Welcome to Clare's Scrapbook

Clarice Edna Crooks was born in Nova Scotia, Canada in 1902. She grew up in the small fishing village of Seal Harbour in Guysborough County. When she finished school she moved to Halifax to work and from there to Boston, Massachusetts to nursing school. There she met and married George Norman Downing.

Like many teenage girls of her day Clare kept a scrapbook of newspaper items that caught her interest. Most clippings were poems, stories, or moralizing advice. The book itself was an old cloth-bound farming/home economics textbook. She glued a colored waterside picture on the front to hide the original title (which seems to have been "The Family Health Guide").

Clare began keeping the scrapbook in her teens. The clippings lack information identifying the date or the name of the newspaper, so it's difficult to establish a timeline. But some of the items provide enough context to show she kept adding to the book into her twenties at nursing school. She never filled the book completely, and seems to have stopped adding to it when she and George married. Clare kept the book throughout her life. Her husband George also treasured it; on the inside front cover he mounted a laminated clipping of her obituary.

Clare's scrapbook has deteriorated to the point that it is difficult to handle without damaging it. There is no way to save the yellowed clippings from eventually disintegrating, but we can preserve a record of what it contained. This blog offers a transcription of the scrapbook's contents. Each item she pasted in is posted here, more or less in the order Clare added them. The explanatory footnotes are my own. There is also a search function for terms included anywhere in the blog.

Most of us who are Clare's descendants have no memory of her at all, and for those who do the memories are dimmed by time. My hope in creating this blog is that we can better understand this wonderful woman and perhaps find insights for our own lives in the things she held dear.

-TD

New Dreams for Old

Is there no voice in the world to come crying,

“New dreams for old!  New for old!”

Many have long in my heart been dying,

Faded, weary, and cold.

All of them, all, would I give for a new one.

Is there no seeker of dreams that were?

Nor would I ask if the new were a true one;

Only for new dreams!  New for old!

For I am here, half-way of my journey,

Here with the old!  All so old!

And the best heart with death is at tourney

If naught new it is told.

Will there no voice, then, come, or a vision,

Come with the beauty that ever blows

Out of the lands that are called Elysian?

I must have new dreams!  New for old!

Cale Young Rice[1] in “The Century”[2]

__________________________________________________

[1] Cale Young Rice was an American poet and dramatist. He was born in 1872 in Dixon, Kentucky, where his birthplace is designated by Kentucky State Historical Marker 1508. Rice was the son of Laban Marchbanks Rice, a Confederate veteran and tobacco merchant, and his wife Martha Lacy. He was a younger brother of Laban Lacy Rice, a noted educator, who later collected and published Rice’s works in a single volume. Rice grew up in Evansville, Indiana and Louisville, Kentucky. He was educated at Cumberland University and at Harvard (A.B., 1895; A.M., 1896). In a 1906 New York Times review of Plays and Lyrics: The Collected Poems of Cale Young Rice, Jessie B. Rittenhouse opined that Rice’s dramatic works outshone his poetry “though occasional lyrics…evidenced a delicate touch.”

Rice married the popular author Alice Hegan (see footnote 187); they worked together on several books. They had no children. In 1942 Alice died. The following year, overwhelmed with sorrow at her loss, Rice took his own life at his home in Louisville.  (Source: Wikipedia)

[2] The Century Magazine began publication in 1881, as a successor to Scribner’s Monthly Magazine.  It ceased publication in 1930.  The image adjacent is of the cover of the August 1903 issue.

There’s a Land, a Dear Land

This magnificent song has long been popular in England.  It was sung by Adelina Patti[1], and Madame Albani, and later by Melba and other famous singers.

There’s a land, a dear land, where the rights of the free,

Though firm as the earth are wide as the sea;

Where the primroses bloom, and the nightingales sing,

And the honest poor man is as good as a king.

Show’ry, flow’ry!  Cheerful, tearful!

England, wave-guarded, and green, to the shore!

West land!  Best land!  Thy land; My land!

Glory be with her and peace evermore.

There’s a land, a dear land, where our vigor of soul

Is fed by the tempests that blow from the pole;

Where the people love peace, but at sound of the drum,

A myriad of soldiers and heroes become.

Sea-land!  Free-land!  Fairest!  Rarest!

Home of the brave men and the maids they adore.

Fearless!  Peerless!  Thy land! My land!

Glory be with her and peace evermore.

