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OUR JERUSALEM
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OUR
Jerusalem
an American Family
in the Holy City, 1881-1949
Bertha Spafford Vester
Introduction by LOWELL THOMAS
Doubleday & Company, Inc.
GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 1950
COPYRIGHT, 1950, BY BERTHA SPAFFORD VESTER AND EVELYN WELLS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N.Y.
FIRST EDITION
BINDERY APR H0 1954
This book is dedicated to
Father s and Mother s nine grandchildren
MAR 2 8 1950
APPRECIATION
LIFE in the American Colony of Jerusalem during the last decade
was tranquil although surrounded by political turmoil- Our consuls
were friendly. Religious leaders understood us better. Perhaps we had
become less of an enigma, and perhaps Jerusalem had changed. Mod
ern Jerusalem accepted us at our value. The old stories cropped up
now and then, but were turned aside with oh-that-used-to-be looks,
which hurt worse than accusations when one thought of the robust
Christianity of the Colony s founders which allowed "no room for self-
pity, * as Mother expressed it, at the most crucial moment of her life.
It was during this time that I began work on the record of my par
ents* experiences in Jerusalem and elsewhere which would serve as a
record for my children and grandchildren. I have taken five years
writing it, part of which was done while we were under fire in the
recent war against the partition of Palestine. Preceding this I had
worked for fifteen years gathering material incorporated in its writ
ing, and for such contributed data, letters and memoirs, newspaper
accounts and testimonials, legal, ecclesiastical and historic, I am in
debted to more friends in the United States, the Holy Land, and
England than I have space to acknowledge, but whose kindness and
interest have contributed greatly to this account of our lives in Amer
ica and Jerusalem,
I should like to express my public appreciation to Mr, Lowell
Thomas, author, lecturer, and radio commentator, whose friendship
over many years has meant much to the American Colony in Jerusalem
and to me, and who was the first to suggest that I turn into a book my
private family record by which others might see the Holy City as it has
seemed to us for nearly seventy years.
To Dr. Millar Burrows, Winkley Professor of Biblical Theology at
the Divinity School of Yale University and late Director of the Ameri
can School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, I am deeply grateful
for whole-hearted encouragement and advice*
My gratitude is also extended to the Rev, Charles T. Bridgeman, at
present connected with Trinity Church, New York, formerly Canon
of St. George s Cathedral in Jerusalem, who has given unstintedly of
his twenty years experience in Palestine, particularly in church mat
ters.
I also wish to thank Miss Evelyn Wells for her help.
BERTHA SPAFFORD VESTER
vii
INTRODUCTION By Lowell Thomas
FOR years my wanderings took me to many parts of the world.
In the course of these travels I met a fair proportion of the unusual
personalities of our time statesmen, explorers, soldiers, scientists,
missionaries, writers, mining men, merchants, and artists. When a
traveler thinks of mountain ranges, certain peaks stand out in his
mind Kinchinjunga in the Himalayas; Aconcagua in the Andes;
Saint Elias and McKinley in Alaska; Demavend in Persia; Chomolari
in Tibet; Rainier in the Puget Sound country; Mount Washington in
New England, and a dozen more in various lands- Looking back on the
people I have met, a few are like the mountains I have mentioned.
One of these is the author of this book.
Of all the remarkable personalities I have known, Berfha Vester is
one of the few that I have envied.
To me Jerusalem is the most dramatic of the cities of this earth,
more so even than Athens, Rome or Paris. And Berfha Vester is lie
only outstanding person who has lived there, both as an observer and
a participant in events, under the Turkish sultans, through World War
I, the period of the Mandate, a second world war, and finally the
period of the return of the Children of Israel. What a panorama!
Since the days when Dr. John Finley, famous editor of the New
York Times, and I, first met her in Jerusalem, I have been urging her
to write the story of her life. For thirty years I have conducted this
campaign, in person and by correspondence. Always she was too busy
with her social-service work in the Holy City, too involved with her
educational problems and with trying to save children from disease
and starvation. She is a modem Florence Nightingale, with a more
colorful and romantic story. Through three generations she has been
a central figure in the life of the city that is sacred to three great reli
gions, Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism.
It was a sheet from one of her hospital beds that provided the white
flag used at the surrender of Jerusalem when, in 1917, a Christian
army entered the Holy City for the first time in nearly a thousand
years. Although called the City of Peace, Jerusalem has nearly always
been a city of violence. As one of the few Protestants in Jerusalem,
she has had a unique opportunity to watch the pageant of history un
roll. Nearly all other prominent personalities who have spent any time
at all in that city atop the Judean Hills "aloof, waterless, and on the
IX
x INTRODUCTION
road to nowhere," have been on either one side or the other in some
bitter struggle. As a social-service worker, Bertha Vester has been
unique in the sixty-five years of her life in the Holy City.
^ I haven t read her manuscript. Therefore I know little of her at
titude toward recent events. But I do know that in times when emo
tions run high partisans on either side invariably say: "Well, if you
are not /or us, you must be against us." However, that sort of charge
should never be made about either an honest reporter or social worker.
During the hottest part of the recent fighting between the Jews
and the Moslem inhabitants Mrs. Vester found herself in a dilemma.
One of the elderly members of the American Colony had died during
the night. The battle was raging across the road between Mrs.
Vester s home and the cemetery on the Mount of Olives. However,
she solved this problem. She got in touch with the officers in com
mand on both sides and asked them if they would be good enough
to stop the battle for two hours. They did. She buried the aged mem
ber of the American Colony on the Mount of Olives, and then the
fighting began again.
On another occasion, in 1947, some of the Arab forces took up
positions around Mrs. Vester s house and in the compound of the
American Colony. From there they were firing on a Jewish convoy
that apparently was on its way to Hadassah Hospital. She told them
that she would not ajlow it. They could shoot her if they wished, but
as far as it was within her power she would not allow an attack to be
made upon anyone from the American Colony which for more than
sixty years had kept its doors open to Moslem, Christian, and Jew.
She told them: "To fire from the shelter of the American Colony is
the same as firing from a mosque or church."
I remember Field Marshal Lord AUenby s admiration for her, of
how highly she was regarded by T. E. Lawrence, of her close friend
ship with John Finley when she helped him with his Red Cross work
in the Holy City. I have sat spellbound at her feet, in Jerusalem, lis
tening to her tell of her adventures. And I have long admired her un
selfish devotion to the inhabitants of the Holy City, to all of its many
races and creeds. Hers is indeed one of the epic stories of our time.
OUR JERUSALEM
CHAPTER ONE
A FEW months before the Great Chicago Fire, Father came to
the conclusion that the law, while highly remunerative, was absorb
ing too much of his time,
He had no idea of giving up his practice. He was senior partner
in the prominent and influential Chicago firm of Spafford, McDaid
and Wilson, and was considered an authority on national as well as
international law. "Horatio Spafford lives in jurisprudence," Mr.
Luther Laflin Mills, one-time states attorney for Illinois, once told
me. "We still say in Chicago, That s a Spafford case! 9 or, That be
longs to the Spafford school of law, "
But Father became convinced that dealing in real estate would
give him opportunity to achieve honorable success without being
wholly engrossed by it and also give him more time to devote his
attention to philanthropic and Christian work, particularly that being
started by his close friend the evangelist, Mr. Dwight L. Moody.
With this idea in mind, in the spring of 1871 Father, with several
of his friends, invested in land in the direction of which the city of
Chicago was expanding land which is now part of Lincoln Park
and other extensive tracts north of the city, on the Lake Shore.
They put all their available money, and borrowed more to enlarge
their holdings, into this project that seemed sound.
