Honoring Sergeant Carter by Allene Carter Read Free Book Online Page B

color-conscious America. Because they were a mixed couple, and because Mary Carter herself was Anglo-Indian, Evangelist Carter may have felt that they were well suited to oppose separation based on color and caste, that they could succeed in bringing people together.
    In any case, their missionary work was phenomenally successful, reportedly gaining a thousand converts within a matter of months. They also secured a building in which to house their Holiness Church mission. A photograph of it, along with the Carters and some of their converts, appeared in the Pentecost, the church newspaper.
    Through 1926 their work grew and their household arrangement became more complex and costly. The children were enrolled in the mission school, and the family had hired a man and a woman to help with domestic chores and the children. Eddie was very close to his mother, but his relationship with his father was difficult. Years later, Eddie said that as a child in India he couldn’t get along with his father, that sometimes his father beat him, and twice Eddie ran away from home. Eddie dreamed of escaping to another kind of life. His family lived near a military post, and it was here that Eddie’s lifelong fascination with the military took root. He said he once had a vision of a visit by a spirit that told him he would become a great warrior, that he would be wounded many times, but that he would survive so long as he protected his chest.

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    While Eddie entertained thoughts of being a soldier, both Edward and Mary Carter were busy with the nightly meetings of their missionary work. Though not always well herself, Mary helped heal a sick woman through prayer, Carter Sr., reported. Aside from health problems and ever-present financial worries, there was no hint of any other difficulties in the letters and reports they sent back home to Los Angeles. Then, suddenly it seems, their household was disrupted.
    In the April 20, 1927, edition of the Pentecost, among the committee and board notes, in small type at the back of the issue, I found a brief report to the Board of Elders. “Letters were read from Brother Carter stating that his wife had eloped with Irwin H. James, taking their little girl with them; and stating in a heartbreaking way his desire to find and forgive her, and his surprise at what his wife and friend had done. Also letters from the American Consul of Calcutta, India, and the Government at Washington. Prayers offered for Brother Carter.” Carter wired for financial help when he learned that not only had the church’s general secretary and treasurer run off with his wife, he had also absconded with the church’s funds. Mary didn’t return, although Carter subsequently gained custody of Miriam.
    Because William and Miriam were so young, they were probably less affected by this turn of events, but the loss of his mother devastated Eddie. Further, the relationship between Eddie and his father, strained during the best of times, was now irreversibly damaged. In fact, I think Eddie tried to be the opposite of his father. Missionaries, in Eddie’s view, weren’t hardworking or courageous men. His dreams of being a soldier only grew. There would never be a reconciliation between Eddie and the elder Carter.
    Meanwhile, though his father may have been devastated by the loss of his wife as well, he had to carry on. By the middle of the summer of 1927, Evangelist Carterhad planned to return to the United States. He applied for a second passport. This passport, issued on August 12, included his three children, but not Mary Carter, and tellingly depicts, in its photograph, Eddie standing farthest away from his father. On the application the elder Carter stated that he intended to return to the United States within one month. He secured passage on the Korea Maru, the same ship that brought his family from the United States to India, but unexpectedly, on