- Charles Mackay[2]

---

[1] Adelina Juana Maria Patti was born to a Sicilian father and Italian mother in 1843 in Madrid. She was the fourth of six children and the family was relatively poor. Her parents were both involved in opera and they moved to New York in 1847, where there were better employment opportunities for a show business family. She made her first appearance on the stage at the age of seven. In 1859, at the age of sixteen, she made her operatic debut as Donizetti’s Lucia and her vocal range, bell-like clarity and professionalism won her critical acclaim. She was soon being offered leading soprano roles. The large Italian community in American cities helped to elevate her to star status in just a few short years.         

In 1861, at the age of eighteen, Adelina was invited to Covent Garden in London to take the soprano role of Amina in Bellini’s La Sonnambula. She bought a house in Clapham, South of London. In 1862 she sang Home Sweet Home at the White House for Abraham and Mary Lincoln who were in mourning for their son Willie, who had recently died. The Lincolns were moved to tears and requested an encore. The song became associated with her and she performed it many times by popular request.

She toured as far as Leningrad and Buenos Aires but continued to make Europe her base, marrying the Marquis de Caux, Equerry to Napoleon the third of France in 1868. In the same year she sang at Rossini’s funeral in Paris. Ten years later she bought Craig-y-Nos, a large early Victorian house and surrounding park beside the river Tawe near Abercrave in South Wales. There she took up residence, not with her husband, but with the tenor Ernesto Nicolini with whom she had been touring. In 1886 she obtained her divorce and married Ernesto. By the 1890s Adelina Patti was one of the most famous women in the world and certainly one of the highest paid. She was one of the first “international superstars.” (Source: opera-singer.co.uk)       

[2] Charles Mackay, the son of a navy lieutenant, was born in Scotland in 1814. His mother died when he was young and so he was brought up by foster parents. At the age of sixteen he was employed as the private secretary to William Cockerill, an ironmaster based in Belgium. In his spare-time he wrote articles for the local newspaper.

Mackay returned to Britain in 1832 and for the next three years contributed to several newspapers. In 1835 he obtained his first permanent post in journalism when he was appointed as an assistant to George Hogarth, the sub-editor of the Morning Chronicle. Other journalists working for the newspaper at the time included Charles Dickens and William Hazlitt. Mackay eventually was promoted to the post of assistant editor.

In 1844 Mackay left the Morning Chronicle and became editor of the Glasgow Argus. While in Scotland he also contributed articles and poetry to the Daily News, a newspaper established by Charles Dickens in 1846. After four years in Glasgow, Mackay returned to London and joined the staff of the London Illustrated News, the successful journal owned by Herbert Ingram.

In 1849 Henry Mayhew suggested to John Douglas Cook, the editor of the Morning Chronicle, that the newspaper should carry out an investigation into the condition of the labouring classes in England and Wales. Cook agreed and recruited Mackay, Angus Reach and Shirley Brooks to help Mayhew collect the material. Mackay was given the task of surveying the situation in Liverpool and Birmingham.

Mackay’s poetry was not collected together until the title Voices from the Crowd. Some of his poems were set to music by his friend Henry Russell. These were very successful and one songsheet, The Good Time Coming, sold over 400,000 copies. Mackay published his two volume autobiography, Forty Years Recollections and Through the Long Day two years before his death in 1889.  (Source: Spartacus Educational - spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk)

Love at Home

This old song was written by John Hugh McNaughton,[1] author of “The Faded Coat of Blue” and other popular songs.

There is beauty all around, when there’s love at home,

There is joy in every sound, when there’s love at home,

Peace and plenty here abide, smiling sweet on every side,

Time doth softly, sweetly glide, when there’s love at home.

Love at home, love at home,

Time doth softly, sweetly glide, when there’s love at home

In the cottage there is joy, when there’s love at home,

Hate and envy ne’er annoy, when there’s love at home,

Roses bloom beneath our feet, all the earth’s a garden sweet,

Making life a bliss complete, when there’s love at home.

Love at home, etc.

Kindly heaven smiles above, when there’s love at home,

All the world is filled with love, when there’s love at home,

Sweeter sings the brooklet by, brighter beams the azure sky,

Oh, there’s one who smiles on high, when there’s love at home

Love at home, etc.