At this time he and Mother were living in the suburb of Lake
View, on the north side of Chicago, in a vine-covered gabled cottage
surrounded by twelve acres of lawn. They had four little daughters. I
think of these children as my "little sisters" although this was before
I was bora. Anna, named for our mother, was nine. Margaret Lee,
aged seven, was named after Father s favorite sister, whose husband,
Colonel Arthur T. Lee, had been seriously wounded in the Battle of
Gettysburg a few weeks before Maggie was born. Elizabeth, called
Bessie, was five, and in July the fourth little girl was born and named
Tanetta for our grandmother, who came from Norway and died when
Mother was a little girl.
Lake View was some distance from the city limits, but the family
were sublimely happy in their isolation. Their nearest neighbors were
2 OUR JERUSALEM
Mr. and Mrs, Henry Waller, whose residence in rolling lawns, similar
to their own, inspired Chicago s beloved poet Eugene Field to write
"The Delectable Ballad of the Waller Lot."
Every day Father went to his law office in the city and was driven
to and from the little station by Peter the houseman in a buggy drawn
by old Billy the horse.
A narrow-gauge steam train, known as "The Dummy," carried
commuters in and out of Chicago. There were no telephones, and
when Father brought dinner guests home, as he often did, there was
no way of letting Mother know beforehand. Since the last "Dummy"
left early in the evening, a dinner guest usually meant one staying
overnight.
Father and Mother drew devoted friends about them who shared
the joys of their home life and who in the years to come gave them
the love and devotion that sustained them in dreadful sorrow. Also,
to the Lake View cottage came the weary of body and soul, for my
parents were incapable of denying any share of their worldly goods
or happiness to anyone who might be in need.
Martha Pirkens Halsey wrote in an article:
One of the most attractive places in the old township of Lake View in
the seventies was a residence ivy-hung and tree-embowered that
seemed in its surroundings the chosen abode of peace and happiness.
The house, a picturesque, irregularly shaped cottage, not far from the
Lake Shore, displayed in each nook and corner a rare taste and refine
ment. Grace, simplicity, and beauty everywhere prevailed. . . .
4
This was the home of my father and mother, Horatio Gates Spaf-
ford and Anna Lawson Spafford, who were to become the founders
of the American Colony in Jerusalem.
The love and faith in that cottage were to cross the Atlantic and
become incorporated in the American Colony. Also in the Colony
was to go such strangely unrelated events as the Great Chicago Fire,
the Moody and Sanky religious revival that was shortly to sweep two
continents with unprecedented spiritual fervor, and the shipwreck of
the Ville du Havre that is still one of the unexplained tragedies of the
sea.
All that summer and fall of 1871 an unusual degree of heat pre
vailed in Chicago, and the rainfall was so slight as to give scientists
cause for much speculation. Forest fires of extraordinary extent
ravaged the Northwest, destroying the vegetation and even whole
communities, especially around the southern border of the Great
Lakes. Early in the fall high southwest winds began blowing and
OUR JERUSALEM 3
continued for weeks, parching the prairies near Chicago and every
piece of timber within and around the city.
During the first weeks of October there was a continual succession
of small fires in the city.
Father was in Indiana interviewing a prospective purchaser for
some of the Lake Shore property. He was there on October 8, 1871,
when the knell of desolation sounded across the American continent
in gigantic headlines:
CHICAGO IN ASHES
THE GREAT CALAMITY OF THE AGE
THE SOUTH, THE NORTH, AND A PORTION OF THE
WEST DIVISIONS OF THE CITY IN RUINS
There was no more thought of a sale. Father s only thought was
to rush back to Chicago.
Mother, left in the Lake View cottage with four small children,
three house servants, and Peter, the man of all work, was not alarmed
for their own safety in the beginning. As she watched from the porch
of the cottage she could see Chicago rising like a pillar of fire in the
night. Lake View lay well outside the city, still the stretch of forest
between was tinder-dry after the long, hot summer. The glare light
ing lake and sky was terrifying, and adding to the terror were the
explosions that continued to shake the burning city for days and that
could be heard for many miles.
Chicago, roused from sleep, was trying to escape from itself.
Torrents of people were fleeing its blazing streets and struggling
over flaming bridges to the country. Tragedy piled on tragedy in the
stricken city.
As mile after mile of wooden buildings, homes, stores, and side
walks caught fire, the glaring illumination showed a city gone mad
with terror. Crowds of men, women, and children ran first in one
direction, then in another, shouting and screaming, saving objects,
no matter how worthless, carrying them, losing them again. Every
explosion that shook the city added to their panic.
Drays, express wagons, handcarts, trucks, and every imaginable
conveyance was being driven pell-mell through the crowded streets,
laden with trunks, boxes, furniture, goods, and papers of every kind.
Collisions happened every minute. Wagons broke down and impeded
traffic, causing frantic scenes. Hundreds were trying to drag trunks
along the sidewalks.
Truckmen were offered fabulous sums to carry people or goods.
Trucks drove along the streets with their loads blazing, and goods
4 OUR JERUSALEM
dragged into the streets from homes and stores, and piled there,
caught fire. One man told of "delicate ladies standing guard by their
rescued pianos" while crowds swept around them senselessly.
Many who were carrying bundles of prized possessions had to
abandon them, and the streets were strewn with valuables, oil paint
ings, silver, books, musical instruments, toys, mirrors, and every con
ceivable article.
One survivor told of an undertaker with an eye for business who
employed half-a-dozen boys, gave each a coffin, took a large one
himself, and rushed his mournful stock across the Chicago River
Bridge, The coffins bobbing along above the heads of the crowd
without apparently any means of motivation was such an absurd
spectacle, the observer said later, that in spite of their ominous
portent he could not help laughing.
Word spread that the bridges over the Chicago River were burning
and all escape to north and west was cut away. The distracted crowds
passed the rumor, adding to the pandemonium in the streets. Women,
half-dressed, carrying babies and with other children clinging to
them, screamed and ran until trapped in the milling crowds. Passages
and sidewalks jammed, and people clawed at one another in self-
defense. Women and children were flung down and trampled by men
trying to save their goods or their lives.
Invalids lay helpless on mattresses on the sidewalks, wailing for
help.
One woman knelt in the street with her skirt in flames, holding a
crucifix before her while she prayed, and a runaway truck dashed
her to the ground.
In the running crowds hundreds of lost children screamed for their
parents. Families were separated, and many never came together
again, for unknown thousands lost their lives. Pet animals whimpered
their terror underfoot, hunting their masters.
In a city lawless with panic the brutality and horror of some of the
scenes were sickening.
Thieves and looters forced their way through the crowds to satisfy
avarice in streets lined with unclaimed treasure. Deserted saloons and
liquor stores were broken into, and shouting men brandished bottles
of whisky and champagne. Drunken boys reeled about carrying casks
of whisky, offering drinks to crowds of excited men. A survivor told
of seeing a little girl run screaming down a street with her long golden
hair on fire. A drunken man threw a glass of liquor over her, and the
child was covered with blue flame.
One man carried a blazing plank to a pile of costly furniture before
a magnificent residence and ignited it. Then he mounted a packing
box and screamed that this was the poor man s opportunity.
OUR JERUSALEM 5
One ragamuffin lay dead under a fallen marble window ledge, with
white kid gloves on his hands and his pockets bursting with plunder.
Large-scale disaster is bound to bring the worst in human nature
to the surface. But also the noblest in man came to the fore. Many
gave their lives to save others in those dreadful hours. Men and
women perished trying to rescue invalids, children, and dumb ani
mals. Strangers helped one another. Unknown heroes survived, and
others died, in the Great Chicago Fire.
Mother, watching from the porch at Lake View, knew there would
be refugees.
