Fannie Bolton’s Weaknesses

What should we make of all this? On one hand, many letters reveal both Ellen White’s patience and concern for Fannie’s welfare. On the other, documentation indicates that Ellen White did not avoid confrontation when Fannie’s misrepresentations became apparent. Unfortunately, Fannie’s confessions, candid and forthright as they were, did not change her weaknesses.MOL 480.5

What were Fannie’s weaknesses that were at the bottom of her “fitful, skyrocket experience”? ^{20Testimonies for the Church 5:53.}MOL 480.6

In an 1895 letter to Dr. J. H. Kellogg, Mrs. White wrote regarding Fannie: “She has a temperament that is high as the skies at one moment, and the next is deep down in proportion as she was up.” ^{21Testimonies for the Church 5:59.}MOL 480.7

As Fannie clearly confessed (1892), “I mourn over the hardness of my heart in so long centering my thoughts upon myself and looking critically upon others.” ^{22Testimonies for the Church 5:5.} Part of her criticism was that Ellen White took all the credit for her books and articles “when those who worked up the matter were not recognized.... that [Fannie’s] ideas were put into the books and papers, and yet sunk out of sight.” ^{23Testimonies for the Church 5:23, 29.} Her exaggerated claims as to how much she had “improved” the manuscripts with her own words became common talk in Australia. Sowing these seeds of untruth created discord and unrest, even among those who deeply valued Ellen White’s writings. This imperiled the legitimacy and integrity of Mrs. White’s ministry. ^{24Many were the confessions from Fannie regarding the spreading of doubt about the integrity of Ellen White’s writings. In a lengthy letter in 1897 from Battle Creek, she wrote: “The personal testimonies that have seemed so harsh, so unkind, so unChristlike, now seem the most loving kindness. To think that God writes through you to me ... why words cannot express my gratitude. That testimony I thought so cruel, is my treasure. Why have I persisted in being blind so long? ... I meant to tell the truth; but the doubt, the suspicion, the magnifying of your literary faults and your editors’ literary excellences, caused me to leave a false impression, because of my own false but to me real conception of matters.... As to the testimony you sent of my feelings, faults, errors, and ignorance of my attitude, I say it is true, true to the core.” Testimonies for the Church 5:83, 85, 86.}MOL 480.8

Fannie’s thirst for recognition and approval drove her to make many misrepresentations of how Ellen White’s articles and books were prepared. At a time when few people seemed able to understand the difference between verbal and thought inspiration, misleading “inside” information bordered on betrayal. ^{25Fannie Bolton, later in 1901, spoke of her dissembling as “my rebellion.” Testimonies for the Church 5:103.}MOL 480.9

At the root of Fannie’s problems, other than her nervous, flighty, disposition and desire to be recognized, was her treatment of Ellen White’s writings as only a literary effort. Mrs. White wrote her in 1894: “In your mind they are too often placed on a level with common things; but the ideas, words, and expressions, which seem to you rather inferior, and which you regard as non-essential, may be the very things that should appear as they are, in their simplicity.... The writings given you, you have handled as an indifferent matter, and have often spoken of them in a manner to depreciate them in the estimation of others.... In changing, you would not improve, but would weaken and dilute with your supposed sparkling ideas.” ^{26Testimonies for the Church 5:20, 21.}MOL 480.10

To Dr. J. H. Kellogg she wrote: “[Fannie] has represented my writings as being in need of taking all to pieces and doing up in another style. If this is the case the sooner I lay down my pen the better. The power of imagination is good, but when it leads to a highflown strain that only creates emotion, I do not care for it to be mingled with my work.” ^{27Testimonies for the Church 5:59.}MOL 481.1

After Fannie Bolton returned to Battle Creek, Dr. Kellogg wrote in 1897: “Miss Bolton looks thin and is extremely nervous and hysterical. She has done some writing for me but I have not been able to make use of it. What she writes seems to exhibit the hysterical, nervous character which she shows in her manner. I think she is sick.” ^{28Testimonies for the Church 5:73.}MOL 481.2

Mrs. S. M. I. Henry, nationally recognized temperance leader and a convert to the Seventh-day Adventist faith, ^{29See pp. 409, 517.} wrote to Ellen White in 1898 about her long-time friend, Fannie Bolton: “She has always been willful and impetuous, and she has never had training of any sort which would help her to correct these things, so they have grown with her growth.... I have, as you express yourself, sometimes been fearful that her mind was not exactly well balanced in these later years.” ^{30Testimonies for the Church 5:89.}MOL 481.3