---

[1] John McNaughton was born in 1829 and died in 1901.  The following information is from folk musician Allen Hopkins who lives near McNaughton’s birthplace: (Source: seiyaku.com)

[McNaughton] lived in Caledonia, New York, about 30 miles southwest of Rochester. John was known as 'The Poet McNaughton' for composing many songs popular at the time, though few have survived to be sung today. Other than 'Love At Home,' perhaps his most famous was 'The Faded Coat of Blue,' about Union soldiers taken prisoner during the American Civil War. There is a monument to John Hugh McNaughton just outside Caledonia, on the site of the farm where he lived. 

A Clean Face

These amusing verses were requested by a reader. They are kindly supplied by a correspondent from an old picture book which has come down through the generations.

Oh, why must my face be washed so clean,

And scrubbed and drenched for Sunday,

When you very well know, as you’ve always seen,

‘Twill be dirty again on Monday.

My hair is stiff with the lathery soap

That behind my ears is dripping

And my smarting eyes I’m afraid to ope,

And my lips the suds are sipping.

They’re down my throat, and up my nose,

And to choke me you seem to be trying;

That I’ll shut my mouth you needn’t suppose,

For how can I keep from crying?

And you rub as hard as ever you can,

And your hands are hard to my sorrow;

No one shall wash me when I’m a man,

And I wish I were one tomorrow.

E. Leslie

The Father

Ever his eyes are fixed on a glorious sight,

A boy is leading, calls his men to come on;

Light as a deer he leaps, slender and bright,

Up the hill, irresistible—it is won.

Ever he sees the boy against the sky,

A slender Victory, light on his golden head

Hardly the down on his lip, he hath leaped so high

His name is writ among the undying Dead.

Captain at two-and-twenty!  Much was to come.

Great things yet to be done, heights to be scaled.

Love and comradeship, all fruition of bloom

He has attained to the highest, not he who failed.

The mother weeps her boy, who comes not again,

The father sees him splendid and laughing still,

Leaping like a young deer, calling men.

The glory dazzles!  The boy is keeping the hill!

- Katharine Tynan[1]

---

[1] Katharine Tynan was an Irish-born writer, known mainly for her novels and poetry. She was born in 1861 into a large farming family in Clondalkin, County Dublin, and educated at a convent school in Drogheda. Her poems were first published in 1878. She went on to play a major part in Dublin literary circles. For a while, Tynan was a close associate of William Butler Yeats (who may have proposed marriage and been rejected, around 1885), and later a correspondent of Francis Ledwidge.

In 1898, Tynan married writer and barrister Henry Albert Hinkson and moved to England. They had three children; one, Pamela Hinkson, would become a writer in her own right. In 1914, the family moved to Claremorris, County Mayo, in Ireland, where her husband had been made a magistrate. He died in 1919. Tynan is said to have written over 100 novels; there were some unsurprising comments about a lack of self-criticism in her output. Her Collected Poems appeared in 1930; she also wrote five autobiographical volumes. Tynan died in Wimbledon, London, in 1931 at the age of 70.  (Source: Wikipedia)

The Looker Ahead

(By J. G. Holland)[1]

The wheels of progress do not stop.  The world advances toward and into a better life, and will advance, until, leaving the hard, clumsy and jarring pavements of the marts of selfishness behind, it will strike off joyously into the broad avenue of the millennium.  No man can be a true worker for human good who does not believe that the cobblestone pavement has an end.  He believes that the time is coming when what he is doing, and has done, will be accepted at its true value.  He may be laughed at now; he may be scoffed at and scorned; his motives may be maligned; he may be hammered by opposition and barked by popular clamor; but he knows that sometime in the future it will be his turn to laugh, and he is confident that he will laugh last and best.

---

[1] Josiah Gilbert Holland was born in 1819. His family was of the oldest Puritan stock.  During a considerable part of his childhood the family, pursued by misfortune, led a sort of roving life, as the unprosperous father was able to find work. The promising son, Josiah, had little chance for learning, getting but a few months in the public schools in winter. At length, while the family lived at Northampton, Massachusetts, Josiah entered high school, where he pursued his studies with great eagerness and ability. Later, he taught penmanship from town to town, and used to recite his own poems to his intimate friends. He tried daguerreotypy and district school teaching.

Finding it impossible to obtain a classical education, Holland decided to study medicine. In 1844 he was graduated at the Berkshire Medical College with honor. In 1845 Doctor Holland formed a partnership with his classmate, Doctor Bailey, and commenced his medical practice at Springfield, Massachusetts. In the same year he married Miss Elizabeth Chapin, of Springfield. His married life was one of unusual happiness.