The first arrived that morning. She was a perfect stranger to
Mother, and invalided, and she was to become Aunty Sims to the
family. She was delivered at the door on a spring mattress laid across
an express wagon, and she was to remain at Lake View for the rest
of her days, to be alternately a tower of strength and a thorn in
Mother s side.
Through that day and the second night and on through the next
day Chicago continued to burn. Mother sent Peter astride old Billy,
the horse, to hunt for provisions. After he left, a handsome but sooty
carriage turned into the driveway filled with strange-looking people
in curious costumes. Who were these colored people, Mother won
dered, then she recognized her dear friends, the Miller-Morgan
family, who were not colored but begrimed with soot and smoke and
clad in whatever they had found first when the Great Fire drove them
from their comfortable home.
Mary Miller had been one of Mother s schoolmates at Dearborn
Seminary. Her husband, A. Halsey Miller, owned the large whole
sale and retail jewelry store opposite the Chicago courthouse known
as the "Tiffany of the West." With them were their two little children
and Mary s mother, Mrs. Morgan. Her father had been separated
from them in flight.
For two days and a night, without food or rest, they had battled
their way through smoke, wind, and flames to Lake View.
Mr. Miller s eyes had been badly seared with fire and he could not
see, so Mary had mounted the coachman s seat and driven the horses
ahead of the flames to Lake View. She was wearing a dressing gown
over her nightdress and its hem was scorched and her bare feet blis
tered. Even when she reached Lake View* she would not rest, for the
horses* feet were badly burned, and Mary soaked their hoofs in hot
water and poulticed them before she would attend to her own
scorched feet. Year later she told me how Mother ordered food and
6 OUR JERUSALEM
beds prepared for them, and put compresses of tea leaves on Mr.
Miller s burned eyes, and found a farmer s wife near by with a child
of her own to nurse Mary s four-month-old baby, for in the exodus
her milk had dried up.
Mrs. Morgan was wearing all the dresses she could wear, six in all
"Fit for an asylum" was the way she described her appearance, but
she had saved the dresses.
No sooner did Mother have them all comfortable than Mr. Waller
came hurrying over to say trees near by had caught fire and he was
moving his family to a safer place.
Aunty Sims and the others were in no condition to be moved, and
Peter had not returned, but there was nothing to do but join the
flight. Mother left a note for Peter, telling him she did not know
where they were going. She and Mary reharnessed the Miller team
and, since there was no horse for her own buggy, she tied it to the
back of the Miller carriage with a stout rope. Into the buggy she
hoisted Aunty Sims, with Annie and Maggie, the two eldest little
girls; Bessie and baby Tanetta went into the carriage ahead with the
Morgans and the Millers. The tired, footsore horses had to pull the
double load, but they seemed to scent danger and were willing, even
eager, to be off.
The little caravan plodded up Graceland Road through the heavy
sand. Aimlessly they drove west, not knowing where to go. They
were no longer alone. They were trapped in a river of refugees drag
ging their way ahead of flames that still raged in their wake, racing
west from flaming Chicago.
The roads were crowded with every kind of vehicle. Men and boys
pulled heavy loads or carried their old and ill. Women bore bundles
and babies, and there were even dogs with baskets in their mouths,
or drawing small wagons. And baby carriages! It seemed everyone
had a baby. Little smudge-faced girls trudged through the ashen dust
clutching their dolls.
Many survivors of the Great Fire dwelt upon the terrifying roar
of the conflagration. Even more ominous, Mother said, was the
silence of the fleeing population of a doomed city.
On Graceland Road they overtook a lumber wagon driven by a
man Mother knew. She asked his advice as to where they should go,
"We live in Jefferson," he told her. "You are welcome to my
home."
On their arrival at the man s house they found twenty other refu
gees there ahead of them, the majority total strangers to their host.
But he and his kind wife did all they could to make them comfortable.
The next morning they drove back to Lake View and found it safe.
OUR JERUSALEM 7
Peter had proved the faithful servant, and, on returning to the house
and finding Mother gone, had worked all night with the garden hoses
keeping the roof of the cottage wet. The fire stopped at Fullerton
Avenue just in time to save the house and grounds.
Mary Miller and her husband returned to Chicago to hunt her
father. They found him safe. They also went to the Lake Shore,
where they had first fled with thousands of other refugees, until the
sands grew too hot to bear. They had buried several trunks con
taining jewelry, fine laces, furs, and wearing apparel, in the sand
before leaving, and their coachman deserted them there. Later they
heard that the faithless coachman was living with a woman who
decked herself with their fine clothes, jewelry, laces, and furs.
All through the flight Mary had jealously guarded a heavy valise
which she believed contained their choicest valuables but which,
when she opened it at Lake View, was found to contain nothing but
old shoes. Many in their excitement rescued heavy packages only to
find what they had saved with so much effort was utterly worthless.
I do not think the Millers grieved too much over their losses. All
their lives were safe, and possessions, contrasted with life, lose their
value.
Father and Mother felt the same way.
Father had returned to a city of desolation. His friend General
William Bross, who with Mr. Joseph Medill and Mr. Horace White
published the Chicago Tribune, and who had fought to save the news
paper in the very heart of the holocaust, wrote of the fire:
It was destruction of the entire business portion of one of the greatest
cities in the world. Every bank, insurance office, law office, hotel, theater,
railroad, most of the churches and many of the principal residences of
the city a charred mass property almost beyond estimation gone!
His partner Mr. Medill, seeing the Tribune office doomed, sought
and purchased a job printing office on the west side that had escaped
damage, and collected type and printers. General Bross recounts with
amusement how he who two days before might have offered a note
for $100,000 anywhere and had it accepted, and whose fortune was
now buried under ashes in a bank vault, could not even get four
wood-burning stoves on credit, to heat the new plant. Eventually, by
asking ten of his friends, he was able to borrow enough money to
buy the stoves.
The next day the Tribune came out with a half sheet, containing
the sad news of the disaster, and a notice that a lost persons bureau
had been opened.
8 OUR JERUSALEM
Notices were printed:
Mrs. Bush is at 40 Arnold Street. She has lost her baby.
A little girl she cannot speak her name is at Des Plaines Hotel.
Mrs. Tinney s lost little girl, six years old, Katy, is at Harrison House.
Mr. Medill, when he died, left his large estate in equal shares to
his two daughters and the Tribune stock in trust to their husbands,
Mr. Robert W. Patterson and Mr. Robert Sanderson McCormick, a
cousin of the Cyrus H. McCormick who brought the Theological
Seminary to Chicago.
Colonel Robert Rutherford McCormick, son of Robert McCormick
and grandson of Mr. Medill, later became editor in chief of the Trib
une and a picturesque figure of world renown. When Lord North-
cliffe, the English newspaper publisher, visited me in my home in
Jerusalem, learning that I was born in Chicago, asked if I knew
Colonel McCormick. "An extraordinary man," he described him. I
am afraid my prestige was lowered when I had to admit I had not the
pleasure of his personal acquaintance, although my parents had been
friendly with his grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Medill. During
the Civil War Mrs. Medill and Mother had been active in the Sanitary
Commission, which became the Red Cross, and later Mrs. Medill was
identified with the Soldiers Home in which my parents took an active
interest. After the Chicago Fire Mr. and Mrs. Medill worked on the
same relief and aid societies with Father and Mother.
The Bross family have also kept up their interests in the Tribune.
General Bross s daughter Jessie, one of Mother s former schoolmates,
married Dr. Henry D. Lloyd when he was a reporter on the Tribune.
Their son, Dr. Henry Lloyd, Junior, still owns an interest in the
Tribune, and owing to his mother s lifelong friendship with Mother,
has been a true friend to the American Colony in Jerusalem.
