Ellen G. White's home in Australia, Sunnyside, was about a mile from the little village of Cooranbong in New South Wales. It was also about a twenty-minute walk from the Avondale school. It provided Ellen White with what she often spoke of as the most pleasant and comfortable living arrangements that she had ever had. She found the climate to be very favorable; she loved the country, and she loved the people. Her home was modest, but it provided a convenient place to live and work, with her women helpers around her. The several towns and villages within a thirty-mile radius provided easy contact with people of all classes, giving her an opportunity for personal ministry. This she cherished. She would have been pleased if she could have spent the rest of her life in Australia.
But through the winter months of 1900--and, in the Southern Hemisphere, that means May, June, and July--Ellen White was becoming more and more certain that she must soon go back to the United States. Conditions developing in connection with the work of the church in America, revealed to her in the visions of the night, led to growing concern.
When she proposed to her son William that she must return to the United States it was hard for him to grasp. How could it be? The Avondale school was just getting well under way. Construction on the Avondale Health Retreat at the front corner of the school land, across the road from the church, was just recently completed, and that enterprise was developing nicely. Land had been purchased for a sanitarium in Wahroonga, a suburb of Sydney, and building plans were under way.
And then there was her book work on which they were pressing hard. Willie, at his request, had been relieved of administrative responsibilities in Australia and from his membership on the General Conference Committee. Both he and his mother felt that he should give unbroken attention to assisting her in publishing her books. How could they pull up stakes and leave all this and reestablish themselves in the United States?
But the burden pressed ever more heavily upon Ellen White. She could not forget that in January she had been shown a rather unusual outbreak of fanaticism at a camp meeting in America. She was deeply concerned over the increasing imbalance coming into the medical work, fostered by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg in Chicago. Of her plans to leave Australia, she wrote:
Things have not been moving in right lines, and I must, in the fear of God, bear my testimony personally to those who are in danger of swaying the work disproportionately in the so-called medical missionary lines.--Letter 123, 1900.
Critical situations had developed in Battle Creek, adding to her anxiety. At first she talked of leaving Australia in November. She did not see how she could close up her work before that. But by all means she felt she should attend the General Conference session scheduled for the coming February. She also declared it her plan to spend two years in the United States and then return to Australia. But shortly she moved the time of departure up to August. She felt that it would be unwise to arrive in the United States with the winter already on them, as would be the case if the November plan were followed. The time was finally set for late August.
As W. C. White was devoting much of his time to assisting his mother in her work, it would be necessary for him to return with her. This meant that two homes must be sold, and on short notice. Could it be done? Naturally, they entertained some misgivings.
In mid-August, with the Australian winter days moving toward spring, the acacias, with their fluffy little yellow blossoms, were in bloom. The family orchard was yielding oranges, tangerines, and passion fruit. The vegetable garden had its cauliflower, with promise of other crops soon. The gum trees would soon be blossoming in shades of pink, red, yellow, and blue, which would bring the forests into their full beauty. It was not easy for Ellen White to abandon the prospects of the coming Australian spring and summer to enter into another winter in the Northern Hemisphere. But go she must, and she declared that "the might of my will comes from a deep conviction that the Lord has a work He would be pleased to have me do in His service in America."--Manuscript 95, 1900.
With surprising rapidity things fell into line. She had an opportunity to sell her home, completely furnished, to the M. E. Minchin family. All she would have to do would be to pack her personal belongings and move out. What is more, she could retain the home until the sailing date. W. C. White, whose home was across Sunnyside Road, negotiated a trade with Metcalf Hare, who was connected with the college. Hare's home was next to the school, and W.C. found he could sell that to the college. Thus the two big problems were quickly and easily solved.
One question that had troubled Ellen White as she thought of leaving Australia was how she could meet her promise to give substantial financial assistance in the establishment of the Sydney Sanitarium. The sale of her home for cash now provided her with funds for meeting this pledge. So, although it was against her personal wishes to leave Australia, as she freely declared in a letter to her son Edson, she was sure it was in the order of God that she should go. She wrote, "The call comes in so decided and earnest a way that we dare not refuse."--Letter 123, 1900.
