The Fannie Bolton Story

S. N. Haskell to W. C. White, June 7, 1900, pp. 4, 5

In reference to your partial apology for Fannie Bolton to Brother Irwin, I hardly think that you take in the situation as it is. It is an easy matter to start a wrong influence, and that wrong influence grows. Fannie made me a visit when I was in Battle Creek. It came about because she had exerted an influence quite strong that she had written some of your mother’s books and stated what everyone who knows the facts in the case knows to be a falsehood,—that is that that your mother would simply state a few things that she would like to have in a letter or article, and then Fannie or Marian Davis would write it out. No one who knows anything about it believes the stuff but you know that your mother has been out of the country for several years and people are embracing the truth all over the country. FBS 99.3

Well, Fannie insisted to me that she ought to get credit, and that all of your mother’s editors ought to get credit. I reminded her that the Bible was formerly written, the words all running together in the Greek. Someone separated the words, someone introduced punctuation, someone introduced verses, and someone divided into chapters. Why should not these people get credit, so that when the Bible came out there should be a long list of the editors who had helped to arrange the Bible, and I compared your mother’s writings to this. FBS 99.4

She made no reply to this, but said she would do differently in the future. I hope she has, for surely there was a strong influence that went from her in the line that I have spoken of, so that individuals came to me about it. We presented to them some of your mother’s letters to us in her own handwriting, and they were perfectly astonished to think that she could write, and not have to have it doctored over, as Fannie had told them. This impression has gone from Conference to Conference. We met it [in] Portland and in the Upper Columbia Conference, in the meeting at Walla Walla, and I have also met it here upon the campground at San Jose. It is not among the older brethren who know better, but among the young people who have embraced the truth,—I mean young in the truth. FBS 99.5