The Bible School, which had opened in August 1892 and closed in December, was regarded as a first step in the establishment of a permanent school for young people of all ages in Australia. The importance of training workers in their own land rather than sending them overseas had long been recognized.
When Elders Olsen and White returned with Ellen White from New Zealand to Australia in late December 1893, the search for a school site began in earnest. Following up investigations Arthur Daniells had made, they visited several places during their few days in Sydney. This continued off and on through the late summer and fall. The school had been made a union conference project, which drew W. C. White, the president, very closely into the task. By the time Ellen White had moved to New South Wales, the conviction seemed to prevail that the school should be located in that colony, with its warmer climate, perhaps within 75 miles (120 kilometers) of Sydney.
One very important consideration in the search for a site was the need for good soil and a large acreage to produce crops and provide labor. The majority of the constituents who would support the school would be in a low-income bracket.
The suffering of Sabbathkeeping families, not a few of whom had lost their homes, led some church leaders to feel that the school property should be large enough to provide little farms for some of these families. Thus they thought in terms of 1,000 or 2,000 acres (405 or 810 hectares).
W. C. White, now carrying the burdens of the new Australasian Union Conference in addition to other duties, was engaged in a feverish search for a site for the new school. Ellen White followed each move with keen interest. In his room in the Per Ardua home he not only administered the work of the union conference but also collected samples of soil taken from the different properties that he and other members of the locating committee visited.
In April 1894 the search had narrowed down to the Brettville estate on Dora Creek, which could be purchased for $4,500.
The Brettville Estate
The Brettville estate was a tract of undeveloped land of 1,500 acres (610 hectares) 75 miles (120 kilometers) north of Sydney, near the villages of Cooranbong and Morisset on Dora Creek. ("Though the stream is called Dora Creek," wrote Ellen White, "yet it has the appearance of a river, for it is a wide, deep stream" [Letter 82, 1894]). The estate was attractive at the low price of $3.00 an acre (1 hectare) (high-priced land they could not buy); the physical features were very appealing, and the rural situation favorable for the location of the type of school that had been planned.
But a negative report had been given to the church leaders by the government fruit expert who had been requested to examine the soil. He had declared it for the most part very poor, sour, sandy loam resting on yellow clay, or very poor swamp covered with different species of Melaleuca. According to him, the whole of the land was sour, requiring liming and draining (DF 170, A. H. Benson, "Report of the Campbell Tract Near Morisset, N. S. W.," May 21, 1894; see also 4 WCW, pp. 410-412).
Legend has it that when Mr. Benson handed the report to a member of the committee he remarked that "if a bandicoot [a marsupial about the size of a rabbit] were to cross the tract of land he would find it necessary to carry his lunch with him" (see DF 170, "The Avondale School," WCW to F. C. Gilbert, December 22, 1921).
Sometime before this Ellen White had made an appeal through the pages of the Review for members in America who might be willing to pioneer the work in Australia and share their time and abilities in getting the work started in some of these undeveloped places. She declared:
What a great amount of good might be done if some of our brethren and sisters from America would come to these colonies as fruit growers, farmers, or merchants, and in the fear and love of God would seek to win souls to the truth. If such families were consecrated to God, He would use them as His agents (The Review and Herald, February 14, 1893).
In response to this the L. N. Lawrence family--father, mother, and daughter--had come from Michigan at their own expense to aid wherever they could with the work in Australia.
On Wednesday, May 16, 1894, W. C. White, with the Lawrences and others, traveled to Dora Creek to make a preliminary inspection of the Brettville estate. Ellen White reported:
Brother and Sister Lawrence went yesterday [May 16] with a tent,
W. C. White has taken a supply of bedding and provisions, and thus the party will be provided with board and lodging to save hotel bills. And the fact that they can spend their nights on the ground will expedite business. All will return Monday or Tuesday (Letter 46, 1894).
While at Dora Creek the Lawrences found they could rent a small house-- three rooms and a kitchen. This would make it very convenient when the church leaders would come to inspect the property; they would have a place to stay.
Ellen White Explores The School Site
A group of church leaders planned to go up from Granville on Wednesday, May 23, to inspect the property. Although Ellen White had not been feeling well, she could not resist the desire to accompany them. The group included Brethren Daniells, Smith, Reekie, Humphries, Caldwell, Collins, and White.
Some time before Mrs. White made this first visit to Cooranbong, she had been given a dream. She described it:
In my dream I was taken to the land that was for sale in Cooranbong. Several of our brethren had been solicited to visit the land, and I dreamed that I was walking upon the ground. I came to a neat-cut furrow that had been plowed one quarter of a yard [.23 meters] deep and two yards [1.8 meters] in length. Two of the brethren who had been acquainted with the rich soil of Iowa were standing before the furrow and saying, "This is not good land; the soil is not favorable." But One who has often spoken in counsel was present also, and He said, "False witness has been borne of this land." Then He described the properties of the different layers of earth. He explained the science of the soil, and said that this land was adapted to the growth of fruit and vegetables, and that if well worked it would produce its treasures for the benefit of man....
The next day we were on the cars, on our way to meet others who were investigating the land (Manuscript 62, 1898).
We found a good dinner waiting for us, and all seemed to eat as if they relished the food. After dinner we went to the riverside and Brethren Starr, McKenzie, and Collins seated themselves in one boat, Brethren Daniells, McCullagh, and Reekie in a still larger boat, and Willie White, Emily Campbell, and myself in another.
We rode several miles upon the water.... It is somewhat salt, but loses its saltness as it borders the place which we are investigating. It required two rowers to pull the boat upstream. I should judge this is no creek, but a deep, narrow river, and the water is beautiful.... On our way we passed several houses upon farms of about 40 acres [16 hectares] of land....
When we landed on the ground to be explored, we found a blue-gum tree about one hundred feet [30 meters] long lying on the ground....Around us were immense trees that had been cut down, and parts were taken out which could be used.... I cannot for a moment entertain the idea that land which can produce such large trees can be of a poor quality. I am sure that were pains taken with this land, as is customary to take with land in Michigan, it would be in every way productive (Letter 82, 1894).
She was escorted to some parts of the land, walking and resting and thinking. She later told about finding the furrow:
When we came to Avondale to examine the estate, I went with the brethren to the tract of land. After a time we came to the place I had dreamed of, and there was the furrow that I had seen. The brethren looked at it in surprise. "How had it come there?" they asked. Then I told them the dream that I had had.