After some time in medical practice, Holland decided he did not like it. Attracted to journalism, he started the Bay State Weekly Courier at Springfield, but it survived only for six months. He relocated to Richmond, Virginia, where he taught. In 1849 he returned to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he became assistant editor of the Republican. With tireless energy and research, he gathered local and general matter for his paper. His work made a difference, and he began to succeed as a journalist.  His writing ranged from poems and proverbs to advice and history. His Life of Abraham Lincoln, written the year Lincoln was assassinated, was sold by subscription and was immensely popular. He began authoring novels as well.  The climax of his fame and popular success as an author of books was attained in 1868, when Katrina appeared. In addition to his other literary labors he was one of the most popular of American lecturers.

In 1868 Josiah went to Europe, where he remained two years. While there, he proposed to his friend Roswell Smith the founding of Scribner’s Monthly, which became one of the most important magazines of its day. All this success allowed him a comfortable lifestyle; he had his home in New York and a beautiful country place in the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence, and was able to pass the closing hours of his life in thorough enjoyment of the world. He died in 1881. (Source: 2020site.org)

3,500,000 GERMAN CASUALTIES

The German casualties, exclusive of corrections, reported but not necessarily incurred, are:

	Sept.	Total since Aug. 1914
Killed and died of wounds	30,306	817,560
Died, sickness	1,976	52,622
Prisoners	1,839	178,862
Missing	30,420	249,967
Severely wounded	25,786	478,854
Wounded	6,482	280,880
Slightly wounded	69,804	1,318,834
Wounded remaining with units	13,271	178,439
	179,884	3,556,018

The above figures are not an estimate by British authorities, but the casualties announced in German official lists.

Drink

The drink evil is a leper spot on the surface of the nation, a moral canker eating into the vitality of our people, and producing effects which do not die within the year, or the life, or even the generation, but which will be reproduced from year to year, from generation to generation in a terrible portentous legacy of poverty, misery and crime.

-       Lord Curzon[1]

---

[1] George Nathaniel Curzon, the eldest son of Baron Curzon, was born in 1859. A brilliant student, at Eton College he won a record number of academic prizes before entering Oxford University in 1878. He was elected president of the Oxford Union in 1880 and although he failed to achieve a first he was made a fellow of All Souls College in 1883. A member of the Conservative Party, Curzon was elected MP for Southport in 1886. It was a safe Tory seat and he neglected his parliamentary duties to travel the world. This provided the material for his Russia in Central Asia (1889), Persia and the Persian Question (1892) and Problems of the Far East (1894).

In 1891 the Marquis of Salisbury appointed Curzon as his secretary of state for India. Curzon lost office when Earl of Rosebery formed a Liberal Government in 1894. After the 1895 General Election, the Conservative Party regained power and Curzon was rewarded with the post of undersecretary for foreign affairs. Three years later the Marquis of Salisbury granted him the title Baron Curzon of Kedleston, and appointed him Viceroy of India.

Curzon introduced a series of reforms that upset his civil servants. He also clashed with Lord Kitchener, who became commander-in-chief of the Indian Army, in 1902. Arthur Balfour, the new leader of the Conservative Party, began to have doubts about Curzon; in 1905 Curzon was forced out of office. He returned to England where he led the campaign against women’s suffrage in the House of Lords. In 1908 he helped establish the Anti-Suffrage League and eventually became its president.

In 1916 the new Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, invited Curzon into his War Cabinet. Curzon served as leader of the House of Lords but refused to support the government’s decision to introduce the 1918 Qualification of Women Act. Despite Curzon’s objections, it was passed by the Lords by 134 votes to 71. Curzon was appointed foreign secretary in 1919 and when Andrew Bonar Law resigned as prime minister in 1923, Curzon was expected to become the new prime minister. However, the post went to Stanley Baldwin instead. Curzon continued as foreign secretary until retiring from politics in 1924; he died in 1925. (Source: Wikipedia)

Prohibition resolution

New York, November 15[1]—National prohibition and total abstinence were favored in a resolution passed today at the annual convention of the New York diocese of the Protestant Episcopal Church.  In another resolution the mayor of New York was asked to refuse special licenses for the sale of liquor on New Year’s Eve, which falls on Sunday.  The anti-saloon league also has filed a protest with the mayor against the issuance.

---

[1] This information shows the year to be 1916.  Clare would have been 14 years old.

Knocking

Put the hammer in the locker;

Hide the sounding board likewise;

Anyone can be a knocker;

Anyone can criticize.

