The Gillet Family
Ira E. Gillet (1889-1989) Missionary in Mozambique, Centenarian
Edith Clara Riggs Gillet (1889-1974) Teacher
Ida Mae Conant Weise Paris Riggs (1889-1984)
Ira Edmond Gillet was born into a farm family in Fulton County, Ohio, in 1889. While at prep school, Ira met Edith Riggs, daughter of Congregational missionaries in Turkey. Both were fifteen. In 1911, the family moved near the town of Tangent in the Willamette Valley. Ira finished high school and enrolled at Oregon Agricultural College (OSU) in Corvallis. He soon transferred to Oberlin College in Ohio where he met Edith again, and then went on to Hartford Theological Seminary. In 1918, after his ordination, he and Edith were married and sailed to Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique). They spent forty-one years in Africa, mostly in Mozambique, improving agriculture, establishing schools, as well as serving the Methodist mission there and making occasional visits home.
Edith Clara Riggs, born in Ghaziantop, just outside Istanbul, in 1889, was the daughter and granddaughter of Congregational missionaries in Turkey. Her father, Charles Riggs, was born in Istanbul and died in China at age 70.
Edith’s paternal grandfather, Elias Riggs, was a linguist who translated the Bible into Turkish. Her maternal grandfather, Justin Wright Parsons, was killed by bandits in the desert seven miles from his home in 1849. His camel was loaded with bibles, which the bandits thought were gold bricks. Edith came to the US for high school and college. Returning to the mission field in southern Africa with Ira, she taught kindergarten and developed a curriculum for schools near their mission, west of the capital.
In 1959 the couple retired to Corvallis, but Ira remained active in Methodist activities. They moved to Rose Villa in 1963.
Ira’s second wife, Ida May Conant, was born in 1889 in Michigan but later moved to Portland, where she worked as a stenographer for a railroad company. In 1938, at age 47, she married 53-year-old George E. Weise in Stevenson, Washington. He died in 1946. In 1947 she then married insurance underwriter Frank W. Paris. They lived in Gladstone, but he died in 1967. In 1978, she and Ira were wed, and she moved into Rose Villa and died in 1984 at age 95, suffering from Alzheimer’s. Ira died in 1989 at age 100.
When Edith died, her ashes were sent to Mozambique and are buried at the Kambini Boys School cemetery. Ira’s ashes were later buried next to hers.
Narrative researched and written by Elliot McIntire.