"Well," they replied, "you can see that the soil is not good." "That," I answered, "was the testimony borne by the men in my dream, and that was given as the reason why we should not occupy the land. But One stood upon the upturned furrow and said, 'False testimony has been borne concerning this soil. God can furnish a table in the wilderness'" (Letter 350, 1907).
But night was drawing on, and the party returned down Dora Creek to the cottage by the light of the stars. As the larger group came together near the boat-landing, they brought encouraging reports of their findings. Ellen White wrote:
They came from their investigation with a much more favorable impression than they had hitherto received. They had found some excellent land, the best they had seen, and they thought it was a favorable spot for the location of the school. They had found a creek of fresh water, cold and sweet, the best they had ever tasted. On the whole, the day of prospecting had made them much more favorable to the place than they had hitherto been (Letter 82, 1894).
Mrs. White retired early, but the committee earnestly discussed their findings on into the night. There were diverse opinions, for there was considerable variation in different parts of the land, but the majority felt the enterprise could be made to succeed. Added to this was their observation of Mrs. White's confidence in the potentialities of the property. Late that autumn night the committee voted to purchase the Brettville estate for $4,500.
Report To The Foreign Mission Board
In his report written June 10 to the Foreign Mission Board in Battle Creek,
W. C. White described the tract in considerable detail, filling four single-spaced typewritten pages:
Much of the land in this section of the country is a clayey gravel with subsoil of shale or rock, or a coarse red sand with a subsoil of red clay. So much of it is of this character that the district is generally spoken against. There is much good land to be found in strips, and some most excellent soil in places.... We estimate two hundred acres [80 hectares] fit for vegetables, two hundred fit for fruit, and two hundred good for dairying. The cost of clearing will vary considerably (4 WCW, pp. 420-422).
Twenty-five years earlier land in the area had been cleared for agriculture, and orange and lemon orchards had been planted. But the settlers neglected their orchards and turned to the cutting of timber to supply the nearby mines.
W. C. White reported:
We have prayed most earnestly that if this was the wrong place, something would occur to indicate it, or to hedge up the way; and that if it was the right place, the way might be opened up. So far, everything moves most favorably.... We have signed a contract to buy the place, and have paid £25. At the end of this month, June 30, we are to pay £275, and then we have two years in which to pay the balance, with the privilege of paying all at any time (Ibid., 422, 423).
Making A Beginning
The first step was to find the funds with which to make the payment of 275 pounds, due on June 30. W. C. White reported to A. G. Daniells:
On Thursday, June 28, I borrowed £150 from Brother Sherwin and £105 from the Australian Tract Society, and scraped up all there was in our house, and made payment of the £275 due on the first payment (Ibid., 488).
Their solicitor (attorney) said the title was good. Two weeks later Mr. Lawrence, the church member who had come from Michigan, rented an old 12-room hotel in Cooranbong, known as the Healey Hotel, and the furniture at the Bible school in Melbourne was sent for. Arrangements were made for surveying the land (6 WCW, p. 68). The last two weeks of August found quite a company of workers at Cooranbong.
Ellen White's enthusiasm for the Cooranbong property knew no bounds. She began making plans and looked forward to visiting as often as possible.
As soon as it had been decided to purchase the Brettville estate for the school, a horse and cart were purchased in Sydney and dispatched to Cooranbong for the Lawrence family and visitors to use. Mr. Collins, a colporteur leader suffering some eye difficulty, and Jimmy Gregory collected provisions for three days and started out on the 76-mile (122-kilometer) journey. At Cooranbong the rig proved very helpful. It was put to use by Mrs. White, Emily, and May Lacey while visiting Cooranbong in August. (May Lacey was the young woman Willie had met at the Bible school in Melbourne and had brought into the home to replace May Walling, who had returned to America.)
As they drove, or walked around the empty acres, Ellen White liked to visualize what might be planted here and there. She wrote to her close working companion, Marian Davis:
I have planned what can be raised in different places. I have said, "Here can be a crop of alfalfa; there can be strawberries; here can be sweet corn and common corn; and this ground will raise good potatoes, while that will raise good fruit of all kinds." So in imagination I have all the different places in a flourishing condition (Letter 14, 1894).
She little dreamed how long in the future that might be!
Work At Cooranbong Brought To A Standstill
In late August, as W. C. White, L. J. Rousseau, L. N. Lawrence, and others were at Cooranbong with the surveyor, tramping over the newly purchased land, two letters were handed to W. C. White--one from F. M. Wilcox, secretary of the Foreign Mission Board in Battle Creek, the other from W. W. Prescott, educational secretary of the General Conference. White read them to Rousseau and Lawrence as they rested in the forest.
The two letters carried the same message. The writers of each had just attended a meeting of the Foreign Mission Board at which W. C. White's letter of June 10, with his description of the land at Cooranbong, had been read. Each conveyed the same word--that the board felt, from the description of the land, it would be well to look for other property that was more promising, even if, because of a higher price, not more than 40 acres (16 hectares) could be secured. White called a halt to the work in progress, and the surveyor was sent back to Sydney (DF 170, "Report of the Proceedings of the Executive Committee of the Australasian Union Conference for the Year 1894"; 6 WCW, pp. 126, 129).
To Prescott, White wrote on September 3:
As regards the land, we are acting upon the suggestion of the Mission Board, and have suspended all operations as far as we can. How this will affect our future progress and prospects, we cannot now conjecture. If it were an enterprise of our own, we might have many forebodings, but as we are servants of a King, and as He has power to make light from darkness, and to turn what looks to be failure into success, we shall wait and trust (6 WCW, p. 126).
Dreaded misgivings swept over W. C. White. He later described the circumstances in the report he prepared to present to the constituency at the camp meeting to be held at Ashfield, near Sydney. After noting the careful inspection of many properties and that there had been 28 meetings of the committee on school location between January 23 and August 29, he reluctantly wrote:
Letters were received from the secretary of the Foreign Mission Board and the educational secretary of the General Conference acknowledging receipt of the description of the place sent them by W. C. White and intimating their fears that the place was not suitable for our work. The same fears were felt to some extent by W. C. White, L. J. Rousseau, and [A. G.] Daniells; therefore, at a meeting held in Sydney, August 27, White, Daniells, McCullagh, Reekie, and Rousseau being present, the following resolution was adopted:
Whereas, The Mission Board has expressed doubts and cautions regarding our school location, therefore,
Resolved, That we delay further proceedings at Cooranbong until we have time to consider the question of location (DF 170, "Report of the Proceedings of the Executive Committee of the Australasian Union Conference for the Year 1894").
