Aunt Sylvia - Part 3

The following is taken from part of my Great Aunt Sylvia's book, "Victory Through Suffering."  It's her story of how she survived a Japanese Concentration Camp.

(See Previous Accounts)
Aunt Sylvia - Part 2
Aunt Sylvia - Part 1

Walk With Me

"Necessity: The Mother of Invention"

"We were each ordered to make a garden (39 inches square).  Our court yard had a brick floor, which we had to pull up and dig the soil with a table knife.  Watering it with prayer, I asked that with the Lord's blessing we might be able to eat of the fruit when we needed it most.  The first three tomato plants I planted under my window.  They grew very slowly in an alley with a high cement wall preventing sunlight.  However, when they did start to bear fruit, they did well.  One of them grew higher than I could reach and bore over seventy-five tomatoes.  It still had over twenty unripe ones when I left.  The four plants had over 240 tomatoes.  Encouraged by this, we planted in the garden more tomatoes, celery, and onions from roots all found from the kitchen garbage.  These were all doing well when we had to leave the garden to follow orders to move on to another camp.

Some have asked, 'Were there no joys in camp, no celebration days?'  Ah, yes.  Necessity is the mother of invention and so we were kept busy in times of dire necessity, inventing ideas to keep little hands and minds occupied with other things than the hard and drab circumstances surrounding us.

To entertain the boys, I took little pieces of wood and carved a head, made hands and arms of wire, then dressed them as dolls.  These were the scraps from carpenter work.  Later these ideas grew and they were dressed to imitate Bible characters or foreign costumes.  Some other people suggested I make some gifts for their children.  In this way the Lord enabled me to make a little cash to buy my share of camp rations.  We had to buy for two meals a day.  How marvelously the Lord supplied even from people we did not even know.

One day near Christmas, the boys were asked what they wanted (a very unwise question for camp days) Mark said he wanted a little wagon to carry blocks in .  Paul wanted a 'pikulan man' (a native coolie carrying baskets on a pole over his shoulders).  Now how was anyone to get such things in camp conditions?  The Lord gave me ideas.  I used a small wooden cheese box for the body of the wagon, wires made the staves, from wood I cut the wheels and with a piece of bamboo mat I made a cover.  Out of an old pair of pants I cut and stuffed an elephant to draw the cart.  Mark was delighted with it.  The coolie was more of a problem.  I found a handle of a wire toaster, stuffed it with cotton, then put cloths over that.  Pill boxes and a stick made the burden he carried.  These little surprises in their way made life more endurable for the children.

Perhaps the most difficult problem was the customary birthday cake.  Once I made a cake from grated cassava and baked it in a frying pan.  Another pressed together as cookies.  For candles we used wax on string or tiny injection vials (with drop of oil and string)  What delight it gave even these crude inventions.  They were content and thankful with little favors."

-Aunt Sylvia