Ellen G. White: The Australian Years: 1891-1900 (vol. 4)

Getting Settled In Granville

With so large a home only six minutes from the railway and two miles from Parramatta, it was inevitable that there would be many visitors. Soon after their arrival, in reporting on a brief trip into the country to buy apples, Ellen White wrote: 4BIO 139.3

When we returned we found a temporary table made of stable door and boards extending out nearly the whole length of the dining room and three of our brethren sitting at the table in addition to our family, and Brother McCullagh made four. 4BIO 139.4

She commented, “We enjoyed the meal as much as if the table was the best walnut pattern.” In the next paragraph she explains how they adjusted to their circumstances: 4BIO 139.5

We find there are many ways we can spend money and many ways we can save money. We have a skeleton wardrobe of two upright standards, and cross pieces nailed to these, and a shelf put on the top. A very simple cheap lace over blue or red cheap cambric is fastened to the top and back of the shelf. This back is neatly arranged, lifted up and fastened securely to the posts of the head of the bedstead. 4BIO 140.1

Hooks were put in the crossbars, and an adjustable screen hid the washstand. All in all, a nice little dressing room emerged. “I am much pleased with this arrangement,” she wrote, and added, “It costs so little. This was the arrangement in our tents at the camp meeting, and it proved such a convenient affair we do not dispense with it in our houses, which are usually destitute of clothespresses.”—Letter 128, 1894. Supplementing their homemade improvisions were inexpensive articles of furniture purchased at auction sales. 4BIO 140.2

Helping in a material way in the food line was the milk from a good cow they purchased soon after their arrival. They planned to secure a second one so they could have “plenty of cream and milk to cook with” (Letter 46, 1894). At the Brighton camp meeting Ellen White had taken a positive stand for a meatless diet. No meat was served in the dining tent at the camp meetings and none was used while they were living in the school buildings, although some roosters in the fowl yard and a calf in the pasture presented some temptations. “Some might have enjoyed it,” she wrote to Dr. Kellogg, “but I said positively, ‘No.’” No meat appeared on the table at Granville. 4BIO 140.3

I cannot consent to have flesh meats on my table. If I taste it myself, my testimony against it has no real edge. Some may have thought I was straining the point.—Ibid. 4BIO 140.4