Visit to Southern California
In the second week of September, Ellen White, W. C., and their helpers traveled to Los Angeles for the camp meeting scheduled for September 12 to 21. The meeting was held at Boyle Heights, not far from the present location of the White Memorial Medical Center, and eight hundred people attended. While attending this meeting the White party enjoyed a new home that belonged to an Adventist family who moved onto the campgrounds, making it possible to turn over the whole house to Ellen White. Here they set up a temporary office.5BIO 184.8
Early during the meeting she slipped away to see the newly acquired property for the San Fernando Academy. She visited again when school opened October 1, and spoke to the students and faculty.5BIO 185.1
In connection with this trip south she was on the lookout for appropriate sites for sanitariums. To Elder Daniells she wrote, “Constantly the Lord is keeping southern California before me as a place where we must establish medical institutions.”—Letter 138, 1902. On the way down, prospective property had been explored in Santa Barbara, and as she had opportunity during the camp meeting she went to Monrovia and Pasadena; the following week she looked at property just south of San Diego in the Paradise Valley.5BIO 185.2
The journey back north took her through Fresno, where she stopped for the California Conference session. While there she urged the reelection of A. T. Jones, who had served one year as conference president. His rather erratic leadership had seriously undermined the chances of his continuing in office, but after talking with him she pleaded with the constituency to give him another opportunity, and this was done. The Fresno meeting was climaxed by a special service for some twenty workers who were bound for overseas service. A new day was dawning for Adventist missions. She addressed the group and then offered a dedicatory prayer.5BIO 185.3
While in Fresno she was given a vision that she did not fully understand at the time but would come to understand following certain interviews held at Elmshaven later in October—and a stand on her part for which God reproved her.5BIO 185.4
Before going to the southern California camp meeting, Ellen White had moved into her new writing room. It had been a bit trying to do her literary work nearby during all the hammering and sawing and construction work. But it was well worthwhile. This room extended across the complete east end of the home, over the kitchen and service porch. Even though it had been specified that old materials would be used as far as possible, the alterations with the painting, inside and outside, cost $1,000. But she felt she was justified in making this investment even though she thought she should defend it. She had to have working conditions that were conducive to efficiency and health. To an acquaintance she wrote:5BIO 185.5
The building of this room took money. I held back for a year before consenting to have this room built; for I know how many places there were in which money was needed. But I saw that it was necessary, for the preservation of my life, that something be done. It would be wrong for me to shorten my life, for this would take me from the Lord's work.—Letter 165, 1902.5BIO 186.1
There was a bright bay-window arrangement on the southeast corner, with windows opening in all four directions, but principally east and south. Artistic shingles set off the tower on the outside. The room was fitted with a fireplace on the east side and with cabinets along the west wall, where her manuscripts, books, and papers could be kept. From the window on the north end of the room, between the cabinets and the door to the steep, hidden stairway to the service porch, she could look up to the Sanitarium on the hill above, and at the nearby office building when it was built shortly thereafter.5BIO 186.2
There were three features about this newly constructed writing room that especially pleased Ellen White: its roominess, its bay window with light and sunshine, and its fireplace. She was to spend a large part of her time here during the next twelve years, writing, writing. She would often come to the room at two or three o'clock in the morning, sometimes at midnight, sometimes earlier to start her day of writing.5BIO 186.3