For a time there were sleepless nights for the survivors of stricken
Chicago. With no street lamps, and "vagabonds and cutthroats flown
like vultures from every point of the compass, attracted by the scent
of plunder," only those with urgent business dared venture out of
doors.
Evidently Chicago was again under fire from critics within a short
time, for I find the draft of a resolution in Father s handwriting which
must have been prepared for a citizens* meeting soon after the Fke:
Resolved, that while we recognize that the temporary confusion and
the unparalleled increase of population, and other results proceeding
from the fire, have produced an increase of crime in Chicago, that we
altogether deny that any such state of things is here existing as controls
OUR JERUSALEM 9
New York under the Tammany Ring, or which led San Francisco to the
appointment of a vigilance committee in our local and state judiciary
and in the sufficiency of usual and strictly legal methods for the arrest,
conviction, and punishment of all criminals and the suppression of
crime. . . .
The Great Fire was a crushing misfortune to nearly every inhabi
tant of Chicago. To Father and his associates in the real estate
venture it was a calamity. Who at such a time could think of enlarg
ing parks or expanding the city? But interest on the borrowed money
had to be paid. Father s law library and adjoining law office in the
city, built up with so much expense and pride, were in ashes. Only
the contents of a fireproof safe were found and among them, charred
and brittle from heat, was a little notebook that has revealed to me
much of my parents lives in these years before I was born.
Father rejoiced that his wife and children were with him and that
the beloved Lake View cottage, although it would have to carry a
small mortgage, was still their own.
CHAPTER TWO
WHEN my father was still a schoolboy he met with an expe
rience that changed his entire life.
He was home on a holiday in the handsome and historic house in
which he was born on October 20, 1828, and which still stands, hid
den away in what has become an obscure section of North Troy, New
York. His father, Horatio Gates Spafford, Senior, LLD., was a his
torian and horticulturist, well-respected and well-to-do.
Father s family originated in Yorkshire, England, and is listed in
Domesday Book, the world s first survey of lands. Succeeding genera
tions were known as possessors of "yeomen, meadow and wood
pastures"; many bore titles, and others occupied positions of influ
ence in Church and State. The ruins of Spofforth Castle in Yorkshire
are impressive and contain a large hall that must have been mag
nificent.
On Spofford Hill, near Georgetown, Massachusetts, a boulder of
native granite bears this inscription:
ON THIS HILL IN 1669
JOHN SPOFFORD
DESCENDANT OF ORME AND OF CAMELBAR
OF SPOFFORD, ENGLAND, WITH HIS WIFE,
ELIZABETH SCOTT
FOUNDED THE RACE OF SPOFFORD IN
AMERICA. A RACE RESPECTED FOR
INTEGRITY, COURAGE, GENEROSITY
AND INTELLIGENCE
This first Spafford, Spofford, or Spofforth, to settle in the New
World evidently arrived in 1739 with the Rev. Ezekial Rogers.
Father s early life was comfortable and secure. He attended the
best schools and won many prizes. He was an avid writer of poetry,
OUR JERUSALEM 11
many of the poems dealing with the heavenly galaxies. In them he
referred to the night sky as "always overcast."
One evening, with a school friend who was visiting him, he was
standing on the porch of his home when his friend spoke of the bril
liant stars.
Father challenged him at once. Here was his chance, Father said,
to speak freely on a subject that was a sore point with him.
"Now, Charlie," he said, "be candid. Be honest. Do you really see
enough beauty up there to warrant your outburst?"
His friend stared at Father.
"Horatio, I believe you are nearsighted!" Charlie exclaimed, and,
taking off his own glasses, made Horatio put them on.
Father s joy at discovering the night sky in all its beauty is revealed
in a poem published in Wellman s Magazine in April 1850:
NIGHT
Ye countless stars that tremble in the sky,
How bright and beautiful are you tonight!
I ve known ye long, but never did my eye
So burn beneath the glory of your light
As it doth now; I kneel to ye ye wear
The impress of the Deity that s there.
There is a spirit in the night that talks
To man, as man cannot. There seems to speak
A voice to him from out the depths. There walks
Amid its glowing halls a form that seeks
Communion with him a pervading soul
That lives and breathes, and animates the whole.
How my whole being worships ye, ye skies!
How Godlike is illimitable space!
I see in every flashing ray that flies
Throbbing from forth your lights, the peaceful face
And aspect of divinity. Ye stand
As when first flung from the Creator s hand.
Ye are unchanged the ceaseless lapse of years
Dims not your brightness since the world began
And ye were summoned forth, the arch that rears
Proud and magnificent its giant span
Filling immensity as now has stood.
Twill stand with time eternity is God.
In later years, after Father had entered on his evangelistic career
with Mr. Moody, he often used this experience to illustrate the
illumination of spiritual vision on becoming a Christian.
12 OUR JERUSALEM
Before Ms vision was corrected Father had been a rather retiring
boy. As a young man he was sociable and popular. He liked parties
and had many friends, he had a healthy love for outdoor sports and
games, and his love for music and literature grew with the years. His
hair was thick and dark, Ms eyes dark and deep-set, and because
bifocals had not yet been made, he had a way of focusing his atten
tion upon those he met with more intensity than is usual with those
of normal vision.
Much of his poetry dealt with the lure of the West, and westward
he went, after admission to the bar. His West was not gold-bearing
California, but the Midwestern frontier. In 1856 he settled in Chicago
and began the practice of law.
He loved the freedom of the open and limitless prairies, the blue
of the skies and the blue of Lake Michigan, limitless, to human eyes,
as the prairies themselves. He felt the thrill of taking part in history
and the building of the West.
His name first appears in the Chicago directory of that year as a
boarder at Clifton House, at the corner of Madison Street and Wa-
bash Avenue, where lived so many of Chicago s young bachelor set
who were to become famous in the business, political, philanthropic,
and scientific life of the budding young city.
There was even then a distinct line of demarcation between refined
Chicago society, and the hordes who flocked there because of the op
portunities the city offered. Despite the "hi$i life" and levity which
would give it such a strange reputation, there was, and still is, a
serious and progressive element which dominates Chicago.
The year Father came to CMcago, when slavery was the burning
issue, this item appears in the Chicago Tribune of September 3:
On last Saturday the Republicans of Laporte, Indiana, had a rousing
meeting. Bonfires were lit and the greatest enthusiasm prevailed. The
principal speaker was H. G. Spafford of Chicago, who made a telling and
able address. . . .
Three years later the name of H. G. Spafford, Esq., Professor of
Medical Jurisprudence, was listed among the faculty names of the
newly organized department of Lind University, subsequently known
as the Chicago Medical College and the Medical Department of
Northwestern University. Father retained Ms interest in public mat
ters and found opportunities to step outside the limits of his profes
sion to make himself heard through speeches and other forms of
lecturing.
He also found time to teach a Sunday-school class, and it was ia
this capacity, toward the end of Father s first year in Chicago, that
he met the beautiful Norwegian girl who was to become my mother.
OUR JERUSALEM 13
When I was a little girl in Jerusalem Mother could hold me fasci
nated with stories of her girlhood.
Mother was born in Stavanger, Norway, on March 16, 1842,
and baptized in the grand old Domkirke as Anna Tubena Larssen.
I have been told she was a lovely child, with flaxen hair and blue
eyes.
Her father, Lars Larssen, was a farmer and a skilled cabinetmaker,
well-respected in the community. I do not know why he migrated to
the United States with his family when Mother was four years old.
Like so many other Scandinavians, he came to Chicago, and eventu
ally Americanized his name to Lawson.
