The Farm and the Home

While working at Elmshaven through the summer, she tried to rest her mind for an hour or two each day by riding out in the fresh air in her comfortable carriage. Under Iram James's management the farm was prospering, and of his family she wrote to Edson in September:6BIO 135.8

Brother and Sister James have an excellent family. The children are eleven in number, and as soon as they can walk, they are taught to be helpful about the home.—Letter 284, 1907.6BIO 136.1

She was pleased that in this family religious interests were always placed first. She felt she could not have a better helper than Iram James, adding, “I would not be willing to exchange my farmer for any other person that I know of.”6BIO 136.2

Ever in earnest about Adventists actively participating in missionary work in their communities, she was pleased to observe concerning James: “When he first came here, he devoted his Sabbaths to holding meetings with unbelievers; he was always welcomed, for he explains the Scriptures in a clear and acceptable way.”— Ibid.6BIO 136.3

When he came from Australia in 1901, the orchard was run-down, but he had built it up, pruning and grafting. Ellen White was particularly pleased with the new varieties of apples thus introduced. He excelled in animal husbandry, too. The two gray mares he bought in 1906 were now mothers of “two beautiful colts” (Ibid.).6BIO 136.4

With the Paul Mason family now at Elmshaven, Mrs. Mason was pressed into service as matron. “She is not robust,” Ellen White wrote, “but her husband helps her in the house in many ways.” And she noted, “No unpleasant word is spoken, and this is as it should be among those who are preparing to unite with the heavenly family in the City of God.”— Ibid.6BIO 136.5

As she thought of Mrs. Mason's work in providing meals for the family, she felt their close proximity to the Sanitarium Health Food Factory would be helpful, for they could easily provide themselves “with all our health foods,” and she felt that “this makes the work in the cooking line light” (Letter 308, 1906).6BIO 136.6