Cultivate a manner winning,

Though it hurts your face to smile

And seems awkward in the beginning.

Be a booster for awhile.

Let the blacksmith do the pounding;

That’s the way he draws his pay;

You don’t get a cent for hounding

Saint and sinner night and day.

Just for solid satisfaction

Drop a kind word in the slot,

And I’ll warrant you’ll get action

On your effort on the spot.

Kindness every time beats kicking;

Mirth is better than a frown.

Don’t waste your time picking

Flaws with brothers who are down.

And it isn’t distressing

If you give a little boost

To the man whom fates are pressing,

When the chick comes home to roost.

-       The B.M.A.A.[1] Bulletin

---

[1] Perhaps the Baptist Missionary Association of America

Domes

The largest dome in the world diametrically is that of the Roman Pantheon, 142ft.: that of the British Museum (the reading room) being only two feet short of that distance.[1]

---

[1] As of 2008, the world’s largest dome in the O₂ in London, with a diameter of nearly 1,200 ft.  

Melancholy Music

How through the heart will sweep 

With hidden spell and strong

Those notes of sadness deep

That swell a mournful song!

Oh, still the charm prolong!

It touches on some tender string

Akin to pain whence pleasures spring.

‘Tis strange that so we love

Each melancholy air!

None in the choir above

In a plaintive voice will share,

All is triumphant there;

The chants on high to joy are sung,

The harps of heaven to rapture strung.

-       Bishop Mountain,[1] (First Anglican Bishop of Quebec, 1789-1863)

---

[1] Jacob Mountain was a Canadian Anglican bishop, born at Thwaite Hall, Norfolk, England, in 1750.  He died near Quebec, Canada, 16 June, 1825. His grandfather, who was a great-grandson of the French essayist, Montaigne, was exiled from France after the revocation of the edict of Nantes.

Mountain was graduated at Cambridge in 1774, became a fellow in 1779, and, taking holy orders, held several important livings and a stall in Lincoln cathedral. These he owed to the friendship of William Pitt, who also procured his appointment in 1793 as the first Protestant bishop of Quebec. At that time there were only nine clergymen of the Church of England in Canada, and Quebec had no ecclesiastical edifice, no Episcopal residence, and no parsonage.

During the thirty-two years that elapsed before his death Bishop Mountain raised the church to the flourishing condition to which it afterward attained. He promoted the formation of missions, and the erection of church edifices in all the more populous townships. These latter he visited regularly, even when age and infirmity rendered so vast and fatiguing a circuit a painful undertaking. He served on several important occasions as a member, ex officio, of both the executive and legislative councils of the province, sat frequently in the court of appeals, and was a faithful and laborious servant of the public and of the crown. He attained note as a pulpit orator, and his self-sacrificing ministrations to the poor will long be remembered. He is the author of "Poetical Reveries" (London, 1777). (Source: famousamericans.net

The image at left is of his personal seal (Source: Heraldic America - pages.infinit.net/cerame/heraldicamerica)

The Threshold

Life lies before me, but shut is the door

On all of my childish days.  No more, no more

Shall I in all my years again be free

And careless—happy as I used to be.

So be it, Lord!  I know that all is right;

I would not alter it, or shirk the fight.

Shut then the door!—but leave a little crack

That when I meet a child I may slip back.

-       Barbara Seymour[1]

---

[1] Barbara Seymour’s The Threshold was published in the March 1916 issue of Harper’s Magazine.  A diligent search uncovered no other references to her or her poetry.

No Bail

A man very much intoxicated was taken to the station.  “Why did you not bail him out?” inquired a bystander of a friend.  “Bail him out!” exclaimed the other.  “Why, you couldn’t pump him out.”

Remembrance

There are moments in life that are never forgot

Which brighten, and brighten, as time steals away;

They give a new charm to the happiest lot,

And they shine on the gloom of the loneliest day.

These moments are hallowed by smiles and by tears,

The first look of love and the last parting given.