W. C. White began travel negotiations in Sydney with the Union Steamship Company and found that comfortable arrangements for the voyage could be made on the Moana, which would sail from Sydney on Wednesday, August 29. Ellen White would have her four women assistants with her--Sara McEnterfer, Marian Davis, Sarah Peck, and Maggie Hare. The W. C. White family numbered seven--himself; his wife, May; his two older daughters by his first marriage, 18-year-old Ella and 13-year-old Mabel; the twins, 4 years old; and Baby Grace, nearly 3 months old. There were three other friends along also. So it made quite a nice traveling party--fifteen in all.
Packing included not only clothing and personal effects but the Ellen G. White manuscript files. These were particularly valuable and would be taken in trunks as part of the baggage.
On Sunday afternoon, August 26, a farewell service was held in the Avondale church for Ellen White, her helpers, and W. C. White and his family. The auditorium was well filled. Appropriate words were spoken, climaxed by the presentation of two beautiful velvet-bound autograph albums that were to be opened day by day, progressively, as they journeyed across the Pacific. In her farewell speech, Ellen White reminisced a bit about the development of the school and recounted, among other choice items, how the carpenters, when beset with apparently insuperable difficulties, used to kneel down in the shavings and ask God to help them. Her parting admonition was to remember the Sabbath--the seal of the living God (The Bible Echo, September 17, 1900).
Thus closed nine busy, fruitful years in the continent down under. Before them was a 7,200-mile, 23-day journey across the Pacific. Willie had been successful in securing the most comfortable room on the Moana for his mother, the bridal stateroom in the first-class section in the aft of the ship. The tickets had cost $160 each for Ellen White and Sara McEnterfer. The rest of the party traveled second-class. Willie reported that they had been successful in securing the four best rooms in that section, with tickets costing $70 each. With anticipation and a little excitement, they boarded the Moana in Sydney shortly after noon on Wednesday. Ellen White was pleased with her room. "I have a wide bed," she wrote in her diary, "as I have at home. Sara [McEnterfer] has her berth opposite mine. It is rather narrow. I have a bureau, wardrobe, and every convenience."--Manuscript 96, 1900.
The First Leg of the Voyage
Of course, friends and fellow workers were at the wharf to see them off. Frederick Sharp, treasurer and business manager of the developing Sydney Sanitarium, came on board to present a final farewell gift to Ellen White. It was a handsome journal book bound in soft black leather. She wrote in it, "Presented on board the steamer by F. W. Sharp, August 29, 1900." Later that day she was to make the first entry, opening with the words, "We feel very much affected as we leave Sydney."
The journey would be broken by three stops--New Zealand, Samoa, and the Hawaiian Islands. All augured well. Ellen White was reported to be a good sailor, and she suffered only a touch of seasickness the first night out. Willie reported that they were soon on good terms with the stewards and stewardesses: "We feel as much at home as if we had lived with them for six months."--15 WCW, p. 861. The first 1,280-mile leg of the journey was almost due east to Auckland, New Zealand. Thursday and Friday were sunny days, and as the sun was setting behind them on Friday evening, they hunted up all the songbooks they could find and gathered for a little sing. They were pleased that about a dozen fellow passengers joined them.
Sabbath morning dawned dark and cloudy, and Ellen White chose to stay in her room most of the day. It was the first Sabbath of the trip, and the noise on the deck above, with the passengers pitching quoits, made it hard for her to realize that it was the Sabbath. Part of the day she spent writing some important instruction given to her in reference to the responsibility resting on medical missionary workers. The newly established medical institutions in Australia were much on her mind, and this was not the only communication she would write that would review important guiding principles.
They found the food on the ship well prepared and appetizing, but to be certain of having a dietary to their liking, they had brought some of their own food on board, particularly oranges and tangerines, zwieback, canned fruit, and canned grape juice. This greatly broadened their selection of menu choices. One favorite dish turned out to be fruit toast, made by pouring fresh hot water and then grape juice over zwieback. For their evening meal, popular items were fresh fruit and crackers.
