In March 1920 Mrs Lena Whitman died from meningitis in Taunton, Somerset, aged 45. She was a Christian missionary who had worked in the Congo and in Nigeria. She had been born in Banana, where the mighty River Congo pours into the Atlantic, and her African name was Vunga. Her father was a European – she was of “mixed race”. Taking the surname Clark from the Scottish missionary who sponsored her three years of studies at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia from 1891, Lena Clark had been in London and Scotland before travelling to the U.S.A. Back in the Congo she worked in Ikoko where she got involved with fellow missionary Clarence Whitman. The mission society dismissed them.

They turned to the United Soudan Mission (founded in 1904) and eventually worked at Donga in Nigeria.

They had three sons, Roy, Stanley and Robert. At the time of her death in England the sons were also in Britain, and her husband was in the U.S.A. I have relied on Robert Burroughs’s “The Redeemed Life of Lena Clark, Christian Missionary to the Congo Free State”, Cultural and Social History, Vol 20 No 3 (2023), available on line, and e-correspondence between Stanley Clarke [sic] and Professor Burroughs.

Leroy “Roy” Frederick Whitman. Born Congo May 1904, died Jordan December 1992. Church leader.

Stanley Atherton Paul Whitman. Born Massachusetts November 1905, died Leeds April 1935. Journalist in Yorkshire and London.

Robert Linton Whitman. Born Massachusetts July 1908, died New York state March 1970. Teens in Canada. Graphic designer.

The undernoted photograph is used with permission from Lena’s great-grandchildren.