Life Sketches of Ellen G. White

Chapter 56—At the 1909 General Conference

Thursday evening, September 9, 1909, Mrs. White returned to her home near St. Helena, California, after an absence of five months and four days, during which time she had traveled more than eight thousand miles, and spoken to audiences, large and small, seventy-two times, in twenty-seven places, from California to Maine, and from Alabama to Wisconsin. LS 416.1

The chief purpose of this journey was to attend the quadrennial session of the General Conference, which convened at Washington, D. C., in the spring of 1909. Her visits to other places were in response to urgent invitations, and were made possible by the merciful bestowal of strength and courage, as she proceeded from place to place. LS 416.2

A few days before starting on her journey, she remarked that as she was eighty-one years of age and in feeble health, it would doubtless be best for her to take the most direct route to Washington; but that she could not disregard the calls to visit Los Angeles, Loma Linda, and Paradise Valley, in southern California, nor the invitation to stop in College View, Neb., and speak to the five hundred students in Union College. She said: “I must also visit my son Edson, in Nashville, Tenn., and if the Lord gives me strength, I should be pleased to visit Brethren Sutherland and Magan at the Madison school.” She also expressed a desire to stop off a day at Asheville, N. C., where Prof. S. Brownsberger lived, and where Sister Rumbough had built and given to the conference a commodious meetinghouse and parsonage. LS 416.3

During the four weeks occupied with the journey to Washington, Mrs. White was able to speak four times at College View; twice each at Loma Linda, Nashville, and Asheville; and once each at Paradise Valley, Madison, Hillcrest, Huntsville, and the Alden mission school near Hilltop. Upon her arrival at Washington, she went at once to Takoma Park, where she was entertained at the home of Elder G. A. Irwin. LS 416.4