As the ship sailed eastward at its steady pace of about 340 miles a day, Ellen White thought much of Australia and the nine years she had labored there. "I love the work in Australia," she wrote. "The cause of God there is a part of me."--Letter 149, 1900. "For so many years my interest has been bound up with this work that to separate from it seems like tearing me in pieces. I have confidence in those left in charge of the work at Avondale."--Manuscript 82, 1900. But as the days passed, she began to cast off the burden of the work in Australia, and her thoughts turned to challenges that lay ahead in America.
On Sunday morning, their fourth day out, the Moana was steaming down the east coast of New Zealand, past Great Barrier Island and into Auckland harbor. At ten-thirty the ship dropped anchor opposite the quarantine station. Some of the sailors rowed over in a small boat, leaving the passengers in suspense about the possibility of going ashore. Willie was disappointed because he had hoped to see some of his friends from Auckland. "Here we lie," he wrote. "We cannot go ashore, and thus far no one has come to speak to us. It is a big lot of humbug, this quarantine business."--15 WCW, p. 861.
Finally, George Teasdale, with Brethren Mountain and Nash and a few others, came out in a rowboat, but could not go aboard. The White party found that by leaning over the rail they could converse with the folks in the rowboat. Willie Floding, a young man bound for Battle Creek to take the medical course, came on board at Auckland. The travelers were shocked to learn of the death of Mrs. F. L. Sharp, following major surgery. Willie and Ellen White sent messages of consolation back with the workers.
The passengers pleasantly anticipated spending Sunday night on the boat while it was not in motion. But they soon changed their minds, for with the ship filling its coal bunkers it was impossible to sleep. There was a constant, thunderous roar. Monday morning the ship headed north and east, passing between the Tongan Islands en route to Samoa. This would be a long week, for they would cross the dateline just before reaching Samoa, which would give them two Thursdays. Ellen White spent as much time as possible in a steamer chair on deck, writing letters, mostly to friends left behind in Australia. She was fascinated and refreshed by the sea and the fresh salt air. From girlhood days she had loved the ocean. One day she wrote, "We now have a full view of the ever-changing, restless, beautiful sea."--Letter 164, 1900. And at another time, "I am up on deck writing, and enjoying the fresh air.... This morning my soul is filled with praise and thanksgiving to God."--Manuscript 96, 1900.
She spent many pleasant hours paging through the autograph album given her during the farewell service at Cooranbong. So did the Willie White family on the deck below, as day by day they read a few pages. These albums, gold embossed and bound in bright, royal-blue velvet with gold-edged leaves, still convey nostalgia and warmth; one cannot read them without feeling drawn to those for whom they were so lovingly and carefully prepared. There was a section for every day of the voyage, and each section was introduced by an exquisite little watercolor painting, the Moana itself often appearing in the picture.
The brown-toned photographs help to tell the story of the work in Australia. There is the electro-hydropathic institute in Adelaide. There are pictures of neat little churches Ellen White had visited and in which she had made investments to help the companies of believers who needed meetinghouses. There are portraits of friends, and scenes from her Sunnyside home. One page was reserved for pictures of their watchdog, Tiglath-Pileser, at Sunnyside. It will be remembered that parts of Australia had been settled by convicts, and as some of their descendants seemed to inherit the proclivities of their forebears, a good watchdog served a very useful purpose at Sunnyside.
The messages are beautiful examples of nineteenth-century script. They reflect the very high regard in which Ellen White was held: "Mrs. E. G. White's presence in our little village will be sadly missed. The widow and the orphan found in her a helper," one woman wrote.
A student at Avondale said, "I shall ever remember with gratitude the many kindnesses shown me by you while living in your home."
G. B. Starr and his wife, Nellie, listed all the times they were with Ellen White from the time she landed in Australia aboard the Alemeda in 1891 until she left. They had journeyed from Honolulu to Sydney with her when she went out nine years earlier.