Somewhat stunned, W. C. White found himself frequently humming the words "Wait, meekly wait, and murmur not" (6 WCW, p. 137), and threw himself into the search for what might be a more promising site for the school. To Ellen White also, the decision of the Foreign Mission Board was a blow, and she waited at Cooranbong for word on what action would be taken by the committee on school location to be held in Sydney, Monday, August 27. On that same day she wrote:
The more I see the school property, the more I am amazed at the cheap price at which it has been purchased. When the board want to go back on this purchase, I pledge myself to secure the land. I will settle it with poor families; I will have missionary families come out from America and do the best kind of missionary work in educating the people as to how to till the soil and make it productive (Manuscript 35, 1894).
On Wednesday, August 29, Ellen White received a telegram calling for her to return to Sydney the next morning. Cutting short her restful stay at Cooranbong, she and her women helpers took the morning train, arriving at Sydney about noon. They were met by W. C. White, Daniells, Reekie, and Rousseau, and taken to the mission. Here, after refreshments, the news of the decision of the committee on Monday was broken to Ellen White. That evening she wrote of it in her diary:
Brethren Rousseau and Daniells had propositions to lay before us that the land selected for the locating of the school was not as good land as we should have on which to erect buildings; we should be disappointed in the cultivation of the land; it was not rich enough to produce good crops, et cetera, et cetera.
This was a surprising intelligence to us, and we could not view the matter in the same light. We knew we had evidence that the Lord had directed in the purchase of the land. They proposed searching still for land.... The land purchased was the best, as far as advantages were concerned. To go back on this and begin another search meant loss of time, expense in outlay of means, great anxiety and uneasiness, and delay in locating the school, putting us back one year.
We could not see light in this. We thought of the children of Israel who inquired, Can God set a table in the wilderness? He did do this, and with God's blessing resting upon the school, the land will be blessed to produce good crops.... I knew from light given me we had made no mistake (Manuscript 77, 1894).
It was clear where her confidence lay, and this was a point that neither the committee in Australia nor the Foreign Mission Board in Battle Creek could put out of mind, yet their best judgment led them to look with misgivings on plans to build a college at Cooranbong.
While to Ellen White the Brettville estate at Cooranbong was the right place, she knew that the final decision must be made by the church leaders, and they must be sufficiently confident of their decision to see the plans through not only in favorable circumstances but also in the face of the most foreboding difficulties.
The course now outlined seemed to her "very much like the work of the great adversary to block the way of advance, and to give to brethren easily tempted and critical the impression that God was not leading in the school enterprise. I believe this to be a hindrance that the Lord has nothing to do with. Oh, how my heart aches! I do not know what to do but to just rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him" (Ibid.).
The decision to search further for land remained firm, and the task was begun. Ellen White reluctantly joined the committee in inspecting new sites.
Avondale College: On Hold
When Ellen White and her companions returned to Granville, it was to a different house. Her first home in Australia had been in Melbourne, where she made her headquarters for six months. When the next term of the Australasian Bible School was scheduled to open on April 4, the time had come when she must close up her work in Melbourne to free for student use the rooms she and her helpers were occupying. Also, the climate of New South Wales, being farther north, gave promise of being more comfortable than that of Melbourne. So in March a house was rented for her in Granville, a Sydney suburb.
The home in Granville, as do many houses in Australia, carried a name: Per Ardua. It was of brick and had 10 rooms, some oddly shaped. It stood on a three-acre (one-hectare) plot with an orchard, a place for a vegetable garden, and a grassy paddock, with some shade from gum trees. There were also shade trees in the front. In a letter to Willie, Ellen White commented favorably on the fireplaces, the broad porches, and the flower garden; she was pleased with the home generally. The building was large enough, with crowding, for her and her son, plus Elder and Mrs. Starr and several of her helpers.
W. C. White, a widower whose growing girls were living at his home in Battle Creek, was driven, as it were, from pillar to post in his living accommodations. Forced to the strictest of economy by a shortage of means, he contented himself with a room in his mother's home. He traveled the ocean by steerage; took low-fare, slow trains when there was a choice; and as union president often typed his own letters and worked prodigiously.
Per Ardua was at the foot of a hill, had low, rather small windows, and as time passed by Mrs. White became less pleased with it.
Norfolk Villa In Granville
On looking around in June, as winter came on, they found a large house, Norfolk Villa, on top of a nearby hill in a neighborhood known as Harris Park.
W. C. White described it as high, light, and dry, and planned more conveniently than where they had been living. It had 10 rooms and rented for the same rate as the previous property, $5.00 a week. "It is ... real homelike," he said, with a "big dining room," which was a big comfort, for the whole family could gather (4 WCW, pp. 459, 489).
Ellen White's tent was pitched as an extra bedroom for the many visitors who came and went (Letter 30a, 1894). The day after they were settled in the new home, July 9, she wrote to Edson:
We are now in our new home. The house is the best we have ever lived in. It is two-story. I have the room above the parlor. Both parlor and chamber have large bay windows, and the scenery is very fine. Everything is nice and pleasant here, and it is more healthful (Letter 133, 1894).
The new home offered some relief to W. C. White, for his room, which served also as his office, was light and airy. He kept an observant eye on his mother and her welfare, and when at home made it a point to walk with her a few minutes after breakfast or dinner.
Running A Free Hotel
With the interest developing at Cooranbong, the White home was a sort of stopping-off place, rather like a free hotel, a situation to which they tried hard to adjust.
Ellen White wrote of the heavy burden of entertaining. As preparations were being made to send off Jimmy Gregory and Mr. Collins with the horse and cart to Cooranbong, she wrote to Willie:
We are supplying them with provisions for a three-day journey. We are expected to entertain all the saints who come and go, to shelter and feed all the horses, to provide provisions for all who go out, and to lunch all who come in.
This would be all very well if it were only an occasional thing, but when it is continual, it is a great wear upon the housekeeper and upon those who do the work. They are continually tired and cannot get rested, and besides this, our purse will not always hold out so that we can run a free hotel.
She asked:
But what can we do? We do not wish to say No, and yet the work of entertaining all who come is no light matter. Few understand or appreciate how taxing it can be; but if this is our way to help, we will do it cheerfully, and say Amen.