Chicago was not then a healthy city. Lying as it did on swamp
land, on the lower south shore of Lake Michigan, it was difficult to
drain, and was infested with mosquitoes. No one connected the
mosquitoes with the malaria, then called "ague fever,* 5 that swept the
growing city at regular intervals.
When, because of these defects, an epidemic of cholera struck the
city, it spread until the greatest part of the population was afflicted.
Funerals were common in the streets, and Mother and the other
children, always imitative of their elders, made burials their most
popular game. She was the only member of the family who escaped
cholera when the dreaded epidemic reached the Lawson home.
Her gay, capable young mother, Tanetta, and baby brother Hans,
were most seriously stricken. My mother was sent to and from the
drugstore for medicine and brandy. As she hurried through the de
serted streets she heard on all sides the groans of Chicago s sick and
dying. She was only seven years old, but she knew to the full the taste
of human despair.
Her mother and baby brother died in the epidemic. Her father, it
was discovered, was threatened with tuberculosis. With her half-
brother Edward, he moved to Goodhue County, Minnesota, in the
hope that farming might benefit his health.
My mother was left in Chicago with a friend, Mrs. Ely. She loved
this kind foster mother and was happy in her schoolwork and most of
all in her music. But she could not remain in Chicago when she
learned her father was ill and in need of her.
Mother, at fourteen, found herself keeping house for her father
and brother in an unfinished log house in a wild, unsettled section of
Minnesota. Wolves howled near by in the forest. Massacres and
scalpings were not infrequent, and there were always rumors of
prowling Indians. The nearest neighbor was seven miles away.
Pioneer living brought out latent qualities in the young girl. She
worked every day until her strong young back ached, cooking, wash
ing, milking the cow, tending the chickens, and nursing her father.
14 OUR JERUSALEM
When he died, the two young people were alone in the cabin.
Settlers from miles around came and helped make a coffin of the
new lumber Lawson had bought to finish his home. Edward stained
it outside, to mate it look as nice as possible, and my mother lined
and padded it with straw covered with a white linen sheet. There
were no flowers, but the children brought in fragrant branches of fir
and laurel, and wove wreaths for their father s grave.
Mother thought it best to return to Chicago at the first opportunity.
A few weeks later she heard that the pastor son of one of the Nor
wegian settlers was coming to visit his family. While there he arranged
to hold a service to which the scattered settlers were invited. He
planned to leave directly after this service, and he consented to take
Mother with him across the country to the nearest railroad station,
where she could entrain for Chicago.
Edward drove his sister to the farm where the pastor was staying,
along with the trunk that contained all her worldly belongings. He
left as soon as Ms horses were rested, for there were cows to be
milked and chickens to be fed at home. Mother walked along the
road beside the wagon until he advised her to turn back.
Edward lived on the farm to a ripe old age, surrounded by children
and grandchildren.
But after my mother sadly watched him vanish around a turn in
the road that day she never saw her brother again.
She turned back to the farm where the pastor was staying to find
the barnyard filled with strange horses and oxen and vehicles of every
drawn up before the house. The settlers had been asked to a
service conducted by a real pastor and were treating the occasion like
a festival
Scandinavians are innately religious, but living as these Norwe-
did, miles from one another and on the outskirts of civilization,
they could rarely attend congregational services, and the celebration
of Holy Communion and baptism was possible only when a visiting
pastor came their way. Their enthusiasm was great and sincere. Each
family had brought food to contribute to the board, and the women
were bustling about, arranging the long tables the men set up, and
in excited Norwegian catching up with the news and gossip of the
frontier.
My mother s troubled heart had no room for festivity. She was
different even in speech, for she now spoke English far better than
she did Norwegian.
Deeper than these differences was another, because of something
that happened to her in Chicago when she was very young. This was
an unfortunate experience with a so-called Christian, outwardly a
OUR JERUSALEM 15
church pillar, inwardly mean. She had seen this person behave cruelly
to defenseless dependents who had no means of retaliation. She her
self had been subjected to his petty tyranny.
As so many others have before her, she blamed Christianity in
stead of the individual.
Since that time she had not attended church or Sunday school. She
had not prayed.
After the services she heard the pastor agreeing to remain one
more week so that he could drive around the country and baptize
the infants born since the last pastor had been there.
It was too late to return to Edward and the farm. No one was
driving that way, and fear of wolves and Indians kept her from start
ing out on foot alone.
The pastor drove off with departing guests, and my mother was
left with his family.
She found it consisted of a blind mother and a stepfather who
leered at her in a sinister way. The pair cooked, ate, slept in the one
enormous downstairs room, with a fireplace where the cooking was
done on cranes. The only other room was a dark and dirty attic into
which the blind woman led her.
In a corner Mother found a pile of straw. Worn out, she fell asleep.
She was wakened by something pawing her face and mumbling.
She could see nothing. She wanted to scream but could not. Then she
knew it was not an animal, for she caught incoherent mumbling in
Norwegian. She lay motionless, holding her breath, until the creature
shuffled away into another corner. She continued to lie on the straw,
stiff with cold and fear, after she heard it snoring in sleep.
Then Mother prayed.
"O God," she cried in her misery, "deliver me, and I will never
be discontented again."
Morning revealed a sleeping woman in the attic, looking more like
an animal than a human being. Mother learned that this was a de
mented stepsister of the pastor s. After breakfast the crazy girl ran
away into the woods, and there she remained until evening, when
hunger drove her back to the house and the plate of food set out for
her.
Mother felt that she could not endure another nigjit in the attic.
But the man in the downstairs room made gestured overtures to her
under the blind eyes of his wife, and Mother was afraid. She returned
to the attic and her demented roommate.
The girl, she found, was not dangerous. Mother spoke to her and
showed her kindness, and the girl responded with a pathetic grati
tude.
The week, Mother said, was spent in a veritable gehenna, but out
16 OUR JERUSALEM
of it came the resolve to reject despair which was to uphold her in
greater need.
Chicago, by contrast, was like a return to heaven. Mother s half-
sister, Mrs. Rachel Frederickson, welcomed her, and she returned to
her beloved music and voice training. She attended Dearborn Semi
nary and received tribute as a "brilliant scholar." She made friends
who remained stanch all their lives. Among them was Mary Morgan,
who married A. Halsey Miller, and Bertha Madison, who married
Div Johnson and moved to Paris, and who was to be an angel of
mercy to Mother after the tragedy that was to change my parents*
lives. Jessie Brass, whose father was lieutenant governor of the state
of Illinois, was also a Dearborn girl, and her friendship with Mother
was very close.
Another school friend, Jenny Simpson, tried to persuade her to
attend Sunday school.
"Our Sunday-school teacher is different," Jenny argued. "He does
not talk down to us. He gives us a chance to express our opinions,
and he loves an argument. Annie/* she begged, "it will do you good
to hear Mr. Spafford."
Mother was only fifteen, but she had lived through much, and in
dignity and mentality was developed far beyond her years. One of
her friends wrote this description of her as she was then:
Your mother had the bluest of eyes, and abundant fair hair, with beau
tifully molded mouth and chin, and very white and even teeth. Her ears
were so pretty they were often compared to seashelk. She had a merry,
kind, and affectionate disposition that won the hearts of many people,
tot she could be misdhievoes, too, with a keen smse of humor. Her
voice was lovely, and people predicted that when it was trained a great
future lay before her.
This was the young Annie Lawson who, worn down by argument,
consented to visit Horatio Spaffonfs Sunday-school class "just o&ce."
Father was attracted immediately to the lovely young Norwegian
girl. After her visit to his Sunday-school class he could not get her
out of his mind. He remembered how she looked one straight in the
eye as she spoke, and how she had taken her part in his classroom
arguments in a surprisingly intelligent manner.
