Reverend William J. and Nina Maynard, Missionaries to Tanganyika
The pastor of the Idaho Falls Baptist Church in 1925, Waldo
Maring, put the following announcement in The
Idaho Falls Daily Post of April 18 of that year:
Attention,
Baptists! Rev. W. J. Maynard, who was once a member of the local Baptist church
and has served as a missionary in Africa for many years, will speak at the
Baptist church tomorrow, probably at the evening service. All members of our
church, and other people who are not obligated elsewhere, are urged to hear
this man of God, who is sure to bring us a message from “the front trenches.”[1]
Who were Rev. W. J. and Nina Maynard? When were they called by the Lord to go to
Africa, how long did they serve there and what did they do?
William grew up on a plantation in Frederick County,
Maryland.[2]
William was one of eleven children of
Howard G. and Sarah Maynard.[3]
He was the second youngest, three years
older than his brother George. By 1908, William and his wife Nancy, known as
Nina, were living in Idaho Falls.[4] His brother George had left the family
plantation in 1907 to go west, first to Wisconsin, then to Stevensville,
Montana, and then in 1909 to Idaho Falls to live with his William and Nina.[5]
William had left Maryland sometime prior to 1907 to go to St. Louis and had
become an ordained minister of the gospel. In St. Louis he met and married Nina
Henry on October 29, 1907.[6] Within a few months they had moved to Idaho
Falls. In Idaho Falls William served as
president of the Baptist Young People’s Union[7]
while working as a bookkeeper for the C. W. & M. Company.[8]
An 1896 business directory of St. Louis shows Nina working
as a cashier for the Aetna Life Insurance Company and the 1900 census[9]
shows her working as a bookkeeper. When
the Maynards moved to Idaho Falls, Nina took charge of the primary department
of the Sunday school of the First Baptist Church; the announcement of that in
the local paper noting that she was a trained primary teacher and also that she
had had charge of a large primary Sunday school in St. Louis.[10] But not much more than a year later, she had
become a medical doctor. Classifieds in Idaho Falls newspapers as early as
February 16, 1909 show Dr. Nina H. Maynard, physician & surgeon, offering
her services at an office at 258 Water Avenue,[11]
not long afterward moving her practice into the Lyon Building. Besides her leadership of the Baptist Sunday
school, she was active in the Village Improvement Society, elected as their 2nd
Vice President in April, 1909.[12]
The
Idaho Register reported on October 11, 1910 that Dr. Nina Maynard was again
moving her office location, from the Lyon Building to rooms 11 and 12 in the B.
W. & M. Building. Apparently soon after that, the Maynards moved to
Philadelphia so that Nina could attend medical school, while William got a job
as a banker. It was in Philadelphia the Maynards received their call to
missions, and were commissioned by the First Baptist Church of Perkasie,
Pennsylvania.
On Jan 1, 1913 the Maynards sailed for Africa, as
missionaries with the Africa Inland Mission, [13]
a voyage that took 69 days. Accompanying
them was another AIM missionary, Miss Gertrude Bowyer.[14]
After arriving in and traveling through Kenya, they walked across the Serengeti
Plains and down along the coastal area of Lake Victoria.[15] This was an area known as the “white man’s
graveyard” because many missionaries here had died in the area from blackwater
fever (malarial hemoglobinuria) and other malaria-related illnesses. The
Maynards continued on foot about 90 miles from the southern tip of Lake
Victoria (Mwanza) to Shinyanga, Tanganyika Territory. About 8 or 9 miles east of Shinyanga was a
government post, where they established a hospital called Kolo Ndoto.
In Tanganyika the Maynards ministered to the Sukuma
people. William was called Nangi, the Kisukuma word for “teacher.”
Although as there had been no formal education in Tanganyika, “teacher” meant “one
who would get them to understand.”
At first the “hospital” was just a tent under a tamarind
tree, or according to another source,[16]
Dr. Maynard with her little black bag and an orange crate under a tree. It grew
rapidly into three mud brick buildings known as the Jewel Hospital, which in
1968 was one of the largest medical centers in East Africa.
Tanganyika was under German control until 1919, and during
World War I, all mail ceased and the Maynard’s support totally stopped. So they lived off the game William would hunt
and the millet they raised.
After getting the hospital established in Shinyanga, Nina
started clinics in outlying areas and went on medical journeys. One time during the war, on her way back from
a clinic, she got very sick herself. Her companions thought she would die and
carried back to the Maynard home. She
lost a lot of weight as her illness lingered for weeks and weeds. At one point she said to her husband, “You
know, if I could just get a white potato and a piece of white bread I think I’d
get better.” As they were living off the
land with nothing coming in from outside, this seemed impossible. But that same day an officer of the German
army, which was in retreat from the British, knocked on their door and handed
them a bag with a loaf of white bread and a dozen white potatoes. And from that day she got steadily better.
According to missionary William Barnett who knew and worked
with the Maynards, William was a quiet man, kind, thoughtful, polite, and
patient. He maintained the bearing of a gentleman, punctual and wearing long
sleeves and a tie, even when temperatures were over 100 degrees. For a number of years he served as the field
director of AIM’s work in Tanganyika, when they had between 70 and 80
missionaries in the country. At the
medical station where the Maynards lived, the AIM team typically numbered about
5 or 6, with dozens of local helpers that they had trained. John Barnett
reported that all who worked with William loved him and trusted his
judgment. But John adds that while he
preached all the time, he wasn’t an eloquent preacher.
Besides the three buildings that made up the hospital, the
AIM team established a maternity ward and about a quarter mile away a
leprosarium, which eventually grew to having 2,000 patients. Starting the
leprosarium was not without opposition, as the locals believed that lepers were
cursed. They would throw people with
leprosy into pits and leave them to starve to death or tie them to trees which
they would then cut down to crush them. Early in the mission, Rev. Maynard and
one of his converts found a leper left to die, brought her back to the
compound, and did what they could for her.
