The path to the publication of our collaborative research concerning an aspect of earliest Church Missionary Society history has been an irregular, and often despairing, one. For a time it seemed unlikely that we would ever finish our research, and that was simply the research part of it. The prospect of collaboration by husband and wife, persons trained in disciplines—history and sociology—guided by approaches seemingly opposed to each other, was not a promising one from the start. Simply put, could we cooperate, work through the processes of writing, thinking, and rewriting/rethinking within a single household, and endure the stress associated with meeting demands placed upon us by a publisher and full-time jobs as instructors? Had we been aware that this project would last for nearly thirty years for Bruce and twenty for Nancy, and consume entirely too much of our lives, we are pretty certain—in retrospect—that we would never have embarked on it.Bruce was the first to encounter the archive of the Church Missionary Society, during his dissertation research in London in 1966. At that time his principal objective was to scan records found in that archive for bits and pieces of data relating to political development and economic transformation of a part of coastal Guinea/Conakry from 1800 to 1850. That was a region where the Church Missionary Society had operated schools and mission stations between 1808 and 1816/17. Among the Society's earliest missionaries sent to West Africa was one named Peter Hartwig—a person who, according to other missionaries and early historians, had deserted the sacred cause to become a slave trader, and yet had returned to the Society's service at the eleventh hour, only to die in 1815 in a yellow fever epidemic then sweeping the African coast. Still, something seemed to be amiss in that narrative, for correspondence found in the archive suggested that it was a very complex affair. It was apparent that a careful review of Hartwig's experiences would be a worthwhile research project, but for a later time.

All social groups make rules and attempt, at some times and under some circumstances, to enforce them. Social rules define situations and the kinds of behavior appropriate to them, specifying some actions as “right” and forbidding others as “wrong.” When a rule is enforced, the person who is supposed to have broken it may be seen as a special kind of person, one who cannot be trusted to live by the rules agreed on by the group. He is regarded as an outsider.But the person who is thus labeled an outsider may have a different view of the matter. He may not accept the rule by which he is being judged and may not regard those who judge him as either competent or legitimately entitled to do so. Hence, a second meaning of the term emerges: the rule-breaker may feel his judges are outsiders.Peter Hartwig was a German seminarian recruited by the Church Missionary Society in 1803 to serve as one of its first two missionaries in Africa. He was sent to Freetown, a settlement established for Africans and people of African descent who had returned to Africa from Britain and the Americas. Hartwig was to reside at Freetown temporarily and to be supervised while there by a locally-based Corresponding Committee composed of Sierra Leone Company officials. The Society directed that, after a year's residence in Sierra Leone, Hartwig and his fellow recruit Melchior Renner would establish a mission among Susu peoples north of Freetown, where they were to convert indigenous Africans to Christianity. Hartwig, however, failed to meet the Society's expectations, violated the norms of the Corresponding Committee that the Society had established at Freetown to guide mission progress, and left the Society's service within three years of reaching the coast. He seemingly had become unable to adjust to changing realities, a wrongdoer and a moral example to other missionaries of what to avoid becoming.3 How are we to interpret his failure from a sociological perspective?

Problem and Rationale 1 Theorectical Framework 3 Organization of Study 20 Methods 21 CHAPTER II. WIDOWERHOOD FOR OLDER MEN; A STUDY OF SOCIAL NETWORK TIES AND SUPPORT IN BEREAVEMENT AND GRIEF RECOVERY 25 Who is Wldowered? 25 Literature Review 27 Methods 34 Findings 38 Conclusions 54 CHAPTER III. CHILD INTERACTION OF OLDER WIDOWED AND MARRIED MEN; SEARCH FOR AN EXPLANATION 57 Literature Review and Hypotheses 58 Methods 68 Findings 75 Conclusions and Implications 83 CHAPTER IV. FRIENDS AND CONFIDANTS; A STUDY OF SOCIAL NETWORKS OF OLDER WIDOWERS 88 Literature Review 89 Development of Hypotheses 95 Methods 110 ill Page Findings 117 Conclusions and Implications 143 CHAPTER V. MARITAL STATUS AND LIFE SATISFACTION; A STUDY OF OLDER MEN 147 Literature Review and Development of Hypotheses 147 Methods 167 Findings 174 Conclusions 186 CHAPTER VI. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 189 Importance of Marital Status and Widowerhood 189

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