IT WAS CHRISTMAS, 1951. The group from the First Congregational church in Wilmette formed a circle," clasped hands, and sang the doxology in seven native tongues. Most of them were strangers to each other. But they sang in the language of the heart It was as if an electrical charge welded the handclasps together. For Mrs. Alfred Abeles it was a moment of poignant fulfilment, the end of one dream, the beginning of another. She had lost a son but had gained a family. For most of the group it was- their first American Christmas with their new American mother. Mrs. Abeles' bor-, rowed family, a mixture of Ukrainian, Estonian, Latvian, Hungarian, and Polish, then numbered around 40. Today, scattered thruout the land, more than 400 new Americans of 15 nationalities and five faiths will remember, in the same language of the heart, a pretty red brick church in Wilmette and the American godmother who helped bring them the greatest of all gifts freedom. It is nearly 15 years now since Margaret Beecher Abeles, a tiny, gentle, soft voiced woman, received the fateful message so familiar to many mothers of sons in World War II which was to change hundreds of lives in her own community and in the war torn countries of Europe. Lt. Beecher Abeles, a fighter pilot, was killed in action in the battle of the Bulge in January, 1945. He was 21.' For many months his parents pondered a suitable memorial for him. They wanted a living remembrance, something he stood for, something aliye. In his letters from overseas he had often expressed concern for the young people he met in France and Belgium whose lives were being uprooted and disrupted by the war. Beecher had been a sophomore at Northwestern university when the war disrupted his own plans for an education. The Abeleses finally decided to find a young war refugee, bring him into their home to live with them as a son, and give him the education that would have been their son's had he lived. They turned to their church for help in finding such a person thru national church and refugee channels. Their plan impressed other church members. One, Dr. Wayne A. R. Leys, Roosevelt university dean, arranged for a scholarship for the Abeleses refugee son when and if they could find him. When the report from the World Student committee in New York finally came thru, the Abeleses found they not only had one refugee student applicant, but three, a boy and two girls, all with equally heartbreaking case histories and impressive qualifications. How could they accept only one and turn down the others? The problem was quickly solved. Roosevelt university offered scholarships to all three; two other church families agreed to "adopt" the girls. Thus began a local refugee resettlement program that spread like an epidemic. A church refugee committee was organized with Mrs. Abeles as chairman. Her home became a clearing house for homeless and displaced newcomers to America. She even installed a special "refugee" telephone to handle all the problems that soon started coming up. Eighteen Wilmette families volunteered to share their homes with refugees. Scores of others church families and neighbors joined the mushrooming aid movement that grew out of one mother's wish to have a living memorial to her son. Many honors have been bestowed on Mrs. Abeles. Yet no one is more surprised than she that the seed she planted would reap so much. Two years ago more than 100 refugee families paid a moving tribute to her as their " mother of exiles" on the television show, This Is Your Life. To date the Abeleses have shared their home with 40 " adopted " refugees, and they're ( still coming. They have helped find jobs, housing, and educational opportunities for others; no one knows how many students they have financed, wholly or partly, out of their own pockets. There is usually at least one on this list. Their current one is a young Hungarian attending George Washington university medical school. Most of their work with refugees, however, has been done in conjunction with their church program. Mrs. Abeles was well qualified by ancestry to crusade for freedom in a church -setting. Her family boasts 14 Congregational ministers. Her great-grandfather was the famous Henry Ward Beecher; her great-aunt was Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of '! Uncle Tom's Cabin." In an anti-slavery sermon the Rev. Mr. Beecher once " auctioned " off a slave in church to dramatize the problem. Mrs. Abeles suggested a similar " auction " to raise funds for refugees. Her husband played the role of auctioneer and collected $1,300, which was used as a loan fund to pay transportation costs for refugees from New York to Chicago and to tide them over until they .found jobs and housing. The