Stories of My Grandmother

Stories of My Grandmother Ellen G. White Copyright © 2018 Ellen G. White Estate, Inc. Information about this Book Overview This eBook is provided by the Ellen G. White Estate. It is included in the larger free Online Books collection on the Ellen G. White Estate Web site. About the Author Ellen G. White (1827-1915) is considered the most widely translated American author, her works having been published in more than 160 languages. She wrote more than 100,000 pages on a wide variety of spiritual and practical topics. Guided by the Holy Spirit, she exalted Jesus and pointed to the Scriptures as the basis of one’s faith. Further Links A Brief Biography of Ellen G. White About the Ellen G. White Estate End User License Agreement The viewing, printing or downloading of this book grants you only a limited, nonexclusive and nontransferable license for use solely by you for your own personal use. This license does not permit republication, distribution, assignment, sublicense, sale, preparation of derivative works, or other use. Any unauthorized use of this book terminates the license granted hereby. Further Information For more information about the author, publishers, or how you can support this service, please contact the Ellen G. White Estate at [email protected]. We are thankful for your interest and feedback and wish you God’s blessing as you read. i Contents Information about this Book . .i Foreword ............................................. iv Chapter 1—Life at Grandma’s House . vi Chapter 2—Task for a Teen-ager . xiv Chapter 3—The Joke that Failed . xx Chapter 4—The Handsome Young Preacher . xxiv Chapter 5—The Captain was Convinced . xxviii Chapter 6—A Storm at Sea . xxxii Chapter 7—Visions in Strange Places . xxxvii Chapter 8—“James, Have We Come to This?” . xlii Chapter 9—The Publishing Work in a Carpetbag . xlvii Chapter 10—Battling the Enemy . lii Chapter 11—A Home for the Publishing Work . lvii Chapter 12—John Changes His Mind . lxiii Chapter 13—The Train Wreck. lxvii Chapter 14—“Willie’s Drowned!” . lxxii Chapter 15—The First “White House” . lxxvi Chapter 16—What Happened at a Funeral . lxxxi Chapter 17—A Dangerous Crossing on Ice . lxxxvi Chapter 18—The Preacher was a Thief . xcii Chapter 19—Seven Little Sisleys . xcvi Chapter 20—Ellen Brought Him Back . ci Chapter 21—Miracle at a Camp Meeting . cvii Chapter 22—The Twelve who Couldn’t Wait . cxii Chapter 23—Ellen’s Surprise . cxvii Chapter 24—“Where is the Other Man?” . cxxii Chapter 25—The Secret Sign. cxxvii Chapter 26—Who Made the Furrow? . cxxxii Chapter 27—Twenty-three Miles to a Doctor . cxxxvii Chapter 28—Testimony to a Young Girl. cxlii ii Contents iii By Ella M. Robinson Copyright © 2000, Review and Herald Publishing Association Foreword These stories of Ellen G. White, my grandmother, are true. The accounts of the visions have been verified by hundreds of reliable witnesses, some of whom have left written reports of the events and circumstances accompanying them. Detail and conversation are based on Mrs. White’s personal correspondence and diary records, upon her own stories and those of her son, William Clarence White, who was my father, and upon information gleaned from her relatives and friends. Some items are based upon my 33 years of intimate acquaintance with my grandmother. E.M.R. 1. Life at Grandma’s House 11 2. Task for a Teen-ager 21 3. The Joke That Failed 29 4. The Handsome Young Preacher 35 5. The Captain Was Convinced 40 6. A Storm at Sea 45 7. Visions in Strange Places 52 8. “James, Have We Come to This?” 59 9. The Publishing Work in a Carpetbag 66 10. Battling the Enemy 73 11. A Home for the Publishing Work 80 12. John Changes His Mind 87 13. The Train Wreck 93 14. “Willie’s Drowned!” 100 15. The First “White House” 106 iv Foreword v 16. What Happened at a Funeral 112 17. A Dangerous Crossing on Ice 118 18. The Preacher Was a Thief 126 19. Seven Little Sisleys 132 20. Ellen Brought Him Back 138 21. Miracle at a Camp Meeting 145 22. The Twelve Who Couldn’t Wait 152 23. Ellen’s Surprise 159 24. “Where Is the Other Man?” 165 25. The Secret Sign 171 26. Who Made the Furrow? 