But it is essential that we donate large sums of money to the work and that we lead out in benevolent enterprises.... Is it our duty also to keep a free hotel, and to carry these other burdens? May the Lord give us His wisdom and His blessing, is our most earnest prayer (Letter 85, 1894).
Within a few days Ellen White felt remorse and self-condemnation for complaining. Repenting, she bravely wrote:
I begrudge nothing in the line of food or anything to make guests comfortable, and should there be a change made in the matter of entertaining, I should certainly feel the loss and regret it so much. So I lay that burden down as wholly unnecessary, and will entertain the children of God whenever it seems to be necessary (Letter 135, 1894).
It took some doing to feed a family of a dozen or 15 adults, with two to four visitors nearly every day. Now as the fruit came on, they prepared to move into a heavy canning program. On Thursday, December 20, as she wrote to Edson and Emma, she gave a little insight into the involvements:
Well, we are now in the midst of fruit canning. We have canned one hundred quarts [ninety-five liters] of peaches and have a case more to can. Emily and I rode out five miles [eight kilometers] in the country and ordered twelve cases of peaches, one dollar a case. A case holds about one bushel [four pecks]. The ones we canned are the strawberry peach, called the day peach here....
Emily has canned fifty-six quarts [fifty-three liters] today of apricots, and we have twelve cases yet to can. We did have such a dearth of anything in the line of fruit desirable that we are putting in a good supply [Letter 124, 1894].
A month later Ellen White could report, "We have canned no less than three hundred quarts [284 liters], and no less than one hundred [ninety-five liters] more will be canned"--some from the peach trees in their little orchard. She commented, "If I continue to keep open a free hotel, I must make provision for the same" (Letter 118, 1895). She reveled in the fruit in the Sydney area, especially the peaches and the grapes.
The Ashfield Camp Meeting
On September 10 the Bible Echo carried an announcement that the Australian camp meeting for 1894 would be held at Sydney, October 18-30; there would also be a 10-day workers' meeting preceding the camp. The land selected was a five-acre (two-hectare) grassy plot in Ashfield, five miles (eight kilometers) from the Sydney General Post Office.
Granville, with easy access to Sydney and a number of rail connections, had become somewhat of a center of evangelistic operations. But all eyes were on the coming camp meeting and the annual session of the Australian Conference that would accompany it in late October.
To advertise the evangelistic meetings, which was a new thing for that area, a special camp meeting issue of the Bible Echo, dated October 15, was published. During the workers' meeting 20 young people distributed it to the homes in the various suburbs of Sydney. As they called on people, they sold copies of the Echo and gave a hearty invitation to attend the camp meeting. Some 8,000 copies of the Echo were sold, and another 8,000 copies of the special cover, carrying an advertisement of the coming meeting, were given away.
As church members came in on Friday, October 19, they found more than 50 white canvas family tents among and under the shade trees. Another dozen were added by the end of the first week.
A large sign over the entrance to the enclosed grounds read, "Whosoever will, let him come" (Manuscript 1, 1895). In response to the advertising, Sabbath afternoon the attendance began to swell, and Ellen White reported to Olsen:
On Sunday we had an immense congregation. The large tent was full, there was a wall of people on the outside, and the carriages filled with people in the street. The tents are a great surprise and curiosity to the people, and indeed, these white cotton houses interspersed among the green trees are a beautiful sight (Letter 56, 1894).
Fully 1,000 were present as the afternoon discourse began, and W. C. White reported, "Before its close there were upwards of two thousand on the ground."
Although many had apparently come from feelings of curiosity, the greater part of this multitude gathered in and about the large tent and listened attentively to Mrs. White as she presented the love of God and its effect upon the heart and character (The Bible Echo, November 5, 1894).
Throughout the week business meetings of the conference were held in the mornings, with various departments of the work given time for reports, discussions, and plans. Officers were elected for the ensuing year. A. G. Daniells was reelected president of the Australian Conference. Among the actions taken were two relating to the school. Since there was uncertainty over its location, the resolutions lacked precision and force.
After a second week of good meetings, the Ashfield camp meeting came to a triumphant close on Sunday with 2,500 people present. Ellen White described the climaxing service: "The last public service, on Sunday evening, was one long to be remembered.... At times the congregation was held as if spell-bound" (DF 28a, "Experience in Australia," p. 789g).
Interest was high when the camp meeting closed. Many requested that the services continue, so it was decided to move the tent to another location, about a mile distant but with rail connections more convenient to several of the suburbs of Sydney. Corliss and McCullagh were commissioned to continue with meetings nightly; these were well attended. Other workers were drawn in to visit the people in their homes and conduct Bible readings (The Bible Echo, December 3, 1894).
The Ashfield camp meeting closed November 5, 1894, with no decisive action concerning the location of the school. This was most disheartening.
A Wedding In The Family
W. C. White, like his father before him, had been pressed into service for the developing church almost beyond his capacity and time. From his early youth he had been involved in responsibilities of the publishing work, the health work, the educational work. His personal life, and such things as courtship, marriage, births, deaths, and family life had been wedged in between meetings, appointments, conventions, and travel.
Now at 40, a widower, he was president of the Australasian Union Conference and chairman of the locating committee for the proposed school at Cooranbong. He had a room in his mother's house and devoted as much time and attention to her as could be worked into his busy schedule.
On a recent visit to the Bible school in Melbourne he had noticed 20-year-old May Lacey and admired her. May had been at the Bible School for three terms and had developed her talents, giving Bible readings and visiting. She also played the piano and organ.
W. C. White encouraged his mother to bring May Lacey into the home in May Walling's place. "I have employed her," wrote Ellen White to Edson while she was at Cooranbong, "and she fills the bill nicely." She commented:
I soon learned why Willie was anxious for May Lacey. He loved her, and she seems more like Mary White, our buried treasure, than anyone he had met, but I had not the slightest thought when she came to my home.... You will have a new sister in a few months, if her father gives his consent. She is a treasure. I am glad indeed for Willie, for he has not had a very happy, pleasant life since the death of Mary (Letter 117, 1895).
W. C. White had seen May on only brief occasions when he was "at home" between meetings and conventions. So it was an utter surprise to her when he proposed that she become the mother to his motherless daughters now living in America. When Willie had left the United States to come to Australia, he had expected that the stay would be limited to not more than two years, and much of that would be in travel, so he had left Mabel, 4, and Ella, 9, in his home at Battle Creek in the care of Miss Mary Mortensen.
