the Nazi government also
moved to take control of the churches in
Germany, Charlotte and Lee became part of
the Confessing Church, an alliance of
churches which refused to submit to Nazi
rule.
We could not meet openly we Confessional Church believers, Charlotte recalled.
We met in the basement of the ministers
mansion (which also contained a Sunday
School and other church activity rooms). Yet

Lee Kleiss June 1993

passed from house to house to our members. But even this had to be discontinued
because our ministers typewriter was confiscated (later on, his salary also). However,
fortunately, this minister stayed alive.
The next minister was not so lucky. He
was an ideal of a clergyman, Charlotte
wrote. Young, enthusiastic, convinced, as
well as convincing and last, but not least,
courageous. What he meant to my young
daughter was unbelievable. He was a support to her in these disastrous times, and I
am sure had a paramount influence on her
character. As mentioned before, home-life
had become different for a child such as she
during the Nazi regime, more so since she
was excluded from the HitlerYouth Program.
So Lieselotte looked forward to her Sunday
School lessons. They were an inspiration to
her. She also felt at home with the other children in the group. However, this joy was of
short duration. Among other things, Hitlers
picture had to be placed on the Sunday
School wall. There was no other way but to
comply, but the minister turned the chairs so
that the Hitler picture was in back of the children. (The year must have been 1936.)
Whatever reason there had been is not
known, and never will be known, but the
minister mysteriously disappeared, probably
48

Vol XVIII No 2 April 2006

shot while so-called escaping. Well known
and famous is the story of Pastor Dietrich
Bonhoeffer who regarded Hitler asAntichrist
and who believed it a Christian duty to eliminate him. He [Dietrich], his brother Klaus
and many others who resisted Hitler were
executed. Bonhoeffer is well known as an
author, whose books are translated into
many languages.
In November of 1938, Lee and Charlotte
saw firsthand the bloody results of the
Kristallnacht, the coordinated Nazi attacks
on Jewish synagogues, shops and homes
all over Germany. Charlotte understood that
her family was to be targeted as well. She
began looking for a place to find refuge from
the increasing oppression, and her eyes
turned toward the United States.
After much anxious waiting, their emigration to America was approved, and Charlotte left for America first, followed by Lee a
month later. Lee arrived inAmerica on March
17, 1939. Even as a youth, Lee had a sense of
youth and adventure; she enjoyed the attention of the ships crew who gave her a
hilarious farewell; she also enjoyed playing with the real live bears that were also on
the ship.
The Quakers had long been influential
in Lees and Charlottes life. At the end of
World War One, they were involved in an
early feeding program by the American
Friends Service Committee in Germany.
As Charlotte wrote of this, It is beyond
description what it meant to the Germans
when the Quakers came in February 1920 to
bring food to the most needy, namely the
children and nursing mothers. If it had been
the food alone, it might have been forgotten
in later years. It was the spirit that prevailed.
Even the unaffected, that is the ones who
were excluded from receiving the Liebes
gaben, the gifts of love, were touched.
The children who were most undernourished
had to bring a food-card, medically signed.
On the back of it was written in German, This
food is contributed by Americans and distributed by the Religious Society of Friends,
who for 250 years have held that love and
good will, not war and hatred, will bring about
better world conditions.
From our part of the world, we saw only
the good will. However, when reading accounts of the history of AFSC, I realized what
tremendous courage was needed to carry out
their plans. The Quakers, or Religious Society of Friends as they are also known, became an important part of my life then. Little
did I know at this time that the Quakers would
become an important part of my later life. I
did not, and could not know of all the blessings that still were in store for me.
In fact, nearly twenty years later, it was
a Quaker connection that brought Lee and
Charlotte over to America. They lived in a