178 27. Twenty-three Miles to a Doctor 185 28. Testimony to a Young Girl 192 [11] Chapter 1—Life at Grandma’s House Grandma seated herself in her easy chair near the fireplace. Her day’s work was done. I ran upstairs to get her comb and brush, but my younger sister was there before me. So I sat down to watch her comb grandma’s soft, silvery hair and to listen to the stories grandma might tell while her knitting needles clicked. I’d be a little quicker next time and not let Mabel get ahead of me! “What are you making, Grandma?” I asked. “I’m knitting warm socks for the workers at the printing office in Basel, Switzerland, and in other countries where winters are cold.” “The printing office in Basel! That’s where I was born, isn’tit, Grandma?” Mabel asked. “Yes, the workers there were living in apartments in the publishing house.” “Then I wasn’t adopted, was I? Ella told me I was.” Mabel shot a disdainful look in my direction. “No, Mabel, you were not adopted; although if you had been, we would have loved you just the same,” grandma answered. “But what gave you that idea, Ella?” “Because when I first saw Mabel, someone told me the doctor brought the baby in his satchel.” [12] We had a good laugh, and grandma laughed along with us. Just then father came into the room to talk with grandma, so we heard no stories that night. But the reference to Mabel’s birth in the Basel printing office carried my thoughts back many years to the night mother asked me to get baby sister a piece of zwieback to nibble on while her food was being prepared over the alcohol lamp. Timidly I crept out of bed and started down the long dark hallway. But all my fear vanished when, in passing grandma’s room, I saw a light shining under her door. I knew then that I wasn’t alone. Grandma was up and busy with her writing. It must have been between two and four in the morning, for that was her usual time to begin work. vi Life at Grandma’s House vii I remember one Sabbath when grandma preached in the assembly room in Basel. A man by her side translated each sentence into French as she spoke. Then another man repeated it in German to a group in another part of the room. Our mother took down grandma’s sermons in shorthand and wrote them out with a pen, because we had no typewriters then. She would make selections for tracts, then work with the translator getting them into French. Sometimes when help was short, she would go into the typeroom and set the type herself. Because mother was so busy, “Aunt Sara” McEnterfer, grandma’s secretary and traveling companion, took care of baby Mabel. I was often left in the care of the cook, a sweet, conscientious young woman named Christina Dahl. I was five years old then. One ofmy chief diversions was to watch until Christina was absorbed in some intricate cooking task; then I would slip ever so quietly out of the kitchen, tiptoe down the hall, and knock on grandma’s door. If I found her writing, I would stand quietly by her side until [13] she laid down her pen. That was the signal for one of the delightful visits that I loved so well. She would tell about her childhood days or her travels, or perhaps about some pet kitten or pony, or about the interesting children she met on the train. Sometimes I would sit on a footstool at her feet. She would give me a pair of small blunt scissors and let me cut out pictures she had saved from magazines. Once when I cut off the steeple of a church, she said very gently, “You must go around the edges carefully so as not to spoil the pretty pictures.” When she saw I was getting tired, she would go to her dresser drawer, take out a peppermint or an apple, and tell me to ask Christina to put it up on the shelf for me until dinner-time. Never did we think of taking a bite of anything between meals. “And when you’ve done that,” she would say, “come back, and we’ll go for a walk around the block.” Once we got lost, and not being able to understand French, German, or Italian, we were late getting back to dinner. I’ll never forget the spanking my father gave me for dumping a box of stone building blocks on the hard tile floor after promising to be quiet during a committee meeting. Grandma, seeing my tears, took me on her knee and comforted me. She explained that the viii Stories of My Grandmother punishment was to help me remember never again to make any noise during a meeting. We were in Switzerland two years. Mother worked long hours in the office and contracted tuberculosis. When grandmother returned to America, our family came with her. We went to live in Boulder, Colorado, hoping that the cool, bracing air and warm sunshine would bring about mother’s recovery. But we were disappointed, and we [14] had to leave her lying beside Grandpa James White in Oak Hill Cemetery, in Battle Creek, Michigan.

Load more