One wrote how she had been converted while reading the chapter on repentance in Steps to Christ. Another had had the same experience with The Great Controversy. Another thanked her for saving him from spiritual disaster when he had become deeply involved in spiritualism.
There was even a cartoon showing Ellen and Willie busy reading their autograph albums on the deck of the Moana, although the height of the waves pictured by the artist surely would have prohibited such gentle pastime pursuits!
On shipboard she was to write a letter about the album, addressing it "Dear Friends All, in Cooranbong":
I thank you with much pleasure as I look into my memorial. It is a beautiful reminder of my friends, and it came so unexpectedly to us. I appreciate it more than anything my friends could give me. It is so beautifully gotten up, and it has so great a variety and expresses so much skill and taste and beauty.... I thank you all who have so freely bound up your heart with my heart.--Letter 190, 1900.
She also spent time making friends with some of the passengers. One woman, Mrs. Goward, noticing The Desire of Ages, expressed admiration for it. Ellen White, hoping for just such an opportunity, gave it to her, along with Christian Education.
The Stop in Samoa
The autograph album paged for Sabbath, September 8, shows the Moana lying placidly in the harbor at Apia, largest of the Samoan islands. The artist's prediction came close to the fact. The ship arrived at 7:00 A.M. on Friday morning. It would have been Sabbath morning if they had not just crossed the dateline, thus adding an extra day.
As the anchor was dropped, the White party soon spotted its welcoming committee--a large green boat manned with singing Samoans (15 WCW, p. 868). They were directed by Prof. D. D. Lake, who supervised the Samoan Mission. One by one, members of the White party were helped down the rope ladder into the boat, and even 72-year-old Ellen White climbed down. One giant Samoan took Baby Grace in his arms and stood straight on the point of the bow, much to the discomfiture of her mother, May, who was afraid of water anyway. She could easily imagine those big, bare feet slipping off the slick wood.
Even the smaller boat could not go all the way in to shore, so two of the men crossed arms to make a chair for Ellen White and carried her to the beach. May White was told to put her arms around the neck of the one who carried Grace, and Ellen had a good laugh over the strange sight of this grown woman in her full skirts clinging to the bronzed, naked back of a Samoan as he carried her and her baby ashore.
Two carriages were waiting to convey members of the party who were not up to walking a mile to the mission headquarters. The rest of the group enjoyed the little jaunt. Oh, how good the home-cooked breakfast tasted! While most of the party went sightseeing, Ellen and Willie White stayed behind with Professor Lake to discuss the possibilities of reopening the sanitarium that had been forced to close when Dr. F. E. Braucht left for New Zealand (Ibid).
The sightseers returned just as the interview was completed. After having prayer together they collected the many baskets of fruit that had been gathered for them. There were bananas in abundance, mangoes, papayas, and oranges. Everybody then headed for the boat, except Mabel. One of the women had wanted to return early, so Mabel had volunteered to drive her to the dock with the horse and buggy. On the drive back to the mission she became lost. She could not ask her way, for the only words in Samoan she knew were "How do you do?" It was nearly time for the boat to leave. Just as the situation seemed almost hopeless, along came Willie Floding. He had worked on the island and knew his way around. Together they quickly found the ship.
Calm seas continued as they plowed their way north and east on the next leg of the journey--2,260 miles to Honolulu. Midway they would cross the equator and be again in the Northern Hemisphere. It was a pleasant week of travel. Ella, unable to restrain the desire to teach, had organized a little school for the twins, and soon other children joined. She even recruited Leonard Paap, one of the party, to teach the older children. The sunrise on Monday morning was outstanding. Ellen White wrote, "The sunrise was glorious. The whole sea was a river of yellow gold. We have on this journey a placid sea."--Manuscript 96, 1900. Then she reported:
I am now lying or half sitting in my steamboat chair on deck. I have eaten my simple breakfast and read my Bible and now am prepared to write. The Lord is merciful to us and is favoring us with excellent weather.-- Ibid.
She particularly appreciated the clouds that at times veiled the bright rays of the sun. This made the journey more pleasant.