-       Percival[1]

---

[1] In a July 27, 1897 article in The Wisconsin Sentinel, John Burton memorializes James Gates Percival:

A man who has left perhaps a more abiding literary fame than almost any other Wisconsin writer is hardly known and remembered by many people of the state.  The man was poet, geologist, musician and linguist, and was by merit a success in all these departments of literature and art.  Brilliant as a boy; spelling and reading by the age of 5; a thoughtful writer at the age of 14; graduated at the head of his class in Yale college at the age of 20; an author of prominence at the age of 25; a friend and associate of Noah Webster at the age of 30; instrumental in preparing the scientific words for the first edition of the Webster Dictionary at the age of 33; at 39 the state geologist of Connecticut, a position which he honored for seven years; and state geologist of Wisconsin from ’54 to ’56, in which position he died in the little town of Hazel Green in the year 1856, at the age of 61 years.  This, in a word, is the record of James Gates Percival.  Upon his plain and modest tomb are engraved these words:

Eminent as a poet

Rarely accomplished as a linguist,

Learned and acute in science

A man without guile

The Wishing Little Boy

There was a Little Boy, with two little eyes,

And he had a little head that was just the proper size,

And two little arms, and two little hands;

On two little legs this Little Boy stands.

Now, this little boy would now and then be cross

Because that he could only be the very thing he was;

He wanted this, and then he wanted that;

His head was full of wishes underneath his little hat.

“I wish I was a drummer to beat a kettle-drum,

I wish I was a giant to say Fee-fo-fi-faw-fum;

I wish I was a captain to go sailing in a ship;

I wish I was a huntsman to crack a nice whip.

“I wish I was a horse to go sixty miles an hour;

I wish I was the man that lives up in the lighthouse tower;

I wish I was a seagull with two long wings;

I wish I was a traveller to see all sorts of things.

“I wish I was a carpenter, I wish I was a lord;

I wish I was a soldier with pistol and a sword;

I wish I was the man that goes high in a balloon;

I wish, I wish, I wish I could be something else, and soon!”

But all the wishing in the world is not a bit of use;

That Little Boy, this very day, he stands in his own shoes;

That Little Boy is still but little Master What-do-you-call,

As much as if that Little Boy had never wished at all!

-       William B. Rands[1]

---

[1] Born in 1823 in England, William Brighty Rands published several volumes of children’s literature anonymously and contributed to various periodicals under the pseudonyms Matthew Browne, Henry Holbeach, and T. Talker. He worked as a reporter in the House of Commons and died in 1882. (Source: poemhunter.com)

Outpouring of the Spirit

For the outpouring of the Spirit every lover of the cause of truth should pray.  And as far as lies in our power, we are to remove every hindrance to his working.  The Spirit can never be poured out while variance and bitterness toward one another are cherished by the members of the church.  Envy, jealousy, evil-surmising, and evil-speaking are of Satan, and they effectually bar the way against the Holy Spirit’s working.

-       Testimonies for the Church, Vol. VI, p.42 [Ellen Gould White][1]

---

[1] Ellen Gould White was born Ellen Gould Harmon in 1927, daughter of Robert and Eunice Harmon. As an adult, she became an American Christian leader whose prophetic ministry was instrumental in founding the Sabbatarian Adventist movement that led to the rise of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Supporters of Ellen G. White regard her as a modern-day prophet, even though she never claimed this title for herself. Support for her prophetic role is usually expressed in the language that she exhibited the spiritual gift of prophecy as outlined in the New Testament. Adventists do not consider this to conflict with the Reformation principle Sola Scriptura (“by scripture alone”) because the Bible is believed to be superior to her writings and the Bible teaches that one of the gifts to the church is the gift of prophecy. Her restorationist writings showcase the hand of God in Seventh-day Adventist history. This cosmic conflict, referred to as “the great controversy theme,” is foundational to the development of Seventh-day Adventist theology. Her involvement with other Sabbatarian Adventist leaders, such as Joseph Bates and her husband James White, would create a nucleus of believers around which a core group of shared beliefs would emerge. Ellen White believed that at the close of earth’s history Jesus Christ would return to this earth to gather His people and take them to heaven.

White was a controversial figure even within her own lifetime. She claimed to have received a vision soon after the Millerite Great Disappointment. In the context of many other visionaries, she was known for her conviction and fervent faith. White is the most translated female non-fiction author in the history of literature, as well as the most translated American non-fiction author of either gender. Her writings covered theology, evangelism, Christian lifestyle, education and health (she also advocated vegetarianism). She was a leader who emphasized education and health, and promoted the establishment of schools and medical centers. During her lifetime she wrote more than 5,000 periodical articles and 40 books; but today, including compilations from her 50,000 pages of manuscript, more than 100 titles are available in English. Some of her more popular books include Steps to Christ, The Desire of Ages, and The Great Controversy. Seventh-day Adventists believe she experienced over 2,000 visions. (Source: Wikipedia)