fund was later supplemented by $300 annually from the church budget. This financial shoestring has bought freedom and a new life for more than 400 refugees in the last 12 years but it was extended considerably by the generosity, hard work, and cooperation of the church, the community, and the refugees themselves. In two years the refugees repaid every cent of the original $1,300 they borrowed and then some. As soon as a refugee was settled in a job and could afford it, he paid back the funds advanced to him, and usually contributed to the fund as well. "They couldn't wait to be on their own and pay their own way," says Mrs. Abeles. " Most were grateful for the opportunity to work again." Church members pooled resources in finding jobs and permanent housing for the newcomers. At the peak of the program, when there were more refugees flocking to Wilmette than the church families could handle in private homes, they rehabilitated and furnished an old building as a temporary home for new arrivals. The men of the church volunteered their services as carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and painters; the women cleaned, varnished, laid linoleum, and made curtains; the children and youth groups were put to work in teams to help get the place in order. How have these refugees turned out? Mykola (Mike) Marchenko, a Polish boy from the Ukraine, was the Abeleses' first adopted refugee, a boy who lived with them as a son for four years. " Mike is our memorial to Beech," Mrs. Abeles explains. He was one of the first three Roosevelt university scholarship refugee students. He went on to Northwestern for his master's degree in mathematics, then taught mathematics at Northwestern, is now married and has two children, and is one of the top men in the applied science division of the International Business Machines company in Evanston. He became an American citizen in 1956. Mrs. Abeles also helped bring his parents to America from a DP camp in Germany. Helie Mikkelsaar, Estonian girl who spent five, years in DP camps in Europe and was among the first three refugee scholarship students, got her master's in English, is now a librarian in Waukegan, and is married to Dr. Heinz Meyer, a pediatrician. Em nie Csenar, Hungarian, the third Roosevelt scholarship student (there 1 ave been others since), was graduated with honors in accounting, and is now married to a young Hungarian engineer whom she met thru the Abeleses and their church refugee resettlement program. The success stories from this group would fill a book. Two of Mrs. Abeles' favorites are Boris Dimitroff and Sascha Constantine. Bulgarians, who lived with the Abeleses. Sascha's hands were so badly damaged at hard lat or in a concentration camp that his career as a pianist was ruined. He is n w an architectural engineer in Los Angeles. Boris is an interior decorator. Andther, a Latvian, is a landscape architect for the Chicago Park district. One is a successful biologist at the University of Illinois, one a head bookkeeper at the Wilmette State bank. I 83 ut niot all their stories have happy endings. Konstantin Pappasof, a D Bulgarian, lived with the Abeleses five weeks. He was 43, handsome, and gentle. He had been a truck farmer; he loved the soil and all growing things. The Abeleses found him a job in a greenhouse. One day he collapsed and was rushed to the hospital. The surgeon who operated found cancer of the liver. It was just a matter of time. The Abeleses took Konstantin home. Mrs. Abeles and Mike took turns giving him a hypo every four hours. One bright day shortly before his death they took him out for a drive with a Bulgarian friend, and the friend complained mildly about the sun blinding him. Konstantin smiled weakly and said, " My wish for you is that the worst life can hold is to cause the sun to shine in your face." " This is the legacy he left me," says Mrs. Abeles. " Sometimes when I think, things are going badly, I tell myself it's only the sun shining in my face." When Konstantin died, the church members handled all arrangements but found unexpected kindness even outside their own group. The surgeon refused to send them a bill, saying, " If you people can do what you're doing, I think I can put in my 2 cents worth.? The funeral director insisted, I don't see why this can't be a cooperative arrangement." And itjwas. " We've gained more from working with refugees than we could ever possibly give," says Mrs. Abeles. "It's like investing a little of yourself in each of these new lives you always get back a dividend on your investment. Your horizons broaden. Your life is richer, more meaningfuL" And the person proudest of Wilmette's mother of exiles, if he could know, would be Lt. Beecher Abeles.