On Sunday night, September 9, God gave Ellen White a vision. It was not the only one given to her during the voyage, but this one she reported immediately. It dealt with the management of the Sydney Sanitarium. She was instructed that Dr. D. H. Kress, who had just gone to Australia, should be the man to manage the medical interests of the new institution. There were some others in Australia who thought perhaps they would be called to the position, so Ellen White cautioned Fred Sharp, to whom the letter was addressed, to treat the matter judiciously. "Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves," she advised.--Letter 203, 1900.
Perhaps it was this vision of Sunday night in which she received the instruction she spoke of in Battle Creek some months later. Various and sundry rumors were floating around as to what she was at times supposed to have said. Warning came to her to be on guard against private interviews. There were people who would catch something from her lips that they could interpret in such away as to vindicate themselves. Her Instructor counseled that silence was eloquence, even when she was with her supposed friends. She was counseled to keep her words for public occasions.
"'Enter into no controversy,'" she was advised in vision. "'Take no part in any strife or in anything that would divert the mind from God.'" And she was assured, "'I have a message for you to bear, and as this message is given to the people, it is not for you to try to make them believe it. That is not your work. You are to go straight forward in the work I have given you. I will strengthen you to do this work.'"--Manuscript 29, 1901.
Friday morning, September 14, at eight o'clock, after a very hot night, the Moana reached Honolulu. Elder Baxter Howe, in charge of the work of the church there, welcomed the travelers and took them to Sister Kerr's, where the whole party enjoyed an early lunch. The Kerrs were an affluent family. Mr. Kerr, a businessman, was not a member of the church, but Mrs. Kerr was generous-hearted and outgoing. Ellen White had been entertained royally at their home on her trip to Australia nine years before.
The hours in Honolulu would be limited, so the party made a brief visit to the church, where both Ellen White and Willie addressed the people. Then they visited the Chinese school operated by W. E. Howell. By six o'clock that evening they were back on the boat, which soon was on its way eastward to San Francisco.
The Third Week on Shipboard
This third week of the voyage was more trying to Ellen White. Tobacco smoke bothered her a great deal. She wrote of it in her letters to Dr. Kellogg. Quoit playing on the deck above her stateroom continued to irritate her. Then at night, when everyone should be sleeping, there was dancing on deck over her head till the wee hours of the morning. Several times while she was on deck she asked the men who were near her steamer chair to refrain from smoking, explaining how it affected her. But they simply said she could go "somewhere else" (Manuscript 29, 1901). When she appealed to one of the ship's officers, he confessed that he was helpless. A doctor on the second-class deck consoled her by pointing out that the voyage would soon be over, and he asked, "'Did you ever know a tobacco user who could be reasoned with?'"--Letter 133, 1900.
On the liquor side of the temperance question, one case particularly attracted Ellen White's attention, and she wrote of it to Dr. Kellogg:
One man, with Reverend attached to his name, who during the voyage, Bible in hand, had given expositions of the Word in the social hall, was on several occasions so drunk that he had to be carried to his stateroom.-- Ibid.
The preacher's wife, full of anxiety and sorrow on his account, confided in Ellen White that before they left Australia her husband had come into a considerable amount of money and now he was drinking so freely he did not know or care where the money went.
As they neared the California arrival time, late Thursday night, Ellen White felt she could hardly endure the expected partying that traditionally marks the final day of a voyage. Willie came to her and said, "'We are nearing the last night of the trip, when we shall have more noise than ever before; but I am praying for a storm.'"--Manuscript 29, 1901. "'So am I,'" Ellen White replied.
That Wednesday evening, still dreading the next day's carousal, she found a little anteroom and lay down. She fell asleep, but soon was awakened by a voice speaking to her. As she gained her senses, she knew what it meant. "The room was filled with a sweet fragrance, as of beautiful flowers." Then she fell asleep once more and was awakened in the same way. Of it she wrote:
Words were spoken to me, assuring me that the Lord would protect me, that He had a work for me to do. Comfort, encouragement, and direction were given to me, and I was greatly blessed.-- Ibid.
