History (Continued)
Gifted Companion: Gentle Coordinator
While well-designed and well-built cottages and school buildings, as well as the provision of adequate finance to run a residential school for some 600 children, are each in themselves a major project, the procurement of suitable personnel to man the twenty cottage homes, is in itself, a major responsibility. The selection of such staff and the subsequent co-ordination of their activities with the general policy of the institution, was largely the domain of Katherine Graham, who was no less a leader than her husband. For two whole decades, till her almost premature death in 1919 at the age of 58, Mrs. Graham acted as Chief Liaison Officer between the several scores of workers, both welfare and academic, who were drawn from almost every corner of the Commonwealth of Nations, including India. Another aspect of the "integrated cosmopolitanism" that flourished under the leadership of John and Katherine Graham was the truly ecumenical nature of the staff, whose denomination affiliations, in their variety, were almost legion.
Crowned with Honours
John Anderson Graham, who survived his devoted companion by almost a quarter of a century (1919-1942), lived to receive many honours, both from the Church to which he belonged (the Presbyterian Church of Scotland) as well as from the State. At a somewhat early stage (1921) in his distinguished missionary career, the Presbyterian Church in India made him a moderator - the Presbyterian equivalent of a Bishop and in 1931 he was appointed the Moderator of the entire Presbyterian communion which has its ecumenical seat in Edinburgh. Dr. J.A. Graham was the only missionary in India ever to have been elected to the highest ecclesiastical office in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The premier universities of Scotland, namely Edinburgh and Aberdeen, bestowed on him their doctorates of divinity, the former in 1903 and the latter in 1931. Amazingly he had found time to write some very learned and informative volumes on anthropological and philosophical subjects. The recognition of his services by the Government of India took the form of a bestowal of (1) the Kaiser-i-Hind Gold Medal in 1903, (2) the Companion of the Indian Empire in 1911, and (3) in 1935, a Bar to the original Gold Medal of 1903.
The Homage of the People
Royalty as well as the elite showed him the respect due to his character, as well as his achievements. But it was the "sovereign people" who, along with the privileged elite and aristocracy, turned out in their multiple thousands to render their reverential homage to the memory of the departed guru (teacher) as his mortal remains were taken in mournful procession along the hillside roads of the town which he had largely called into being. The beautiful little cemetery of the Homes was made the final resting place of the body of Dr. Graham, as of his wife, just 23 years before. But both of them are enshrined in the hearts, not only of the hill folk of the Darjeeling district, but of men and women throughout the English-speaking world who were blessed, in one way or another, by the persons of these saints.
Devoted Colleague
No account of the work of Dr. Graham would be complete without due mention of the contribution to the sustained success of the St. Andrew's Homes which was made by Mr. James Purdie. During one of his brief furloughs in Scotland in 1908, Dr. Graham met Mr. Purdie on the suggestion of one of Calcutta's merchant princes. An ardent social welfare worker and Bible scholar, Purdie was a man after Graham's own heart. No burra sahib's salary led Mr. Purdie to accept, in 1908, the founder's offer of the secretaryship of the Homes. When Dr. Graham passed away in 1942, Mr. Purdie succeeded him as Superintendent of St. Andrew's Homes, shortly to be renamed after Dr. Graham. His span of devoted service to the institution was a worthy 45 1/2 years!
He along with two of Dr. Graham's daughters, Mrs. Odling and Mrs. Sherriff, were the leading authorities on the life and work of John and Katherine Graham. If not one of the "founding fathers" of Kalimpong, James Purdie was certainly one of the chief factors in the sound and successful management of the Institution that owes its origin to the intellectual and spiritual genius of John Anderson Graham.