KIT Newsletter
Quaker community in Pennsylvania before
moving to Minneapolis, Minnesota in the
summer of 1940.
Lee finished the sixth grade before following her mother to Minneapolis. By the
fall, she skipped three grades and began the
9th grade. In June 1944, both Lee, shortened
from Lieselotte, and Charlotte becameAmerican citizens.
Lees Educational Journey
Lee graduated from West High School,
Minneapolis as valedictorian in June 1944
and enrolled that fall at Grinnell College in
Iowa. She graduated from Grinnell in 1948
with a B.A. in chemistry and a minor in mathematics. She then earned a Master of Arts
from Columbia University in physical chemistry. In 1953 she was awarded a PhD by
Columbia, one of the first women to receive
a doctorate in chemistry there. Both Lee and
her mother, who received a Master of Arts
from Columbia at the same time, were praised
for their work in the universitys honors programs.
Lee was a teaching assistant for two
years while attending school. She co-wrote
an article The Effects of Intravenously Administered Aminophylline on Cerebral Circulation and Metabolism in Man, published
in the Journal of Clinical Investigation in
1950.
Lee traveled widely over many years,
so much so that we have not been able to
track her journeys in any complete detail.
Some sources say she trod the Great Wall of
China, rode a camel in Saudi Arabia, and she
herself said she had been in Afghanistan and
Nepal. From 1952 1954 Lee lived in India and
Pakistan, through the AFSC. In 1954 Lee
taught and began a community college-type
Science Department at Egbado College, Ilaro,
Nigeria. She lived in Nigeria for two years.
The Bruderhof, Primavera, Paraguay
In 1953, Lee and her mother visited the
Bruderhof, a religious community in
Primavera, Paraguay. The Bruderhof (or Society of Brothers) was founded in Germany
in 1920. As a Christian pacifist body, it was
driven out of the country by the Nazis. The
members first sought refuge in England. Then
during World War Two, facing anti-German
sentiment, they went to Paraguay, the only
country willing to accept such a Christian
pacifist group of refugees.
We did not find any clear statement by
Lee about why she found the Bruderhof attractive. Nevertheless there were numerous
educated people of her generation, not a few
of them Quakers, who were drawn to what
were called intentional communities after
the upheavals of World War Two. As one

online description states, The Bruderhof is

a peace church whose members do not serve
in the armed forces of any country. Rather,
they model a way of life that removes the
social and economic divisions that bring
about war. The goal of the Bruderhof is to
create a new society where self-interest is
yielded for the sake of the common good. It
is easy to imagine how such an ideal could
appeal to Lee, after her personal experiences
of Nazi oppression, war and its aftermath.
When joining the Bruderhof, new members gave up all their property and capital to
the group. When Lee left Nigeria in 1956,
she moved to Paraguay and lived with the
Bruderhof for four years. While there, notwithstanding her doctoral degree in chemistry, Lee did child-care, and much manual labor,
usually in the laundry with other women.
Others who knew her there say she was
happy in the community. But she chafed
against the groups rigid subordination of
women, and managed to wheedle her way
into a daily gathering of men in her community where the groups real business was
done. This assertiveness and leadership got
Lee into trouble with the groups rulers, and
eventually, in 1959, she was expelled..
Shortly afterward, internal problems
developed among the Bruderhof leadership,
which resulted in a purge of most of the members in Paraguay and the closing of the settlements there. Many others like Lee were
left penniless and traumatized, to find their
way back to the United States or Canada
and start their lives over.
Hundreds more members of Bruderhof
communities were expelled over the years
under similarly trying circumstances. In the
summer of 1962, Lee visited as many exBruderhofers as possible in Europe; and was
involved in starting a round-robin newsletter for ex-Bruderhofers to support and heal
from the effects of their experiences there.
While the communitys ideals may have been
wonderful, the result became cult-like, with
an arbitrary, top-down leadership that didnt
fit with Lees independence of thought. Lee
later said that it wasnt until she read the
book The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, the martyred theologian of the
German Confessing Church, that she saw the
Light: that despite the groups stated devotion to Christ, to follow Jesus, Lee needed to
leave the Bruderhof behind.
One reviewers comment on
Bonhoeffers book may suggest its value:
What did Jesus mean to say to us? What is
his will for us today? Drawing on the Sermon on the Mount, Dietrich Bonhoeffer answers these timeless questions by providing a seminal reading of the dichotomy between cheap grace and costly grace.
Cheap grace, Bonhoeffer wrote, is the
grace we bestow on ourselves... grace with95

Vol XVIII No 2 April 2006

out discipleship... Costly grace is the gospel
which must be sought again and again, the
gift which must be asked for, the door at
which a man [or woman] must know....It is
costly because it costs a man his life, and it
is grace because it gives a man the only true
life.
Was submerging her individuality in the
Bruderhof cheap grace for Lee? For at
least two years after her return to the US,
she begged to be readmitted to the group.
Years later she wrote of a sense of opening
that occurred after a visit to one of its communities, where her plea again fell on deaf
ears:
It was only by reading The Cost of
Discipleship that finally after two whole years
I saw the light. That for me to follow Jesus I
had to make a 180 degree turn and STOP
aiming, craving, desiring to return to the
Bruderhof. In the bus ride back to Detroit
through Pittsburgh, where the interstate is
elevated and one could see into peoples windows I JUST FELT THE WARMTH AND
LOVE FOR PEOPLE TO EACH OTHER that
is so sadly missing on the [Bruderhof].
In a more vernacular comment, Lee
wrote not long before her death that: I am
opposed to dual citizenship and dual loyalties. Im not an American, I am a HUMAN. I
almost got arrested trying to cross into the
Congo on my way to Nigeria because I refused to put down Caucasian - I only wrote
in HUMAN. After a forty-eight hour stand
still we agreed I would leave the line blank
and they would fill in Caucasian after they
let me proceed. No wonder this stubborn
person could not survive in the [Bruderhof].
Lees connection with fellow exBruderhofers continued through her adult
life. When she learned about a family that
was expelled from the group, and left with
no funds as refugees in Canada, Lee loaned
them money to get started again (they later
paid it all back). In 1997 she put up money to
bail out an ex-Bruderhof member who had
been arrested in a feud with Bruderhof leaders. She ended up losing several thousand
dollars in the process. As late as the summer
of 2000, Lee attended a conference for exBruderhofers in Rhn, Germany. Lee kept in
contact with some of them until a few weeks
before her passing through both the Internet
and the telephone.
Return to America
After returning to the US, Lee became
an Assistant Professor at Monteith College,
Wayne State University, in Detroit, Michigan, from 1960 to 1964. Then Lee moved to
Indianola, Iowa and continued her teaching
career at Simpson College. She gained tenure in 1969 and was an Associate Professor
when she moved to Fayetteville NC in 1975