Part of the message that came to her at that time was an assurance that put her mind at rest on one particular point. This was the question of where she should make her home in America. In earlier years they had lived in Battle Creek, Michigan, as her husband led the church and managed the Review and Herald Publishing House. Then they lived in Oakland, California, as James White started the Signs of the Times After her husband's death, Ellen had lived in a home in Healdsburg, California, only a few blocks from the college. This home she still owned. Just before leaving for Australia, she had lived in Battle Creek again. And now where should she settle? The question had concerned them from the time they planned to leave Australia.
Writing of this two weeks before their departure, she noted:
WCW has felt very strongly that under no circumstances should we locate in Battle Creek or east of the Rocky Mountains. Our position must be near the Pacific Press. We have planned to go into the country, in or near Fruitvale, so that we might have no connection with any duties or offices that would demand our attention. Here we hope to complete the book-making we now contemplate.
We had gotten a good hold upon it here, but have not completed the work in hand because of our plan to leave this country the last of August. Willie was very loath to leave so soon, but it was my decided judgment that we must reach America before winter, since the change of climate at that time would be most trying to me at my age.
So you can see that our plans were made not to get anywhere near a school or under the shadow of an office where our time and strength might be consumed as they have been in this new portion of the Lord's vineyard. We must be within ten or fifteen miles of the Pacific Press.--Letter 121, 1900.
The Pacific Press was then in Oakland. The vision given to her that Wednesday evening during the last week of the journey set her mind at rest. She wrote of this, "The Lord revealed Himself to me ... and comforted me, assuring me that He had a refuge prepared for me, where I would have quiet and rest."--Letter 163, 1900.
What a comfort it was to know that God already had something in mind for her! How she wished she might know just what or where it was.
Now they came to Thursday, the last full day of the trip. They would enter San Francisco Bay that night. The day was sunny and bright, but the sea was so rough the sailors could hardly keep their balance on deck. Most of the passengers remained in their berths. There was no final party. Ellen White lay in bed all day, not even daring to turn over. And then just before the Moana slipped through the Golden Gate, the sea suddenly quieted. It was ten o'clock. The ship could not dock until daylight, so the anchor was cast. Some weeks later she reported:
I felt very grateful for that storm. It lasted long enough to prevent any carousal. And just before we entered the harbor, it cleared away, and the sea became as smooth as it had been all the way over.--Manuscript 29, 1901.
Through the long night hours the ship swung lazily at anchor in San Francisco Bay. The White party no doubt expected that with the coming of daylight the Moana would move into one of the Union Steamship Company piers, and that soon they would see friends on the wharf, including many workers who had come to welcome them back to the United States. But such was not the case. Immigration officials, very conscious of germs, required the Sydney passengers, even though they had been on the ship for nearly a month, to proceed by tugboat to a quarantine station on Angel Island, where their belongings and trunks could be fumigated. That whole weary Friday was spent going through these formalities.
One of Ellen White's last impressive glimpses of fellow passengers was of the preacher who couldn't stay away from the bottle. She saw him being carried by two men from the quarantine station to a restaurant, where he lay sprawled on a settee, while his beleaguered wife bathed his head.
Finally, by early evening, the contents of trunks and suitcases having been properly fumigated and repacked, the party was taken by tugboat to San Francisco. They arrived at eight o'clock and were met by G. A. Irwin, president of the General Conference; C.H. Jones, manager of the Pacific Press; and J. O. Corliss, pastor of the San Francisco church. The traveling party soon dispersed. C. H. Jones, a longtime friend and acquaintance, took Ellen White and some of her helpers to his home in Oakland. Others stayed with friends in San Francisco. W. C. and May White, with the twins and Baby Grace, were entertained by the Corlisses at their home in Fruitvale, an Oakland suburb. That night Elder Irwin sent a telegram to Battle Creek, which carried the good news of the arrival of the party. It was published on the back page of the next issue of the Review It read, "San Francisco, Cal., September 21, 1900.--Sister White and party arrived this morning in good condition." The editor commented that this would be "good news to thousands." And it was.