When she later died, they gave her a Christian burial, testifying to her
worth as a person made in the image of God rather than being cursed. As word of
the burial got out, they were inundated with lepers seeking the same respect.
And of course they started a church, which over the years grew
to 200 people. William would start a
service punctually, sometimes with only the few missionaries present, and then
people and even the native pastor of the church would drift in, so those who
came on time would hear two sermons. There was an evangelist at the hospital at
all times, for many years a woman who had been a demon-possessed witch doctor
but who was totally transformed when she came to know Jesus as her Lord and
Savior. She would go from bed to bed sharing the gospel and hold worship services
in the outpatient department.
Another witch doctor came to Rev. Maynard one day and told
him that many times he and others waited in bushes with poison arrows ready to
kill him. But as they watched his life over many, many years, they witnessed a
God they didn’t know but were attracted to and now he was ready to follow Rev.
Maynard’s God. [17]
According to another AIM missionary who worked with the
Maynards, Ruby Arnold, Dr. Nina was a woman very dedicated to her work. She exhibited
great patience and had a tremendous love for the people. She had hoped to go to India but the doors
hadn’t opened. From the time she arrived she trained Africans ladies as nurses
to help in the hospital. By the
mid-1940’s the maternity ward had about 100 beds and was full all the time, the
tuberculosis ward also had about 100 beds, the men’s ward around 90 and the
women’s ward also about 90. Dr. Nina was the only doctor, working with 2
missionary nurses and 60 to 80 African nurses whom she had trained. She had a
strong sense of integrity and ethics and made sure things were done according
to principle. The Africans gave her a nickname of a hawk because when they
became lax on the job or anything was out of order, she would appear like a
hawk.[18]
As far as I could determine, Rev. Maynard and Dr. Nina only
left Africa to come to the United States twice.
In 1925, they wife spent a week in Idaho Falls, staying with William’s
brother George before proceeding to Sheridan, Wyoming where Nina’s sister lived
and then Norfolk, Virginia where another of William’s brothers lived. Their
second tour of the US was in 1945, and included Portland, Omaha, Memphis and Evansville,
Indiana. Yet the Maynards were not forgotten by the Idaho Falls Baptist Church,
as Mrs. Claud R. Black gave a report to the Van Englen Women’s Circle of the
Baptist Church on the work of Rev. Maynard in January, 1956,[19]
and then on the life of Dr. Nina Maynard to a gathering of all the women’s
societies of Idaho Falls in October, 1958.[20]
Shortly after their 1945 speaking tour in the US, Dr. Nina
Maynard died of cancer in Tanganyika; two years later, Rev Maynard married Ruby
Arnold and continued the work, with Ruby managing the leprosarium.[21]
Rev. Maynard had come to Tanganyika in 1913 when he was 36,
and ministered there for 56 years, dying in 1969.[22]
While under British control, the Queen of England cited him for having done the
most of anyone for the Territory to Tanganyika.[23]
[1] Idaho Falls Daily Post, April 18, 1925,
p. 5.
[2]
From 1880 US Census, New Market, Frederick County, Maryland, also obituary for
George Maynard, posted on https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/75795598/george-edwin-maynard
[3]
From FamilySearch family tree for William Jay Maynard, https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/details/MFWJ-N12
[4] The Idaho Register, July 3, 1908, p. 8.
[5]
From obituary for George Maynard, posted on https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/75795598/george-edwin-maynard
and 1910 US census of Idaho Falls Ward 4, Bingham County, Idaho. In 1914 George
purchased a farm in New Sweden and lived there until his death in 1951. He served as a deacon at the First Baptist
Church for many years.
[6] Missouri,
County Marriage, Naturalization, and Court Records, 1800-1991, Entry for
William J Maynard and Nina C. Henry, 29 Oct 1907, accessed at https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:WP9J-PDPZ
[7] The Idaho Register, June 9, 1908, p. 1.
[8] The Idaho Register, May 22, 1908, p. 6.
The C. W. & M. Company was the Consolidated Wagon and Machine Company and
operated in Idaho Falls from 1889 to 1944.
[9]
1900 US Census, Precinct 11, St. Louis City Ward 28, St. Louis, Missouri.
[10] The Idaho Register, July 3, 1908, p. 8.
[11] The Idaho Register, February 16, 1909,
p. 3.
[12] The Idaho Register, April 6, 1909, p. 1.
[13] The Idaho Register, January 3, 1913, p.
5; also see https://www.europeansineastafrica.co.uk/_site/custom/database/default.asp?a=viewIndividual&pid=2&person=18847
[14] Sheridan (Wyoming) Journal, November 23,
1928, p. 5.
[15]
This and much of the following is from an oral history interview with William
John Barnett by Robert Shuster on April 24, 1998; the transcript in the Billy
Graham Center Archives; accessed at https://www2.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/transcripts/cn248t07.pdf.
[16] News Herald, Perkasie, Pennsylvania,
October 30, 1968, accessed at www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/memories/PMSN-QG8.
[17]
Tape 2 of Oral History Interview with Ruby B. Maynard, link to audio file at https://archives.wheaton.edu/repositories/4/archival_objects/93911
[18]
ibid
[19] Post Register, January 27, 1956, p. 5.
[20] Post Register, October 10, 1958, p. 5.
[21] News
Herald, Perkasie, Pennsylvania, October 30, 1968, accessed at www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/memories/PMSN-QG8.
[23] News
Herald, Perkasie, Pennsylvania, October 30, 1968, accessed at www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/memories/PMSN-QG8.
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