From New Zealand to Brasil, the story of Bou Sader and Ary
(At the end of the nineteenth century, a Lebanese community already exists in distant New Zealand)
In 1895 , the young Elias Bou Sader, born in 1854 in the village of Choueir , Mount Lebanon , emigrated to New Zealand and settled in the industrial area of Woolston , in the city of Christchurch, on the east coast the South Island . Elias began working in the general trade and then opened a bakery in association with an English friend, Jack Pease, also emigrating to New Zealand. And he met Miriam Pease, sister of Jack, a young girl born in Oxford, England, in 1862. Their mother was called Harriete Smith and their father, John Pease, had worked at the Royal typography of Buckingham Palace time of Queen Victoria. In 1870, John and his family, Christian Church “Religious Society of Friends ( Quaker ) ” had emigrated to New Zealand and John opened a shoe store in Christchurch.
Return to Lebanon in difficult times
Elias and Miriam fall in love with each other and get married in 1898 from this union were born first five children born in New Zealand. Jack, Fouad (who died in infancy), Pearl (Lulu), Gladys and Harry. In 1909, Elias suffered from a disease of the stomach and decides to return home. Then began a long journey back to Lebanon, (new emigration country for Miriam). The ship passed through Australia – where Elias met with Lebanese friends – then Ceylon (Sri Lanka) , Yemen, Egypt ( Suez Canal and Port Said) , Palestine and finally to Beirut. The family moved to the Belle Vue Hotel a Zeitouné. Miriam and children quickly adapted to the country, despite their lack of knowledge of the language and customs. They then moved to Choueir, hometown of Elias, when the couple had two children, Helen and Albert.
Not far from Choueir , Miriam met in Broummana a British members of the Church of the Quakers, who ran a school founded in 1874 by Swiss Quaker missionary , Theophilus Waldmeier . The family then moved so that children can easily go to the ” Broummana High School .”
In 1914 started the First World War and the situation became catastrophic in Lebanon where typhus occurs. Locusts invaded the country and devastated crops, causing famine, after which thousands of people died especially in the Christian regions Broummana , Jbeil, Batroun , Jezzine … Elias and Miriam spent terrifying time with their children . Miriam worked in an orphanage in giving all her mother’s love, witness to the love of God, according to a Quaker concepts, that of the “inner light.” After the war, their daughter, Pearl, went to Beirut to attend nursing school, Gladys traveled to France with a French family, Elias and his son Jack found work in Beirut. And Miriam died in 1918 of the Spanish fever in Broummana. As for Elias, he died ten years later in Beirut.
New emigration to Brazil
Pearl ( whose name in Arabic is Lulu ) , who was born in New Zealand in 1902, worked after graduating as a nurse at the Broummana hospital, where she met in 1924 Wadih Ary (al- Kary ) Lebanese born in Zahle , in the Bekaa Valley in 1897 . He was the son of Amin and Zaira Ary Trad, family that had emigrated to Brazil in the late nineteenth century and lived in Fortaleza, in Ceara State. Pearl and Wadih immediately get married, and went to join the family of Wadih in Brazil. From Fortaleza, they went to São Paulo, where they had seven children: Janete, Amin, Neif, Roberto, Yvonne, Wilma and Samir. Their children made the best studies in civil engineering and electronic engineering, accounting, law and journalism. Wadih died in 1948 in Brazil. As for Pearl, she remained in Brazil, with a short one-year stay in Lebanon in 1968 and died in 1990 at the age of 88 years.
One of their daughters, Wilma, born in 1937, chose the path of letters in 1966 and obtained a degree in journalism in São Paulo. She worked in several newspapers and magazines in Brazil and had a difficult time in the 1970s at the time of the crackdown following the military dictatorship. Brazil. Since 1985 she is part of the faculty of the University Paulista (UNIP) in São Paulo where she is now editor of the newspaper Multiensino – UNIP. As a writer, she published several books, among other Diário de Miriam Sauder Bo (Journal of Mariam Bo Sauder), her English grandmother in 2008.
Wilma visited Lebanon for the first time this year, traversing villages Choueir , Broummana , Zahle , the ” great river Bardawni .” She gives his impressions: “I heard in every corner some Arabic sentences I knew from my childhood. I felt during this homecoming truly home. My next book will discuss these unforgettable moments. “
Google translation.