May could not give her answer to Willie's proposal on such short notice but agreed to make it a subject of prayer and conditional on solving several problems that she felt stood in the way. When these were resolved, plans for the wedding were made.
Tasmania
The time for the wedding was chosen to coincide with a convention to be held in Hobart, Tasmania. The convention, according to an announcement in the Bible Echo, would be the first meeting of its kind to be conducted in that colony. It would be held in Hobart April 26 to May 6, 1895, and would include instruction on the duties of church officers and members, evening discourses on religious liberty, lessons on various lines of missionary work, and practical instruction given by Mrs. White.
May Lacey, accompanied by Ellen White and some of her staff, traveled by train from Norfolk Villa near Sydney to Melbourne, and then by ship, arriving at Launceston, Tasmania, on Wednesday morning, April 17. The travelers were taken to the Rogers home for lunch, and in midafternoon took the train south 125 miles (200 kilometers) to Hobart. It was 9:00 in the evening when they arrived. They were met by May's father, David Lacey, and several members of the family, and were taken to the comfortable and hospitable Lacey home in Glenorchy, just north of the city.
In his younger years David Lacey had filled the post of British police commissioner at Cuttack, in India, near Calcutta. Here May was born. She attended school in London, and on the retirement of her father joined the family in Tasmania. When colporteurs came to Hobart with Thoughts on Daniel and the Revelation, the family gained their introduction to Seventh-day Adventists. The careful follow-up work of evangelists Israel and Starr gathered the entire family into the church--Father and Mother Lacey and the four children, Herbert Camden, Ethel May, Lenora, and Marguerite. The mother died in 1890, and the father had by now married a widow, Mrs. Hawkins, who had four lively daughters and two sons. It was a loving and close-knit family that welcomed the daughter May and Ellen White that Wednesday.
A few days later the workers from New Zealand arrived by ship, among them W. C. White. It had been three months since he had parted from his fiancée and his mother at Granville in New South Wales, and this was a happy reunion. As the convention would not open until the next weekend, meetings were planned for the little country Adventist church built at Bismark in 1889.
Although the wedding was planned to follow W. C. White's three-month trip to New Zealand, there could be little detailed planning, since he and May were separated so widely. In fact, when W. C. White arrived in Tasmania on April 20, he did not know whether the marriage would take place in Tasmania or on the mainland of Australia. In a letter to his daughter Ella he told what took place:
When we found that her father and sisters wished it to be there, at their home, and that Sister Lacey and her daughters all united in wishing us to have the wedding in Glenorchy, we decided to comply with their invitation and so arranged to be married on Thursday afternoon, May 9, 1895 (7 WCW, p. 273).
In writing to Ella about the happy event, the groom told how the service was performed by a Methodist minister, Mr. Palfryman, an old friend of the Lacey family. There was no Seventh-day Adventist minister in that area qualified according to the laws of Tasmania. All went off well. The rooms in the Lacey home were nicely decorated with ferns and flowers. There were 10 members of the family present, and 11 friends of the bride who were invited guests. As they were in a British country, they were married with the wedding ring. Willie was 40 years old, and May, 21.
After the wedding service everyone was ushered into the dining room, where an attractive wedding supper was waiting for them. By 6:00 most of the friends were gone, and the bride and groom changed from their wedding garments. The bride finished packing, and her husband attended a committee meeting. At 8:30, with Ellen White, the couple took the train north to Launceston en route home (Ibid., 274). A profitable weekend was spent in Launceston, the traveling workers meeting with the 17 newly baptized Sabbathkeepers there. With the children, there were about 40 at the Sabbath service who listened to Ellen White speak with freedom from the first chapter of 2 Peter. She also spoke to the group on Sunday (Letter 59, 1895).
Good weather attended the traveling group as they left Launceston, but in the open ocean they encountered rough seas, and they arrived at Melbourne two and a half hours late. Ellen White was entertained in the Israel home and the newlyweds at the Faulkhead home. Mail from Granville told of the arrival from America on May 5 of W. C. White's two daughters, Ella and Mabel. The fond grandmother wrote: "Both are pronounced pretty, but Mabel is, they say, very pretty. We have not seen them for three years and a half, so they must have changed greatly. I wish to see them very much" (Letter 120, 1895). But the reunion with the girls had to wait until committee work in Melbourne was completed, and speaking appointments were quickly made for Ellen White in Melbourne and its suburbs.
On Wednesday, May 29, the committee work was finished, and the three Whites--Ellen, W. C., and May--were on the train bound for Sydney and home in Granville. What a happy reunion it was that Thursday when, after more than three years, Ella and Mabel embraced Father, Grandmother, and their new mother, May Lacey-White! Exclaimed Ellen White a few days later:
You cannot think how pleasant it is to have my family once more reunited. I have not seen more capable, ready, willing, obedient children than Ella May and Mabel.... They seem to have excellent qualities of character. W. C. White is more and better pleased with his May. She is a treasure (Letter 124, 1895).
Starting A College From Scratch
Because of the light given to Ellen White, there had never been any doubt in her mind that Cooranbong was the right place for the new school.
But several members of the locating committee hesitated and questioned. Even A. G. Daniells, influenced by the reports rendered by the government experts, had not taken a positive stand.
Since no decisive action had been taken at the close of the Ashfield camp meeting, Ellen White thought it was time for something to be done. She called
W. C. White, chairman of the locating committee, and Elder Daniells, president of the Australian Conference, and repeated her strong convictions, ending her talk with a challenge: "Is there not a God in Israel, that ye have turned to the god of Ekron?"
In response to her firm convictions in the matter, the committee decided to return to Cooranbong and take another look at the Brettville estate.
In the meantime members of the Foreign Mission Board in America found it difficult to put out of their minds the fact that Ellen White was firm in her stand that the Brettville estate was the place for the school. By formal action they removed their objection to plans to establish the college there.
Word to this effect brought courage to the committee on the school location in Australia. On November 20, 1894, the Australian Union Conference committee took the following action:
Whereas, The Foreign Mission Board has withdrawn its objections to our locating the Australasian Bible School in the Brettville estate at Cooranbong, and ...
Whereas, We believe that the Brettville estate can be made a suitable place for our proposed school....
Resolved, That we proceed to the establishment of the Australasian Bible School on the said Brettville estate (minutes of the Australasian Union Conference, November 20, 1894, in 5 WCW, p. 197).