He did not realize that Mother was only fifteen. He was fourteen
years her senior, but the discrepancy was not apparent, for she
seemed his equal in years.
"That is an unusual girl," he decided; "she must have had some
unique experience to be able to make such deep and searching com
ments."
OUR JERUSALEM 17
And he made up his mind to call on her sister, Mrs. Frederickson,
where he had learned Mother was staying, and find out for himself
who she was and what was the secret of her personality.
One year later he asked her to marry him.
Only then did he discover Mother s real age. He realized she was
too young to marry, and it was arranged that she should leave her
sister s home and for three years attend the Ferry Institute for Young
Ladies in Lake Forest, about twenty-eight miles from Chicago. It is
now known as Ferry Hall and a select school, as it was then.
Some years ago I visited Ferry Hall. I heard that the memory still
lived of Mother and the three years she spent there, and of the Bible
readings and discussion group she started while a student. I learned
that she was considered one of the school s outstanding alumnae. I
was privileged to address the scholars and tell them of Mother s life
after leaving, and of her work in America and Jerusalem.
After the talk we visited a house near by that had been one of the
dormitories in Mother s day* On a windowpane in one of the rooms
was scratched a heart, and inside it the initials, HS-AL. No one re
membered who had put them there, but the letters spoke volumes to
me. "Horatio Spafford-Anna Lawson." Mother scratched them there
with her engagement ring.
She wrote a letter from this school to Mrs. Ely. It is dated Decem
ber 6, 1860, and reads in part:
I wish you were acquainted with Mr. Spafford. He is a true, noble
man. I owe him a great deal, but still would not marry him merely from
gratitude.
I have often wondered what he could see in me to like, for I am so
simple and ignorant, while he is so strong and learned. I pray to God that
I may be worthy of him.
Father was considered one of the most promising young lawyers in
the city. He had family, social position, and money. Dowagers with
marriageable daughters resented his "picking up with a young girl
nobody knows, and foreign at that."
They were married on September 5, 1861, in the Second Presby
terian Church on the south side of Chicago. The young couple had
decided on a very quiet wedding. War was on between the North and
the South, and marriage in wartime must needs be simple. Announce
ments were sent to all their acquaintances, but only a few were asked
to attend the ceremony.
Father invited only his closest friends to the church, and Mother
her sister and several friends, one of them being Mrs. Lawson, who
18 OUR JERUSALEM
had been her confidant through many vicissitudes since her mother s
death, and whose son, the late Victor Lawson, was editor and owner
of the Chicago Daily News.
Mother s wedding dress was planned to be useful long after ^the
wedding day. It was a dark blue taffeta with a hooped skirt, tight
waist and overskirt, and with it she wore a small bonnet made of the
same dark material trimmed with tiny pink roses. Its turned-up brim
was lined with shirred pink chiffon, and Mother s friends who saw
her coming down the aisle that day have told me she was lovely.
Much to the amazement of the bride and groom, they found the
church filled with smiling people. It had been beautifully decorated
with white lowers and ferns. This surprise meant much to the young
couple.
From the church they had driven straight to the house at Lake
View.
Chicago had grown since Father began his career there.
A fact not commonly realized is the tremendous momentum given
the city by Cyras H. McCormick, inventor of the reaper that bears
his name, when he secured its patent and in 1845 built the first
McCormick factory on the site of the Du Sable and Kinzie cabin,
Chicago s first homestead.
The advent of railroads and mechanical farming implements put
an end to Chicago s isolation. By the time Lincoln became President,
Chicago was the crossroads of the continent and the exchange center
for thousands of miles of prairie harvestings, and the McCormick
factory was turning out more than 50,000 reapers a year.
Mr. McCormick, as more reapers sold and his wealth increased,
Ms influence to advance the religious, educational, and mer
cantile interests of expanding Chicago.
His offer in 1859 of one hundred thousand dollars to endow four
professorships in the failing New Albany Theological Seminary of
Indiana, on condition it was moved to Chicago, helped greatly in
bringing the school to Chicago under the amended name of The
Presbyterian Theological Seminary of the Northwest.
Father entered upon his duties with the seminary during its tur
bulent period, when feeling ran high over the matter of the McCor
mick chair.
He served as a director from 1867 to 1871 and from 1874 to
1876. He was a trustee from 1869 to 1870 and during that time
served as secretary to the board of trustees.
He financed several scholarships which helped a number of stu
dents through the seminary. Conspicuous among these was George G.
Stewart, class of 1879, who afterward became president of Auburn
OUR JERUSALEM 19
Theological Seminary in Auburn, New York, and whose son, George
Stewart, was twice acting president of the American University of
Beirut in Syria, otherwise, its treasurer.
Father had ardently supported Lincoln.
Mr. McCormick was Virginia born and his sympathies were
Southern.
His proffered endowment was for four chairs, of which only one,
that of theology, was to bear his name. Perhaps because of this there
was more argument over its occupancy than over any of the others.
Any candidate of abolitionist tendencies was opposed by Mr.
McCormick, who threatened to contest the board s demands for the
final payments on his endowment fund.
The Chicago Daily Tribune of December 2, 1868, commented:
Mr. McCormick will not, if he can prevent it, permit any man, who
contributed by word or deed to the abolition of human slavery, to edu
cate preachers of the Gospel.
By the time the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church met
in Philadelphia in 1869 the division between the two factions was
so clearly marked that two different reports were sent in.
Criticisms were written and circulated. "White papers" of defense
were published and sent broadcast. Every religious paper of the
period contained articles on the subject.
Father was sent to Philadelphia as one of the majority group of
"new friends" of the seminary, to plead before the Assembly the
special cause: that those who had given most to the seminary wanted
to wield most authority in proportion to their gifts.
The opposing group of "old friends," or McCormick faction, let
intimations go forth during the conclave that the properties Mr.
McCormick had set aside to pay the promised endowment were not
paying so well as heretofore, which would, they hinted, explain why
his promised donations had been withheld.
As soon as Father heard this, he telegraphed his friend Mr. Ker-
foot, a prominent real estate dealer in Chicago, to find out exactly
what the property brought in. When Father rose to make his speech
he held the answer in his hand the property s income was undimiix-
ished. At one point he urged that Mr. McCormick be told either to
cease using his money as a means of bringing the institution to terms,
or to "cast it into the sea."
The decision was reached by the General Assembly, according to
the History of McCormick Seminary by Halsey, by "releasing him
[Mr. McCormick] from the bond which he refuses to regard as bind
ing, established a vastly momentous principle. The civil courts have
since, in defining and regulating trusts, acted upon the general prin-
20 OUR JERUSALEM
ciples of this ecclesiastical decision. A trust, like a promise, must in
law and moral be interpreted as the maker understood it, and sup
posed the one to whom it was made understood it."
Terms were drawn up, recommending that "bygones be bygones,
and no further controversy respecting past issues be indulged in,
that Dr. Lord, opposed by Mr. McCormick, retain the chair, and that
Mr. McCormick be released from the fourth installment of his bond."
Signed, "this third day of November, 1869, by D. C. Marquis and
H. G. Spafford."
So the feud ended, and years later the handsome seminary in the
heart of Chicago took the McCormick name.
Through all the contentions and controversies Mr. McCormick
and Father continued to be the best of friends.
Father was a man of independent character, thought, and action.
He made up his mind about what was right and acted according to
his conscience.
Cyrus McCormick was equally outspoken and independent. The
two men could radically differ in opinion, attack each other on dis
puted questions, but otherwise respect each other.
The year before the Great Chicago Fire the famous "Noon Prayer
Meeting" was started in Chicago by Mr. Dwight L. Moody. Busi
ness and professional men met every noon for a few minutes of de
votional inspiration and rest. Father was helpful in getting it started.
