Written By Sid Prior, Middlesex Centre Archives
William Henry Fonger was the son of Alfred (Alf) Fonger and Mary Jane Lipsett, but went by Harry most of his life. He was born on his father’s farm near Poplar Hill, Lobo Township on January 12, 1891.
One day, when Harry was a teenager, his father asked him to take the horses and democrat (buggy) to the Komoka train station to pick up some visitors and take them to the Friends’ Society meeting.
Miss Jessie Ward, a teacher at the College of Disciples in St. Thomas, had come to Komoka to speak to the Young People’s Endeavor Society. She was accompanied by a few of her male students who had come to support and give encouragement to their young teacher. The democrat was full, and Harry joked and conversed with his passengers as they travelled to their meeting.
Harry attended Sunday school regularly and was baptized as a child. One day while working in the fields with his father, Harry confessed that after talking with students of the St. Thomas College, he would like to attend and become a minister. When the next session of the Disciples College began, Harry was enrolled, and Miss Ward was one of his teachers. He commuted from Komoka to St. Thomas by train. When the college closed in St. Thomas, Harry attended Eureka College in Michigan, United States.
Harry graduated in 1916 and preached for a year before enlisting in the American Army. For the next 2 years, he served in the First World War.
In 1919, he married Leith Cox, a friend from Michigan who also attended Eureka College. They spent 2 years at the College of Missions in Indianapolis before going to the Philippines in 1923, as missionaries. Their son Burton Luther was born in 1925 while the Fongers were members of the American Bible Society. Harry was busy teaching pastors, building churches and going into the mountain areas, bringing missionary services to the people.
Mrs. Fonger was a trained musician and led the choir and taught music to the girls at the Bible school in Manila. She also taught classes in the nurse’s training school and would often take responsibility of the hospital.
In 1932 the missionaries were withdrawn from the Philippines, but the Fongers stayed and in 1934 the Reverend Harry Fonger was asked to become secretary of the American Bible Society, Philippines Branch and to remain permanently in the Islands. He accepted.
In 1942, during the second World War, the Presbyterian Mission Board reported that Mr. and Mrs. Harry Fonger and their son, Burton, were safe in the Philippines and after being imprisoned they had been released to continue their services. In March 1945, the family again was interned by the Japanese and were sent to the Santa Tomas University prison camp in Manila. They were reported to be as well as could be expected under the circumstances. Harry was one of three Chaplains in the camp. They could not write directly as they were not allowed pen or paper.
Their son Burton was twenty years old by this time. After attending school in Manila, he was ready to return to the United States to enter Eureka College. However, because of being military age, he was held in the prison camp in Manila. Atha Cox, Leitha mother received word from the Philippines that her grandson had died of malaria in the prison camp on August 14, 1945, and was buried with eight others on a nearby hillside beneath a mango tree.
After returning from the Philippines, Harry and Leith toured North America giving talks on their time in the Philippines and the people in the remote mountains. They also would come to London Ontario to visit his sister Minnie and her husband Freeman Briggs. Freeman worked for a Printing Office in London.
Harry and Leith retired to Los Angeles, California, United States where they both died and were buried.