Returning from Tasmania and the wedding of W. C. White and May Lacey, Ellen White spent the month of June (1895) at her home, Norfolk Villa, in various activities: assisting in the work with the new companies of believers being raised up, planning for the evangelistic thrust in Sydney, and writing energetically. She felt much worn and was eager for a change that could come by being in Cooranbong.
So Monday morning, July 1, with W. C. White and his family, she took the train for Cooranbong, and stayed for three weeks, at first in the home of Herbert Lacey, newly come from America. They found 26 boys and young men living in the rented hotel building, and some sleeping in tents. They were clearing the land and building roads and bridges, making a beginning for the school. On February 25 Professor Rousseau had sent a letter to the churches announcing plans and inviting young men to come to the school and engage in a program of work and study. Each student would work six hours a day, which would pay for board, lodging, and tuition in two classes.
When Ellen White and W. C. White and his family came onto the school grounds, Metcalfe Hare was there managing a team of a dozen or more young men, Rousseau was managing a similar group in their work on the land, and good progress was being made.
Very early in the project to build a college at Cooranbong the idea of making it an industrial school, using students in manual training classes, and following the part-time-work, part-time-study plan, had been recognized as profitable and beneficial to the students both financially and healthwise.
Two years previously, when W. C. White was at the New Zealand camp meeting, he had scouted for young men interested in the industrial department.
On March 5, 1895, the manual training department opened, but it was without much support at first. In his efforts to get things moving at the school,
W. C. White had been talking of such a plan for several months, and he wrote:
You would be surprised to learn of the criticism, the opposition, and the apathy against which the proposition had to be pressed. The board said it would not pay, the teachers feared that it would be for them much labor with small results, and in many cases, the friends of those for whom the department was planned criticized severely, saying that young men would not feel like study after six hours of hard work (8 WCW, p. 32).
The Manual Training Department Succeeds
But after watching the program in operation for six weeks, Ellen White reported:
About twenty-six hands--students--have worked a portion of the time felling trees in clearing the land, and they have their studies. They say they can learn as much in the six hours of study as in giving their whole time to their books. More than this, the manual labor department is a success for the students healthwise. For this we thank the Lord with heart and soul and voice. The students are rugged, and the feeble ones are becoming strong (Letter 126, 1895).
A Start With Buildings For Avondale College
Land had been cleared on a high rise in the ground with the hope that when funds were available, a beginning could be made in putting up school buildings. The master plan worked out by W. C. Sisley and adopted by the union conference committee called for three structures as a beginning--the central building for administration and classrooms, flanked on either side at a distance of 100 feet (30 meters) by dormitories for the young men and the young women. These were to be erected on what L. J. Rousseau described in his letter to the churches, dated February 25, 1895, as "one of the prettiest elevations that could be found in the whole vicinity" (DF 170, "The Avondale School, 1895-1907").
But before there could be buildings, there had to be lumber, milled from trees cut from the forest. This called for a sawmill. W. C. White, writing to his brother Edson on August 3, described plans for the building to house the mill. He reported:
Brethren Rousseau and Metcalfe Hare have been in Sydney for two weeks buying building materials, horses, wagons, farming implements, fruit trees, et cetera, et cetera.... Last night we advertised for a boiler, engine, circular saw, planer, turning lathe, and for a brickmaking plant (8 WCW, p. 31).
He commented, "We shall have very busy times at Avondale for the next few months."
Progress in erecting the school buildings was steady. Professor Rousseau, who had been connected with the school enterprise from the start of the Bible school in Melbourne, had returned to the United States. The chairman of the school board, W. C. White, who also served as president of the Australasian Union Conference, had been sent to America to attend the General Conference session and to take care of Australian interests, among them the production of health foods. Being on the grounds, Ellen White was expected to lead out. She felt quite alone in having to make decisions concerning the school enterprise. There was one ordained minister of experience in the whole colony of New South Wales, whose time was much taken up with the general interests of an advancing work.
The Sawmill Loft Put To Use
It was midwinter as Ellen White wrote on July 5, 1896:
One week ago yesterday I spoke in the upper room of the mill, partially enclosed, to eighty assembled, mostly our own people.... It is rather a rustic place in which to meet, but when the sun shines in this country no other heating apparatus is needed.
I spoke again yesterday. We had a good meeting. We shall be glad to get a meetinghouse and school building. We are praying for means. We cannot advance until means shall come in from some source (Letter 152, 1896).
The sawmill loft was often mentioned as a place of meetings that were held from week to week. It also became an assembly room for many of the young people at Cooranbong in a temporary school conducted by Prof. Herbert Lacey and his wife, Lillian. The Laceys had come from America to assist in what was to be the Avondale school. Hoping to get on with school work, and finding quite a number of young men and women eager to attend classes, Lacey saw an opportunity to make a beginning. On his own responsibility but with the consent of the school board, he began a night school in the mill loft. Some of the furniture and equipment, sent up to Cooranbong when the Bible school in Melbourne closed, was taken out of storage and put to use. Securing textbooks in Sydney and with his wife to help, Lacey conducted classes and collected tuition, with the understanding that the school board would not be held in any way responsible for expenses connected with the project, for the board had no money. Some 25 young people attended.
Setting A Target Date For Avondale College To Open
As the new year 1897 dawned, most activities at Cooranbong were geared to the proposed opening of the Avondale school, announced for April 28. On New Year's Day Prof. Lacey, who had returned to Australia to assist with the new school, was, with the help of his wife, Lillian, deep into the canning of fruit for the institution--starting with apricots. A donation of $60, just received to aid "where ... most needed," was applied toward the purchase of other fruit, peaches, plums, et cetera, as they ripened. "There must be ample provision of fruit," declared Ellen White.
On New Year's Eve Lacey had been dispatched to ride horseback through the community to call the Adventists together for a meeting planned by Ellen White. She was determined that as they neared the target date enthusiasm for the school enterprise should not wane. It was an excessively warm evening, with the air "close and stifling," so instead of meeting in the loft of the sawmill, chairs were brought out to seat the crowd on the "green sward." Ellen White spoke, seated in her carriage with Sara McEnterfer to her right, holding a lantern, and Prof. Lacey standing on her left, also with a lantern. She reported that "all listened with interest" as she read from a manuscript and then spoke for a time, telling of "the establishment of the work in different localities, where buildings had been erected for schools, sanitariums, and places of worship."
