Ellen G. White and Her Critics

Charge Number 2

In her latter years, when she was living near St. Helena, California, “she owned nearly seventy-four acres of very fine bottom land at the foot of Mt. Howell, just below St. Helena Sanitarium, one hundred and twenty acres of land on the side of Mt. Howell, ten lots and a bungalow in St. Helena, besides other scattered pieces of real estate.” “What business had Mrs. White to speculate in real estate?” She did not live up to her own testimonies in which she told the brethren that they “should be cutting down their possessions instead of increasing them. Testimonies for the Church 5:152.” EGWC 520.3

In her real estate holdings we are evidently supposed to find the answer to the question as to what she did with her money, and also a proof that she disobeyed her own instruction. What are the facts? EGWC 520.4

Let us look first at her property holdings. From 1891 to 1900 Mrs. White lived in Australia. There, from 1895 to 1900, she owned a modest dwelling place. At the time she left to return to America plans were being laid for the erection of a sanitarium at Wahroonga, near Sydney, Australia. Funds were short, and so on leaving Mrs. White informed the brethren that they could have, on loan, whatever money was received from the sale of her home. When she arrived a little later in California she was virtually without funds, nor did she know, at first, even where she would locate. She soon visited the St. Helena Sanitarium, about sixty miles north of San Francisco. There she heard of a property at the foot of the sanitarium hill that could be purchased for eight thousand dollars. It was an eight-room, two-story frame building, fifteen years old, but completely furnished, ready for occupancy. Included with the house were about seventy-five acres of land, less than half of which was tillable. This she bought. Because she did not have ready cash she sold part of the acreage and took out a five-thousand-dollar mortgage. In this way she obtained what has been known through the years as Elmshaven. EGWC 520.5

In purchasing this property, Mrs. White was thinking, not simply of herself, but of those who would be associated with her in her work. She wanted a property sufficiently large to have in it the possibility of providing homes for those who worked with her. She gave some of the land to certain of these helpers, and on it they erected their own homes. A less thoughtful person would not have had his workers in mind when he purchased his property. Near her two-story house was erected a small two-story office building and other modest quarters, which provided a place where secretarial and literary work could be carried on more effectively. Such improvements naturally increased the value of the property. At the time of her death she owned only thirty-seven acres. EGWC 521.1