The Winter in California

“I am planning to do a large work this winter,” wrote Ellen White to Haskell on December 8. She continued:3BIO 377.5

Marian Davis is still on volume 4 [The Great Controversy]. I hope it will be finished ere long and she go back to volume 1 [Patriarchs and Prophets] again.—Letter 23, 1887.3BIO 377.6

Getting settled in her Healdsburg home, a home she loved, with her literary helpers about her, Ellen White gave attention to facets of the program that would build for spiritual strength. Of this she wrote:3BIO 377.7

I commenced in the arrangement of my family, to make the most perfect arrangement for religious things. We have prayers at half past six in the morning and precisely at seven in the evening, where all are expected to pray and nothing is to be allowed to interfere. If company comes, I tell them we have a special hour for prayer and if they choose to remain, they can do so.3BIO 378.1

We read a chapter in the Bible, sing a few verses, then everyone prays. Then we have a half-hour for singing again.—Letter 23b, 1887.3BIO 378.2

Ellen White might call for her favorite song, “Jesus, Lover of My Soul.” Other “family” members, knowing her preferences, which were often their own, would make suggestions; most may be found in The Church Hymnal, but some only in the older Hymns and Tunes: 3BIO 378.3

“We Speak of the Realms of the Blest” “One More Day's Work for Jesus” “I'm a Pilgrim and a Stranger” “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say” “I Will Follow Thee, My Saviour” “There Were Ninety and Nine” “There Are Angels Hovering Round” “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”

She enjoyed singing cheerful songs such as “There Is Sunlight on the Hilltop,” “Let Us Gather Up the Sunbeams,” and “Lord, in the Morning.” She might call for the hymn written by William Hyde after he heard her in 1845 tell of her first vision of the new earth—“We Have Heard From the Bright, the Holy Land”—DF 245g, Ella M. Robinson, in “Hymns Loved and Sung by Ellen White.” [Other E. G. White favorites were numbers 222, 617, 551, and 397, in The Church Hymnal (Review and Herald).]3BIO 378.4

Except for an occasional visit to St. Helena to keep in close contact with the Retreat, which was having some problems, and to spend a little time with Mary, who was becoming weaker, Ellen White, through January, February, and the first two weeks of March, was in Healdsburg, pursuing her work on Patriarchs and Prophets. But pressures were mounting for her to visit various parts of the field: Nevada, Fresno, Lemoore, Los Angeles, and San Diego. She decided to attend the early camp meetings at Selma, near Fresno, and at Reno, Nevada.3BIO 378.5