In view of all that needed to be done before school could open on April 28, to accomplish the task seemed well nigh impossible.
Consider: The buildings were not finished. The carpenters were complaining about their wages and threatening to quit. As previously mentioned, W. C. White, the chairman of the board, had been sent to America to take care of the Australian interests. Prof. Rousseau, who had been connected with the school from the start of the Bible school in Melbourne, had returned to the United States. In addition, Herbert Lacey, who had been chosen as principal of the school, contracted typhoid fever during a visit in Tasmania to promote the school. He and his wife, Lillian, were both absent from Cooranbong until April
9. Haskell, whose strong support was needed, had been visiting in Africa for several months.
Metcalfe Hare, the business manager of the school, leaned heavily on Ellen White, and when important decisions had to be made she was looked upon as the senior officer in charge--a role she did not choose or covet. But those about her recognized that she had insights and experience others did not have.
One day she went over to see the progress being made on the second building, which would provide a dining room, kitchen, and storeroom for the school (Letter 33, 1897). Taking in the overall situation, she had some questions to ask!
"What place have you prepared for the boys to room in?" I asked.
"The chamber above the sawmill," they answered. "Many students can sleep there, and we will also secure tents." "Is that the best plan you have?" "It is the best we can do. When the building is enclosed, our money will be expended." "Have you thought of how much money it would take to run this building up another story?" Several were present. "We cannot do that," Brother Hare said, "but I wish we could."
"You must do it, Brother Hare," I said. "What would the cost be?"
"Not less than £100," he answered.
"Then I advise you to put up the second story, and so provide sleeping rooms for the boys, and a meeting room for the church."...
"What shall we do?" they asked.
"Why," I said, "am I too late with my suggestions? Have the preparations
gone so far that it would be a sacrifice to change now?" "As to the matter of that," was the answer, "had your suggestions been a day later, we would have been at some loss."...
I said, "I will be responsible for the change made. If any censure comes, let it fall on me. You will be at expense of getting tents, and to the labor of pitching them. The students should not be put in the room over the mill. The influence would be demoralizing" (Letter 141, 1897).
"Now," she wrote, "we have this two-story building nicely enclosed." The expansion provided a "room for Sabbath meetings" and "sleeping rooms for the young men" (Letter 33, 1897).
She confided in a letter to Willie:
Be sure that Brother Hare is consulted in everything, and he will not move out in anything without consulting me. We move harmoniously in all our plans. Brother Haskell says it will not do for anyone to speak questioningly of anything I propose, for Brother Hare raises his right arm and says, "What Sister White advises to be done shall be done, without any ifs or ands about it" (Letter 141, 1897).
She also stated:
All who see this upper story of the second building say, "Whatever could you do without it?" Brother Hare says he would not have taken the responsibility of changing anything if Sister White had not been right on the ground to say what was most needed. But that added story does Brother Hare lots of good (Ibid.)
Ellen White Calls A Work Bee
When they were within three weeks of the target date for the school to open, Haskell was suddenly called to Adelaide to assist in meeting a crisis in the church there. With Haskell's leaving, even if for only a couple weeks, Hare's courage sank to an all-time low. He felt sure there was no hope of meeting the April 28 deadline for the opening of school. Taking in the situation, Ellen White began to plan a strategy, for she held that the school must open on time. She was not able to attend church on the Sabbath, but she sent an announcement to be read appointing a meeting for all who would, to attend on Sunday morning at 6:00. She had something to say to them. She sent word to Metcalfe Hare to come to her home after the Sabbath to meet with Mrs. Haskell, Sara, and herself.
Mrs. White wrote to Willie, telling what took place:
On Saturday evening we had our interview. Our means were gone, and the school building could not be finished to open school at the appointed time. Sister Haskell asked just how many hands could be put on to the building, how many on outside work, how many on the cistern, and how many inside. She wrote these down on paper, and after everything had been stated, she and I said, "We will have every position filled." Brother Hare argued that it was impossible.
We opened the morning meeting with singing and prayer, and then we laid the situation before them all. I told them that I would let them have Brethren Connell, James, and Worsnop, and pay them hire.
Brother Connell said that he had a two weeks' pledge to work out. Brother James said he would give one week's work in any line or place where they might put him. Brother Anderson also had pledged two weeks, and so one and another volunteered until men, women, and children were accepted.
I told them that I would give Sara to work in union with Sister Haskell, and they agreed to lay the floor with the help of Brother James to place the boards and press them into position, while Sister Haskell and Sara should drive the nails.
Our meeting lasted from six until eight o'clock. After [the] meeting the brother from Queensland made some depreciatory remarks about "lady carpenters," but no one to whom these words were addressed responded.
Every soul was put to work. There were over thirty in number. The women and children worked in the first building, cleaning windows and floors. Sister Worsnop came with her baby and children, and while she worked on the inside of a window, her eldest girl of 10 years worked on the outside. Thus the work in the first building was nearly completed in the first day.
Sister Haskell and Sara completed nearly one half on the dining-room floor. Brother Hare says everyone was enthusiastic. The women who engaged in the various branches of the work did well. Brother Richardson was putting the brick in the floor of the cellar. Some of the girls passed the brick from outside, while others inside passed them to Brother Richardson.
In the afternoon I was sent for to consult with Brother Hare in regard to making changes in the divisions of the dining room.... Then Brother Hare conducted me over the immediate premises, and we decided on the trees that must come down....
Yesterday all the furniture in the mill loft was washed and cleansed from vermin, and prepared for the new building. One more floor is to be laid this afternoon.... The carpenters are siding up the building. Both ends are done, and quite a piece of the lower part on both sides....
Monday, April 6, the workers, men, women, and children are all at work....
The sisters had put the first coat of paint on the window frames. Brother Hare said that the women's diligent work had done more to inspire diligence in the men at work than any talk or ordering. The women's silence and industry had exerted an influence that nothing else could do. These women have worked until their hands and fingers are blistered, but they let out the water by skillful pricking, and rub their hands with Vaseline. They are determined to get at the work again....
Brother Hare is full of courage now. Brother Haskell will be back in a week or two at most from the time he left.... His wife and Sara are heart and soul in the work. They make an excellent span just at this time. They will be in readiness to lay the upper floor after today, I think. Everything that is needed has come from Sydney and is right at hand, so that there will be no delay.
