Eda Lisonbee - Remembrance - Miraculous Protection at End of Fred's Mission

Following up on my last post, I've included another remembrance of Eda's in relation to Fred Kohlhepp. In the prior post, the story was around the family supporting Fred on his mission and the sacrifices (and ingenuity) they had to enable that. This next story contains an account of miraculous protection on Fred's behalf from the Lord in two separate instances when he was wanted by the German police. This oral story I've transcribed should be compared with Eda's written account of her father's life, which has a similar experience, and the notes I've made from Fred's mission letters and journal in that same entry (see note #2). They substantiate that Fred was running from the police, and this did cause a premature end to his mission. Frank V. Anderson was the companion listed in the story with the first event likely be in Köln, and the latter perhaps in Duisburg. This account is more fleshed out/dramaticized than Eda's written one, and does containing a nice touching family reunion at the end of it. Eda's story goes:

And I'll tell you another story. While he was over in Germany he converted a lot of people to Mormonism and they were baptized. And the whole lot, it was against the law. The government said they couldn't go in and preach the gospel, the Mormons over there in that country. But They did it anyway. And they baptized them and made a lot of friends. And then they got our father. He was quite an outstanding looking man. He had a beard that was trimmed down, and a mustache, it came out the corners.  And he had nice, thick curly hair, and it was getting grey. He was a handsome man. And they had his picture in the paper where the police were all after him. And they came to find out where he was staying, him and his companion. They were staying upstairs in a little attic room. And "The police!" a man yelled up, "They're coming, they're here, they're here!" And they run there. And the young man he was only eighteen years old, but my Father, he was forty five. And the young man went through the window and he held on to those steep shingles with his fingers and hung on to the roof out there.

 And father he couldn't go out there, he was too old. It wasn't the place for him. So you know what he did? He went into the clothes closet, he got way back in the corner. And he pulled everything he could around him. He could hear those policemen coming up the stairs, and up the stairs, and they went in there and looked all over the room. They couldn't see him. And they said, well they have to go look in that closet. He said they put their hands on him and felt all over him in that closet. And you know they, he said he could feel their hands go all over his body. Belly, legs, and his head, and feet, but he said they said we can't find him. He isn't here. They couldn't feel him because Heavenly Father blessed him, and they got away.

And then he went to another friend and he hid out. He tried to back to the mission office to tell them how it was that he had to leave the country. They will put him in jail for two years. There were all the newspapers that had his pictures after him, the government was after him,  they were going to put him in an old dungeon for two years. And then he had to make his get his companion to get his suitcase. He had to go right down to the Depot. And he got word to his cousin to be sure and have it there. At 1 o'clock I'll be there waiting. And you know 1 o'clock comes and his companion wasn't there. He is still on, on the edge of the sidewalk at the Depot and a woman come up there when he's on the sidewalk there. She bumped into him. She had a big old tray of something in front of her. "Oh," and she said, "Oh, excuse me. I did not see you." And she went on. Soon a man came along and bumped into him. "Oh," he said, "I didn't see you." And then there's two or three people came right along they bumped into him. And he knew that Heavenly Father made him invisible. They couldn't see him. 

Then pretty soon his, his companion came along with the suitcase, and he got on the train. And he went into Berlin, to the mission office headquarters. And his, and his president, thought sure they'd had him because his picture had been in all the papers in the, in the whole state. So they said, "Oh, are you here? Oh, it's a fact that we've been praying for you." And he was there and he says, "We'll send you home just because we can. We'll send you out of the country, send you home. He'd been there over two years, and he talked the German language very well. And so he got out of the country and he came home to his, to his family. I'll always remember how happy we all were when dear father came home and how good he felt when he put our arms around him, and how he hugged all of us children, and Mother. How happy we was. And we sure thank the Lord for saving him and bringing him safely home.

Here is the audio version (always happy to have someone check my transcription):