I purchased this letter from a UK dealer, when he was in Melbourne before the last International stamp exhibition, which was later held in Sydney. The destination was rare, it was early airmail and it seemed like it may have an interesting story due to the changes to the routing. Little did I realise how much effort it would take me – with the kind assistance of others – to unravel the story.

Letter to Fr Eugene Vercruysse front

Looking at an atlas for Shansi (now spelt Shanxi) showed the province to the south west of Beijing (then Peking) and a town in SW China. Nowhere could I work out where Yanghao Mahistsao, which had been crossed out, could be.  (see apostolic postings for 1923-32)

The postage of 625 Fr comprised 175 Fr postage and 450 Fr airmail. Two Albert 1 with ‘kepi’ hat stamps were used. From E & M Deneumostier’s La Poste Aerienne en Belgique, ses debuts, ses tariffs (1989) this airmail rate applied to South China, the northern being 350 Fr. Now what constituted north and south?

The instructional markings on the front showed the original routing via Baghdad then Bangkok, which was altered to Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City).  In 1932, the Belgian Postal Authorities in note #2743 of 8 August, had stipulated that all mail destined for China, Philippines or Hong Kong would no longer be routed via Siberia but in future via New York. Now I would have thought that this would only have applied to surface mail. Problems in Russia (Moscow) and China (Manchuria) no doubt prompted this directive.  Maybe the Air France plane was due to leave before whoever flew via Baghdad and Bangkok. Air France had operated a regular service to French Indo China or Cochin Chine (now Vietnam) probably from late 1931, certainly early 1932.

Letter to Fr Eugene Vercruysse reverse

The letter was posted in Namur on 28 September 1933, then went to Brussels (backstamp of Brussels 1 on same date), then on to Paris for the Air France flight.

It arrived in Saigon, Cochin Chine on 14 October 1933, whence it travelled probably by boat to Taichow (now Linhai), which is up the Ling Jiang river in Chekiang province. The cds reads Taichow, SRA (Southern Republican Area) then the middle line is the date, which translates as 10 November 1933

[(nian (yr) shi yi yue (11 month) shi ri (10)]. The bottom line reading the characters from R to L is Tai Chow. This cds appears in reverse next to the 125 Fr stamp. Thus it took nearly four weeks between Saigon & Taichow for reasons unknown.

Writing on the envelope reverse shows the letter arrived on 16 November at Linqiu, its destination a mere six days later.  How do we know where it went?

The Chinese characters on the back of the envelope had been provided to the sender and were transcribed manually by the Chinese Postal Authorities onto the front of the envelope. They read from the top

“Shanxi,
Ling Qiu,
Tian Zhu Tang (Catholic Church)

Now Shanxi translates as ‘Mountains to the West’ and Shanxi Province is very mountainous. Another look at the atlas showed a Lingqiu on the railway between Beijing and Taiyuan. This was later confirmed by the Society records at Leuven University in Belgium (Leuven University is Flemish and in the old town, whilst the French university is at Louvain-la-Neuve next door…confused?). Lingqiu is about 100 km from the Great Wall of China.

I had emailed Patrick Maselis in Belgium (author of From the Azores to New Zealand – the Belgian Colonies on all six continents) to enquire if he knew who had sent missionaries to China. He replied “try the Scheutists on the internet”.

The Congretatio Immaculatae Cordis Mariae or the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is also known as the Scheut Fathers or Scheutists. They are a Belgian Roman Catholic missionary congregation established in 1862 at Scheut, Anderlecht, a Brussels suburb by Fr Theofiel Verbist. (Information from Wikipedia).  They worked in China, Mongolia, Philippines and the Belgian Congo. On the third attempt I received a bibliography about Eugene Vercruysse, which showed he had been at Linqiu in 1933. Bingo!

Eugene Vercruysse

He was born in Veurne or Furnes (the unoccupied part of Belgium during WW1) in 1890 and died in 1963 nearby at Roeselare.  Ordained in 1920, he first went to China the same year.

Apostolic postings
1915-1918 : stretcher-bearer, Belgian Army
1920-1921 : language study in Peking
1921-1922 : assistant parish priest in Ching-Chou
1922-1923 : parish priest in San-Shih-Li-P’u
1923-1932 : parish priest in Ma-Chia-Tzu
1932-1933 : on holiday (Belgium)
1933-1937 : parish priest in Ling-Ch’iu (now Lingqiu)
1938-1943 : parish priest in Hsi-Chia-Tou
1943-1945 : internment in Wei-Hsien and Peking
1946-1948 : parish priest in Hsi-Chia-Tou
1948-1952 : director dispensary in Ta-T’ung
1952-1953 : assistant parish priest in Gent (Belgium)
1953-1958 : parish priest in Pignon (Haiti)
1959-1963 : chaplain in Sint-Denijs-Westrem and Deerlijk (Belgium)

Persitence had paid off.  Not only was I able to prove where Lingqiu was, but that Father Eugene Vercruysse had indeed been there in 1933, the repient of an early airmail to an unusual destination.  Also the deleted address was that for Vercyusse’s previous posting (try the phonetics to get a match).  What is more the cover survived in excellent condition.

My thanks to Patrick Maselis for his lead to the Scheutists, to John Hee and Ki-Ong Yip with the translation of the Chinese characters on the envelope and to Sara Lievens at Leuven University for Father Vercruysse’s biography.