School will be opened April 28, 1897 (Letter 152, 1897).
About the time the work bee began, word was received from W. C. White that at the General Conference session action was taken to send Prof. C. B. Hughes, principal of the school in Texas, to assist at Cooranbong. He was a well-qualified and experienced educator and would bring good help to Avondale. The word brought courage to all (11 WCW, p. 276).
Entering fully into the spirit of things, Sara McEnterfer set out to raise money to buy a school bell. From the families in the community she collected about £6, and what Ellen declared to be "an excellent sounding bell" was put in operation (Letter 141, 1897).
As the target date for the opening loomed closer in April, there were some tense moments in Cooranbong. By an ill-advised action of the school board it was decided that there would be no primary school. Ellen White learned of this only after some announcements had been made, and she felt impelled to step in and take a firm position. She wrote of this, too, in her May 5 letter to Willie:
The board met, and ... decided that for this term there would be no primary school. On the next Sabbath morning, I told them that the primary school would commence when the other school did (Ibid.).
When Brother Lacey made the statement that there would be no primary school this term, Brother Hare felt much disappointed, for he wanted both of his children in the school. The officers are on his track, telling him that his children must attend the public school....
But in the first Sabbath meeting we held in the upper room, I presented this matter and called for a response, and you should have heard Brother Gambril's remarks. He came forward to the front seat, so that I could hear him. He spoke of the influence of the public schools on his children, of the education they were receiving (Ibid.).
It was in this setting that Ellen White made the rather familiar statement (found in Testimonies for the Church, 6:199): "In localities where there is a church, schools should be established if there are no more than six children to attend" (Ibid.).
Steps were taken to rent the convent again for use in educating Adventist children in Adventist principles. Some of the children would be coming up Dora Creek by rowboat; Gambril's 15-year-old daughter would bring two Gambril children and two others to the primary school, which by mid-May had an enrollment of fifteen (Ibid.; Letter 126, 1897).
Elder Daniells had made a discouraging prediction about the attendance. He had said that they could not learn of one person in New South Wales and knew of only one in New Zealand who was planning to attend the school as a boarding student. He knew of only three or four from his conference. The matter became a subject of prayer, and his secretary, a woman named Graham, came up with a suggestion that he says "worked like a charm."
The suggestion was to ask each member of all the churches to pledge sixpence a week for 20 weeks toward the students' aid fund. Twenty-seven persons making such payments would meet the tuition of one student for the term of 22 weeks. This was to be a revolving fund, the student in time paying it back to aid another. The assignment of the students to be benefited would be in the hands of the conference committee. The people were pleased, and infused with a new spirit. The North Fitzroy church pledged to be responsible for two students, and other churches responded well. Daniells reported:
One week ago tonight we sent six young men and women off by Cook's excursion. This morning at six o'clock we sent six more. One went alone in the middle of the week. This makes thirteen who have gone from this conference, and we are expecting to send four more (11 WCW, p. 435).
Plans called for the literature evangelists to sponsor one student, and the scattered believers another. Daniells wrote rather jubilantly:
If these plans work, and from the way things are going I have reason to believe they will, we shall have a pretty good attendance after all. We shall pull hard to have from thirty-five to forty boarding students by the time Professor Hughes arrives. These with the day students will give us an attendance of about sixty students (Ibid., 436).
Ellen White had declared: "There must not be one day of postponement.
... If there is but one student present, we must begin the school at the appointed time" (Letter 149, 1897).
Her undaunted faith was a steadying influence. School would open on April 28, 1897.
The Avondale School Opens
For some unknown reason, no official report of the opening of the Avondale school appeared in the Bible Echo. However, Metcalfe Hare stated in a report:
The school opened the twenty-eighth of April, Mrs. E. G. White, Elder
S. N. Haskell, and the teachers being present, with all those who had been associated with the work. The buildings were dedicated to their sacred mission by Elder Haskell (DF 170, "The Avondale School, 1895-1907").
Ellen White furnished a few more details in a letter to W. C. White a few days later:
April 28 our school opened. At the opening exercises the upper room of the second building, above the dining room, was quite full. Brother Haskell opened the meeting by reading a portion of Scripture. He then prayed, and made a few remarks. I then followed (Letter 141, 1897).
"The Spirit of the Lord was present," she wrote to Edson (Letter 149, 1897), and in her diary for the opening day she wrote:
We had the opening exercises in the last building erected. We had more in attendance than we had expected. We felt very thankful to make so good a beginning. We were very much pleased to have Brother and Sister Haskell with us. Brother Herbert Lacey and his wife were with us (Manuscript 172, 1897).
So with a staff of six (four of whom were teachers) and with 10 students (Life Sketches of Ellen G. White, 365) the Avondale school commenced, and on the very day appointed.
One week after school opened, Ellen White reported that 40 students had enrolled. The Bible Echo dated June 7 reported that "about fifty students are in attendance at the Avondale school," rather more than expected. The next issue declared that they were "happy to revise these figures this week and state that there are sixty-two."
Ellen White felt comfortable with the Haskells taking the leading role at the school. She wrote of them as experienced laborers who "were a great help to us in the work of preparation, in devising and planning to get things in order" (Letter 149, 1897). Prof. and Mrs. C. B. Hughes were on their way from Keene, Texas. After the school was quite well organized and had continued for two months, the faculty was described in a report by G. T. Wilson in the Bible Echo:
Prof. C. B. Hughes and wife arrived two weeks ago from America. He has been chosen by the school board as principal of the school, and is to have the general management of things on the place. He teaches the history class, who are now studying "Empires of the Bible." His wife teaches grammar, rhetoric, elocution, penmanship, and one Bible class.
Prof. H. C. Lacey is teacher of mathematics, physiology, geography, singing, and voice culture; and his wife teaches the primary department.
Pastor S. N. Haskell is the principal instructor in Bible study; and Mrs. Nettie Hurd Haskell, his wife, has charge of one Bible class, and acts as the matron of the school.
Mr. T. B. Skinner, a graduate of St. Helena Sanitarium Nurses' Training Department, has charge of the kitchen and dining room, and on one day in the week gives practical instruction in cooking. The students are taught how to make bread, can fruit, and the other arts of healthful cookery (June 21, 1897).
In concluding his report, Wilson observed that "the students are mostly young men and women, of good, intelligent class, besides whom there are a few persons of more mature years." About one half were below the age of 16.
The school at Avondale was off to a good start.