He was a fervent believer in prayer. I have been told by Chicagoans
that it was owing to him that it got started, but I know Father would
be the last to accept such credit. It really was a spontaneous crying
out in many persons as the result of spiritual hunger.
The remarkable part is that the noon prayer meeting is still func
tioning.
At this time Mr. Moody was in debt, selling shoes for his self-
support and preaching when he could spare the time. Father was one
of his supporters, and so was the head of the shoeshop. The manner
in which they helped pay Mr. Moody s debts so that he could devote
his full time to preaching is revealed in Father s notebook.
When my parents later took the decisive step and went to Jeru
salem they left their home and all their possessions. Everything was
lost. A few letters, papers, and notebooks of only sentimental value
were all that were left of those early years in Chicago. It is from
these, remembered conversations with Father and Mother and their
friends, and pages in Father s irregularly kept diary saved from the
Chicago Fire, that I have been able to present events and persons
that influenced my parents then. In the notebook, in Father s hand
writing, is a resolution, signed by himself and a number of his as-
OUR JERUSALEM 21
sociates, which explains how Mr. Moody got some of the money
which, as Mr. Moody says, "God made him steward of:
We, the undersigned, hereby agree to give during the year 1870 the
sum set opposite our names respectively towards the salary of Mr. D. L.
Moody. Such subscriptions to be paid in quarterly installments in ad
vance, commencing Jan. 1st, 1870.
It is interesting to note that among the other contributors are the
names of Mr. C. M. Henderson, Mr. E. W. Blatchford, and Mr. S.
M. Moore.
Mr. Henderson was the proprietor of the wholesale boot and shoe
house where Mr. Moody was working, and from which he was now
being rescued.
Mr. Blatchford was the father of Mrs. Howard Bliss, whose hus
band was the second president of the American University of Beirut,
Lebanon, and of Edward Blatchford, who came to Jerusalem as
representative of the Near East Relief after World War I and was
later attached to the Consulate General of the United States.
Mr. Moore was the father of Mrs. Gates, whose husband was for
many years the president of Robert College at Istanbul, Turkey.
I also have a long letter in Mr. Moody s handwriting, written from
Dundee, Scotland, to Major Whittle, who handed it on to Father, as
part of it concerned him. Mr. Moody was expressing the hope that
Father could help Major Whittle settle his debts as he had helped
Mr. Moody settle his in 1870. The letter, written in Mr. Moody s
fervid strain, and without a single mark of punctuation, reads in
part:
Dundee January 30th 1874
MY DEAR WHITTLE
I am anxious to hear from you and to know your decision of the mat
ter that Sp afford was to see you about I sent $500 yesterday to Mr Hoi-
den and if you decide to give up business you can have that at once that
will help you pay off some of your debts and if Spafford will take the
other 2500 the latter part of the year all right and if he cannot do it
without cramping him I will do so for five years My prayers have been
that you might be a free man like myself but I never could see how you
could do it until you got out of debt and how that was to be done I could
not tell but now I see it all launch out my brother into the dark God
has made me a steward at least of a little money and I can do as I please
with it ... Remember me to my friends and tell them I would like to
see them especially Spafford and his dear wife I cannot tell you how I
love them Much [remember?] me to Cole I am so thankful God is using
him
Yours with a heart full of love
D. L. MOODY
22 OUR JERUSALEM
This letter and the notebook agreement give an idea of the close
ness of the ties of friendship between Father and Mr. Moody and
the other evangelists who were associates at this time.
Father s life was profoundly influenced by this early association
with Mr. Moody, and later Mr. Ira D. Sankey and Major Whittle,
Major Cole, Dr. Pentecost, Mr. P. P. Bliss, Mr. George C. Stebbins,
and others of that illustrious group who have gone down in history
as the builders of American Christian evangelism.
The group of evangelists and musicians who gathered about Mr.
Moody often met at our home in Lake View for conferences and
discussions.
Another family friend was Miss Frances E. Willard of Evanston,
Illinois, who was president of the National Women s Christian Tem
perance Union. Father had strong ideas on temperance. Once, in a
discussion with her on the subject, Father said he fervently believed
in it.
"Then why don t you join us?" she asked.
"Because," Father explained, "you advocate temperance and prac
tice total abstinence."
Not long before the Great Chicago Fire, at one of the Moody Noon
Prayer Meetings, Father prayed that God would "baptize us with the
Holy Spirit and Fire." After the holocaust he received criticism.
When I heard about it, many years later, I remarked that at least his
critics gave Father credit that his prayers were answered.
My four "little sisters" loved Mr. Moody, and in later years the
great evangelist told of the time Annie and Maggie expressed their
wish to join the church. This was an unusual request for such young
children, and Mr. Moody thought them too young to understand. So
he took them aside and separately questioned them concerning the
dogmas of the church and their obligations as members of the Chris
tian community.
Then he led them to the minister. "These children know more
than I do," Mr. Moody said. "They are quite prepared to join."
They were deeply religious little girls, but to them, as to my par
ents, religion was a matter of joy and not of gloom, as was too often
the result of religious teachings iu that day. They were happy chil
dren, and lived a normal childhood.
They had their hair cut short; this was one of Father s idiosyn
crasies, which the girls hated, because it made them peculiar and
unlike other children. I know from experience, for I, too, had short
hair like an Eton crop, until I was ten years old. There is nothing a
child so hates as to be "different." But Father thought it was sanitary,
cool, and less trouble, as modern people have come to realize To
satisfy their craving for long hair they contrived to make wigs of
OUR JERUSALEM 23
some material, tied with bright rags to represent the coveted hair-
ribbons.
Their favorite game was acting bits of history, into which they drew
the neighbor children and Cousin Rob, when he was home from
boarding school during the holidays. In Father s gifts of history-
books, especially those of England and Scotland, they read about the
executions of so many of their favorite characters, Annie prayed one
night:
"Dear God, don t let Maggie or me ever be queens, but only
princesses."
Cousin Rob, as we called him, was Robert Eugene Lawrence,
Aunt Eureka s son.
Eureka, Father s sister, was born at the moment when my grand
father s spirit was exalted because of one of his discoveries. I always
understood that it was the fact that tomatoes were edible. He may
have tried the experiment on himself it would have been like him
and his elation was the greater because he had survived.
Aunt Eureka died in our home in Lake View in 1870, 1 think. On
her deathbed she implored Father and Mother to take Robert and
bring him up as their own. He was a brilliant boy and as close to
them as a son.
Also in this year 1870 Father made a four-months business trip
to the British Isles.
In his notebook are notes about the Franco-Prussian War, still
unsettled, and he ponders over "the striking incapacity of the French
people to allow 500,000 Prussians to completely subjugate all
France."
He was impressed by the fact that Saturday was a half-holiday
in England, a custom which had not yet penetrated the United States,
and by the outspoken sincerity of the British press. He ordered
English newspapers and periodicals for his family and friends, and
bought many books. He met and admired the great English non-con
formist preacher, Dr. Spurgeon.
In Edinburgh he met Professor Piazza Smith, F.R.S.E., F.R.A,S.,
Astronomer Royal for Scotland, a meeting that changed the destinies
of many people, including Father s.
The British-Israelite theory that the Anglo-Saxon people are
descendants of the lost tribes of Israel was the topic of the hour in
religious circles and Dr. Smith was a leading apostle.
Dr. Smith and his wife had recently returned from Egypt, where
24 OUR JERUSALEM
for four months they had resided on Pyramid Hill at Geza. With a
variety of surveying and astronomical instruments Dr. Smith meas
ured the Great Pyramid, using the inch. According to him each
measurement of the passages, chambers, and galleries indicated a
historical event or prophecy and elucidated many mysteries referred
to cryptically in the Bible.
