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

On to Tasmania

Ellen White intended to spend most of the week in Melbourne, and appointments were made for her to speak Sunday and Tuesday nights. But then she learned that because of a delay in ship movements, the boat they had intended to take on Thursday afternoon for Launceston, Tasmania, would not sail till Friday, arriving on the Sabbath. She recounted her reaction to this in a letter to Elder Olsen: 4BIO 190.4

I could not consent to go on this steamer when we should thus have to trespass on the Sabbath, if there was any way possible by which we could avoid it. We learned that a boat left Melbourne Tuesday afternoon, and we decided that it would be much better to get this early boat than to travel on the Sabbath.—Letter 58, 1895. 4BIO 190.5

The voyage was a pleasant one. Arriving at Launceston Wednesday morning, the travelers were taken to the Rogers home for lunch, and in midafternoon took the train south 125 miles to Hobart. It was nine o'clock in the evening when they arrived. They were met by May's father, David Lacey, and several members of the family, and were taken to the comfortable and hospitable Lacey home in Glenorchy, just north of the city. 4BIO 190.6

In his younger years David Lacey had filled the post of British Police commissioner at Cuttack, in India, near Calcutta. Here May was born. She attended school in London, and on the retirement of her father joined the family in Tasmania. When colporteurs came to Hobart with Thoughts on Daniel and the Revelation, the family gained their introduction to Seventh-day Adventists. The careful follow-up work of evangelists Israel and Starr gathered the entire family into the church—Father and Mother Lacey and the four children, Herbert Camden, Ethel May, Lenora, and Marguerite. The mother died in 1890, and the father had by now married a widow, Mrs. Hawkins, who had four lively daughters and two sons. It was a loving and close-knit family that welcomed the daughter May and Ellen White that Wednesday night. 4BIO 191.1