The Story of our Health Message

A Realistic View

So real was the view given to her that Mrs. White wrote, “I seemed to be living there myself.” It seemed to her that she saw and conversed with the patients sitting in wheel chairs outdoors under the trees. Some of the sick were working for diversion; others were singing. Some of the shade trees seemed to form tentlike canopies. SHM 343.3

Neither the property at Paradise Valley nor at Glendale fully met this description. It was doubtless Mrs. White’s confidence that such a place as this would yet be found and come into our possession that led her in later counsel. SHM 343.4

In August, 1903, the entry in her journal which we quoted before was embodied in substance in a letter addressed “To our brethren and sisters in southern California.” This, it should be noted, was some months before even the Paradise Valley Sanitarium had been secured, and the description of the property described as having been seen in vision was in the minds of some of the brethren as they searched for suitable sanitarium properties. SHM 344.1

There was found in the Redlands-Riverside district, a place called Loma Linda—the “Hill Beautiful”—which most perfectly corresponded to this description. The purchase of the property was considered, but when inquiry was made and the price was quoted at $110,000, all thought of securing it was abandoned. SHM 344.2

It is difficult to imagine the increasing perplexity of the Southern California Conference officers when, with the Glendale Sanitarium enterprise only fairly launched, Mrs. White began to urge the securing of a third property for a sanitarium in southern California. On February 26, 1905, she addressed a worker living in Redlands, requesting that when he might see a place near that city which could be used for sanitarium work, “offered for sale at a reasonable price,” he should let her know about it. “We shall need a sanitarium in Redlands,” she said, and she requested that the place be visited from time to time to “see what openings there are.” (E. G. White Letter 83, 1905.) SHM 344.3