Chapter 56—At the 1909 General Conference
Thursday evening, September 9, 1909, Mrs. White returned to
her home near St. Helena, California, after an absence of five months
and four days, during which time she had traveled more than eight
thousand miles, and spoken to audiences, large and small, seventy-two
times, in twenty-seven places, from California to Maine, and from
Alabama to Wisconsin.
The chief purpose of this journey was to attend the quadrennial
session of the General Conference, which convened at Washington, D.
C., in the spring of 1909. Her visits to other places were in response to
urgent invitations, and were made possible by the merciful bestowal
of strength and courage, as she proceeded from place to place.
A few days before starting on her journey, she remarked that as she
was eighty-one years of age and in feeble health, it would doubtless be
best for her to take the most direct route to Washington; but that she
could not disregard the calls to visit Los Angeles, Loma Linda, and
Paradise Valley, in southern California, nor the invitation to stop in
College View, Neb., and speak to the five hundred students in Union
College. She said: “I must also visit my son Edson, in Nashville,
Tenn., and if the Lord gives me strength, I should be pleased to visit
Brethren Sutherland and Magan at the Madison school.” She also
expressed a desire to stop off a day at Asheville, N. C., where Prof. S.
Brownsberger lived, and where Sister Rumbaugh had built and given
to the conference a commodious meetinghouse and parsonage.
During the four weeks occupied with the journey to Washington,
Mrs. White was able to speak four times at College View; twice each
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at Loma Linda, Nashville, and Asheville; and once each at Paradise
Valley, Madison, Hillcrest, Huntsville, and the Alden mission school
near Hilltop. Upon her arrival at Washington, she went at once to
Takoma Park, where she was entertained at the home of Elder G. A.
Irwin.
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