Feed My Lambs

From an interview with Dorothea Evans of the Victoria British Columbia Stake

In John 21:15 Christ questioned Peter, “lovest thou me?” After which Christ pled, “Feed my lambs.” The message was important enough that Christ repeated it three times. At 91 years of age Dorothea Evans still feeds the Lord’s sheep in the form of His missionaries. That might seem remarkable in and of itself if not for the fact that, like her grandmother and mother before her, the family has fed missionaries for over 110 years and she’s got the pictures to prove it.

It all started years ago in England when at age 17 at Dorothea’s mother Esther Waters and her grandmother Emma Waters heard the message of the restored gospel from missionaries and joined the Church. Dorothea’s grandfather James worked as a signalman on the railway. “Every third week grandfather gave his wife 10 shillings, which was a lot in those days, she invited the whole of the Birmingham District missionaries over for a party at her house. She fed the whole lot of them every three weeks,” Dorothea says. “In those days the missionaries always gave their picture to the members. It’s fantastic to have these as a record.” Photos of moustache lipped missionaries from as early as 1904 fill the picture book Dorothea proudly displays. “Now days you have to take the pictures yourself if you want them,” She remarks.

Dorothea’s mother helped with the meals and soon became a missionary herself; in fact, she was the first lady missionary from the Church from England called to England. “She loved the little country place where she served in so much that when she married in 1913 she returned to Wombourne Common to live and raise a family,” Dorothea says. “That’s where I grew up ‘till I was 14”.

Born in 1924 Dorothea lived in Wombourne Common with her parents and a brother five years older than she. The family adopted an orphan after the war and then a little girl who died at three months. “We always had the missionaries over to eat or visit. In those days the missionaries could come for the whole week at Christmas and stay until New Years,” she says. “One of our missionaries was one of Brigham Young’s grandsons, another was Marvin J. Ashton and I used to sit on his knee and tell him that I was going to marry him when I grew up. I saw him in the Marriot Center once, years and years later after I’d immigrated to Canada and I asked him if he remembered me saying that to him and he said, ‘oh, yes I really love the English saints’.”

Because of WWII all missionary-aged young people in England were involved in the war effort. Dorothea stayed home and took care of her grandmother until she died when Dorothea was 17. At that time Dorothea received a mission call.” We had to go on missions early in those days. During the war there were no missionaries, so England supplied their own,” she says. She served for six months until she turned 18. She then went into war effort herself, as a nurse. “We didn’t have any more missionaries until after the war,” she recalls.

Dorothea married John Evans in 1947 and immigrated to Calgary, Alberta, Canada in 1949. “We lived in a few rooms in an old barracks because we didn’t have a house. Once we had a house I started having the missionaries over again. I used to feed them two meals a day every day, lunch and supper. I never locked my door, so if I was not there the missionaries would come in and set the table because they knew I’d be right back to feed them,” she says. John and Dorothea had five children. “The missionaries came to our house on P-days to write their letters and play games with the kids. They could in those days. They used to do strength tests with each other to see who was strongest. I would arm wrestle the missionaries and I could beat every one of them every time. I’m sure that why my shoulder is bad. I always beat them,” she says with a gleam in her eye.

The family moved from Alberta to Sidney, British Columbia in 1967 and continued to feed missionaries after a few lulls. “We had no active members in Sidney at the time and the missionaries in Victoria didn’t have enough of their allotted kilometers to drive out here. My father and my husband, John were home teachers and my mother and I were the visiting teachers. We talked to all the members in the area and asked if they would come to church if we had our own branch. The mission president called my husband to be Branch President and we held meetings in our house or at the Mason Hall or lodge. Eventually they asked my husband to find property for the chapel we use now,” Dorothea says.

“Of all the members we’d visited that said they would come too church if we got a branch here, only one came, but we got four missionaries sent here. I kept feeding the missionaries one meal a day, even though John died 31 years ago. I’m 91 years old now, so I only feed the missionaries once a week these days,” she says. Every second Sunday senior couples come to dine.

Over the years Dorothea enjoyed the hijinks of the young visitors. She even learned to ride a triumph motorcycle from one missionary and a love of riding remained. After learning that one particularly mischievous missionary became a Zone Leader she joked, “if you make zone leader anybody can.” Dorothea’s care of the missionaries includes such special care as making a birthday cake between lunch and dinner, after finding out that one missionary hadn’t heard from his family on his birthday. She’s kept a picture of all that have visited her. “They call me Gramma now,” she says. Her own son served a mission in England.

Dorothea dishes out food for thought along with the meals. “When a new missionary arrives in the area the other missionaries sit him down and tell me: ‘give him the talk grandma.’ I tell him, when you pick someone to marry, good looks are only a bonus. Make sure you pick someone with a good, strong spirit, because you boys are weak and you need a strong person to keep you strong. These young women are waiting for a good returned missionary to marry, so you be that good, strong, faithful missionary for them.” The missionaries eat it up. So deep are the relationships with the missionaries that over the years many have reconnected with Dorothea send wedding and birth announcements. She’s followed the progress of two Elders who’ve kept in touch for 23 years. Five years ago they came and stayed with her for three days.

Like her mother and grandmother before her, Dorothea has housed and fed the Lord’s missionaries and loved doing it. “We’ve always had a bed and a meal open to missionaries,” she says. “Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? Or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we a stranger and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” (Matthew 25: 37-40)