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Mr.
Chelliah was the eldest son and the second born of Mr. J.Lewis son of
Rev.J.Joshua and Mrs. Maisie Lewis.
He had his school education in the Mission Institutions at
NAGERCOIL and took his Bachelor of Arts Degree from the Madras Christian College in 1923, when the college was
functioning at George Town, Madras.
Taking up employment in Ceylon, Burma or Malaya was the great ambition of youngsters those
days and Mr. Chelliah was no exception. With the help of his
brother-in-law Mr.P.N.Malachi who was in Burma, Mr.Chelliah sailed to
Burma in 1924. There he worked in the
St.Gabriels’ S.P.G.School as a school master for four years till March,
1928. Then he joined the
Burma Railways and retired as Superintendent in
1948.
In the year 1929 he married Jessie the eldest and the only daughter of
Dr.S.Ambrose a well known and revered Medical Missionary of
NAGERCOIL. They had four
children - two daughters, Jennie and Ida, and two sons Wilfred and Jasper.
The eldest daughter Jennie died in a train accident at Nigeria in
1977.
When World War II broke out in 1942 and Japanese occupied
Burma, Mr. Chelliah
could not return to India. He had to spend four years there
alone, till the British re-occupation. He underwent a lot of suffering
during this period and has written in one of his memoir thus: “At one stage I was driven to such
an extent that I had to convert my cotton blanket into longyis and dispose
them in return for money with which to buy food. It is not an exaggeration to say
that the Japanese knocked 30 lbs. off my weight. I weighed 128 lbs. when the
Japanese occupied Burma
in 1942 and 98 lbs. when they were driven out of Burma in
1945. If the Allies had only
occupied Rangoon two months later, I would
have been dead by then and buried unwept, and lost to all my dear ones who
were away in India”.
Mr.Chelliah joined the Indian Railways after his return to
India and retired from service
in April 1957. He died on 7th
June,1974, at NAGERCOIL at the age of 72 years. Mrs.Jessie Chelliah lived up to
the age of 84 years and died on 14th October,1993. She was buried by the side of her
husband ‘s tomb at the NAGERCOIL Home Church
Cemetery.
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