Ellen G. White: The Early Elmshaven Years: 1900-1905 (vol. 5)

Developments in Takoma Park

At the Autumn Council the purchase of the Thornton property in Takoma Park just inside the District of Columbia line was approved. This would furnish building sites in the city of Washington for the Review and Herald and the General Conference. Elder Daniells reached out for Ellen White's counsel on the moves that should be made, and it now seemed that his prophecy of July 23 would be fulfilled. He had written: 5BIO 309.6

I am expecting that before spring you will feel it your duty to come to Washington to see our situation, and counsel with us regarding the work.—AGD to EGW, July 23, 1903. 5BIO 309.7

As winter approached, there was a discussion at Elmshaven of a proposed trip to the East in March or April, a trip that might extend to six months or more as Ellen White and W. C. White, and possibly his family, temporarily made their homes in Washington. They carefully watched developments at the headquarters of the church. 5BIO 309.8

One factor—aside from the need to get book work done, and winter weather—that had a bearing on the timing of the proposed trip was the forthcoming biennial meeting of the Pacific Union Conference, scheduled for March 18-28. As the fledgling union conferences organized at the General Conference in April, 1901, held their first important meetings, Ellen White wanted to attend as many as possible. Of her burden, W. C. White wrote to Elder Daniells on December 27, 1903: 5BIO 310.1

Mother suggests that it is essential to the health of all our union conferences that we shall encourage them to be self-governing. Let the officers of the General Conference be present at the Annual Conferences and at union conferences, teaching diligently the counsels and principles that have been presented again and again, and then leave the brethren in the union or local conference to choose their officers and shape their policy.... Mother says that in all our union conferences it might be well for the work now devolving upon the president to be shared by his assistants on the committee and by the vice-president, who could do some of the traveling and share some of the responsibilities of the president.—23 WCW, p. 84. 5BIO 310.2

In addition to the meeting of the Pacific Union Conference, she hoped to attend the Lake Union session to be held in Berrien Springs in the early summer. She could not attend the session of the Southern Union. She prepared a series of six addresses to be read at sessions where she could not be present. W. C. White wrote Butler that he was free to publish as many as he chose to in the Southern Watchman (ibid., 125). 5BIO 310.3

The staff at Elmshaven followed with interest the plans to move the Pacific Press to Mountain View, a country town thirty-five miles south of Oakland. Five acres of land right beside the railway line had been given by the townsfolk as a site for this new industry. 5BIO 310.4

Ellen White was also concerned that families from strong conferences “with their means, with their experience, with their ability,” should go “into the Southern States and into foreign countries, carrying the message” (Ibid., 84). There were correspondence and interviews concerning the possibility of securing for $4,000 the Potts Sanitarium property just south of San Diego. 5BIO 310.5

In an effort to conserve her strength for urgent book work, Ellen White, after conferring with W. C. White, frequently requested him to answer letters of inquiry that came to her. 5BIO 311.1

Some of W. C.’s letters opened thus: 5BIO 311.2

Mother has handed to me your letter to her of November 26, with the request that I write to you in her behalf.... Mother wishes me to say to you...—Ibid., 133.

Mother handed to me your letter of December 13, telling me that she was weary and heavily burdened with matters she was writing out for the Southern Union Conference, and she wished me to write to you answering as many of your questions as I could, and doing what I could to help you out of your perplexities. 5BIO 311.3

We then read the letter together, and Mother made suggestions as to what I should write to you.—Ibid., 525. 5BIO 311.4

Dear Sister: Mother has permitted me to read your letter of December 16, in which you tell her of the sad experience in connection with your new book, Thought: Its Origin and Power. Mother has requested me to write to you in her behalf. She is sorry, so sorry, for this sad experience, and yet she would say to you, as she often does to our ministers and missionaries whose plans have been overthrown and their work apparently undone, “Be not discouraged. Trust in God. He has power to make that which appears to be only evil, work out for good in some way.”—Ibid., 119. 5BIO 311.5