KIT Newsletter

Vol XVIII No 2 April 2006

ASS MAIL
FIRST CL
ess
g andAddr
Forwardin
Requested
Correction
PO Box 46041 San Francisco CA 94146-0141

KIT Information Service

A Project of the Peregrine Foundation

to continue her career at Fayetteville State

University.
While in Iowa, she adopted two young
African American children, Christina and
Suzannah. She also spear-headed the Open
Door Society, an organization for families
who have adopted children considered
hard to place. She and her children spent
her sabbatical year 1971-1972 in England,
doing research at Leicester University and
taking trips to the European Continent.
Lee in Fayetteville
Lee began teaching at Fayetteville State
University (FSU) in September 1975, retiring
August 1, 1998. Her mother Charlotte died in
1985. In the last years of Lees time at FSU,
her physical condition began to deteriorate.
She reported having had polio, perhaps as a
youth, and its effects returned in the mid1990s. Pain and weakness in her legs made
walking increasingly more difficult. Then one
day in May, 1997 she left her house to walk

Books/Articles Currently available:

Cast Out in The World,
by MiriamArnold Holmes
Free From Bondage,
by Nadine Moonje Pleil
Through Streets Broad and Narrow,
by Belinda Manley
Torches Extinguished,
by Bette Bohlken-Zumpe

thirty feet to her car, and collapsed, unable

to cover the distance. She could not stand,
and was obliged to sit on the driveway for
several hours until a mail carrier came to her
house and found her; fortunately, the
weather was good that day.
As her mobility was sapped by illness,
she spent her last years teaching at FSU
using a scooter for transportation. But she
did not submit easily to the decline of her
physical condition. She continued to take
care of her daughters, then the grandchildren Jacinta and Stephon until adulthood.
She traveled to Europe for a Bruderhof exmember gathering, and was active in Quaker
organizations and with the Fayetteville
Friends Meeting (FFM). She was a Quaker
House Board Member as well as serving as
Clerk for FFM. She began a scholarship for
chemistry students through the Cumberland
County Community Foundation. She spent
her last few years in the mountains of western North Carolina, at Celo, where she
passed away on December 15, 2005 from

colon cancer.
It was said that Lee marched with Martin Luther King; she was reportedly jailed
perhaps as a result of this. She was active in
SERVAS, an international host of person-toperson peacekeepers. She was active in or
made donations to various organizations in
which she believed, including ProLiteracy
Worldwide, MountainArea Information Network and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
She offered suggestions in 2001 for the Jordan Lake Interbasin Transfer. She attended
Grinnell College reunions in 1994, 2000, and
2002. She knitted many, many sweaters to be
distributed to needy children overseas.
Daughter Tinas phrase on Lees
passing is that Lee went running joyously
singing into the Light.
This sketch of Lees life was researched
and drafted by Susan Lees and Chuck
Fager. It was delivered at a Memorial meeting held for her by Fayetteville NC Friends
Meeting, held at Quaker House on Fourth
Month (April) 2, 2006.

The Joyful Community,

by Benjamin Zablocki

Our Broken Relationship With The

Society of Brothers,
by S. Kleinsasser, 16pps $1/$3 each

Each$17plus$3U.S./Canada,
$5Overseasmail

KIT Annuals:1989-1990 - $17/$20

Overseas
1991 through 1998 - $25/$30 each,
all in larger type, spiral bound with index.
Open letter To the Hutterian Church,
by SamuelKleinsasser,
with added articles, 85 pages $5/$8
10

Out of the Opium Den,

1988-1990by John Stewart
(update of KIT April 95 article) $3/$5