Dr. Smith believed that Isaiah was referring to the Great Pyramid
when he said:
In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land
of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord.
And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto the Lord of Hosts . . .
Dr. Smith returned to Edinburgh convinced that the Great Pyra
mid of Geza was built by divine inspiration, and that the world pos
sessed in it a "monument of inspiration," as it had long possessed
a "book of inspiration," in the Bible, Academic archaeology, Dr.
Smith went on to say, did not accept his theory.
Such a study could lead into a labyrinth that has no end, but it
opened up a new vista to Father. This chance meeting with Dr. Smith
instilled in him an interest in the prophecies of the Old Testament
and the prophetic significance of the ancient pyramid. It was this,
I think, that largely influenced Father and Mother, after the founda
tions of their lives had been shaken by tragedy, to turn to the Holy
Land and a study of its prophecies.
Years later Dr. Smith and his wife returned to the Holy Land and
visited Father and Mother.
A short time after Father s return Mr. Moody went to England
and Scotland, where his genius as an evangelist was fully recognized.
Nothing like the resultant revival wave had ever been known, and no
one born in Chicago can fail to be proud that it started there, in a
city too often made notorious.
In its wide sweep the revival caught up men as different as Henry
Morehouse, Professor Henry Drummond, James Keir Hardie, Dr.,
later Sir, Wilfred Grenfell, and C. T. Studd.
In London Mr. Moody addressed an "acre of people" three times
a day.
Leaders in all the churches showed sympathetic interest in the
Moody work and many of them actively co-operated.
Moody and Sankey hymns were on every lip.
Sir George Adams Smith wrote of the Moody and Sankey revival:
The present generation does not know how large it was and with what
results upon the life of our nation.
OUR JERUSALEM 25
George C. Stebbins wrote in his memoirs that in Dundee, Scotland,
two clowns tried to make sport of the Moody and Sankey meetings
then in process.
"I feel Moody tonight," one clown said, and the other retorted,
"Well, I feel Sankeymonious."
The audience did not laugh. Instead, it rose to a man and burst
into the hymn "Hold the fort for I am coming."
Mr. Moody s trumphant tour of England and Scotland won him
a vaster appreciation in his own country.
He became the greatest exponent of Protestantism s leading tenets
of that day, based on belief in a God given to swift and everlasting
punishments meted out to all sinners, and all mankind, alas, as sin
ners born. Mr. Moody was converting uncounted thousands by
what he called the process of "shaking people over hell to make them
good."
But Father and Mother were slowly coming to believe that God s
love was so great it took in every created thing, and that no one was
so wicked but that he might eventually be saved. Father s legal mind
reached the conclusion that if God were love, as the Bible said, then
surely that love must extend to all.
This belief is accepted now, but it was controversial in the 1870s.
It was not in accord with Mr. Moody s preaching. It was, in fact,
dangerously close to heresy.
Mr. Moody s habit, according to one writer, was to "preach the
wrath of God against sinners." But another evangelist wrote later:
"Mr. Moody himself mellowed in his conception of shaking people
over hell to make them good. " He, too, would teach that "God is
love."
But Father, as usual, was ahead of his time. As always he was
frank in expressing his new convictions. As his belief in the goodness
and forgiveness of God became more concrete and could be put
into words, he discovered in his friends a growing opposition to his
theory.
Still, it was only a cloud "as big as a man s hand" on his otherwise
clear sky.
The winter following the Great Fire was one of poverty and suffer
ing to many in Chicago. A huge organization was instituted for the
distribution of relief. Money, food, and clothing were given by more
fortunate citizens, and their donations were augmented by sympa
thizers from all over the United States, Canada, the British Isles,
and the continent of Europe.
To distribute relief the city was divided into sections and a com
mittee appointed for each quarter. Father and Mother worked on the
26 OUR JERUSALEM
Relief and Aid Committees and put into them all their resourceful
ness and strength.
Years later, in 1917, when Jerusalem was delivered by the victo
rious British Army, and General Allenby, as the late Field Marshal
Lord Allenby was then called, appointed me to the Relief Commit
tee to alleviate suffering in the Holy City., it was Mother s experience
and her advice that enabled me to organize a "setup" similar to that
of the Great Fire, that made successful our work in Jerusalem. I
divided Jerusalem into sections, had investigators report to me and
relief administered, all according to the plan Father and Mother had
followed in helping start relief work in the still-smouldering ruins of
Chicago.
Father was a stanch supporter of the Y.M.C.A., and assisted ma
terially in the erection of the new building in Chicago after the Fire.
In the minutes of the Board of Managers of the Chicago Y.M.C.A.
there are many mentions of Father s active work for the Association
up until 1881, when he left for Palestine. Often I have heard Father
and Mother tell of incidents relating to the Marine Hospital that was
situated very near our home in Lake View. Under the auspices of
the Y.M.C.A. Father conducted religious meetings for the sailors,
and Mother and my sisters did what they could to bring sunshine into
their drab lives. The little girls carried fruit and flowers on their
visits to the hospital.
Life continued pleasantly in the Lake View cottage despite some
what straitened financial conditions and Mother s failure to regain
complete health because of the fright and hardship she had endured
during the Fire which came so soon after the birth of Tanetta.
Perhaps memories of the Fire wakened in Mother a dread of being
separated from any or all of her family, even for a short time,
although her health demanded rest and change.
One reason for this need was Aunty Sims. Since her arrival on
the mattress the morning of the Great Fire, Aunty Sims had vowed
never to leave Mother, and Mother never had the heart to send her
away. Like the "simples in the Garden of Allah" Mother collected
later in Jerusalem, Aunty Sims stayed on and on, and was part of
the household, and utterly devoted to it and Mother, which made it
more difficult to ask her to go. She was older than Mother, but was
as dependent upon her as a child.
Aunty Sims had a husband somewhere, but he had treated her
badly, and she was suing for divorce. Evidently Father was giving her
advice, as I have notes he made on her case. Mr. Sims, however, was
not to be found, and Aunty Sims had no means of support.
Aunty Sims used to say that if God forgave her husband and he
went to heaven, then she did not want to go there.
OUR JERUSALEM 27
Sometimes Mother would rebuke her for dwelling so much on her
sorrow and being so unforgiving.
"Oh, it s all very well for you to talk," Aunty Sims would retort.
"You have a splendid husband, lovely, healthy children, a beautiful
home; it is easy to be grateful and good when you have everything
you want. But look out," she would say, pointing a long finger at
Mother, "that you are not a fair-weather friend to God!"
That warning returned to Mother all too soon.
Dear Aunty Sims, so dreaded and so loved. She made herself use
ful. She mended and sewed. The little girls were devoted to her, for
she had a fund of stories with which she amused and entertained
them. Once, when Aunty Sims finally did go away, and Mother was
feeling gratified that she had managed the departure successfully
without hurting Aunty Sims* feelings, the little girls all prayed that
"Jesus would please let Aunty Sims come back," and Mother had an
intuition, yea, even an apprehension, that their prayer would be
answered.
It was not long before Aunty Sims was back, and installed at Lake
View for good.
She was one of the reasons the family doctor advised a "change"
for Mother. Dr. Hedges realized that going away without her family
only aggravated Mother s condition, and she could not be happy with
out them, so he advised Father to take the entire family on a trip to
Europe.
Since his own trip three years before Father had been looking for
ward to showing Mother the museums, art galleries, and all the
haunts he had so enjoyed. It would be a costly journey, and the land
investment he and his friends had made just before the Great Fire
and the loss of his law office in the Fire had left Father rather heavily
in debt. But he pursuaded himself that his wife s health was more
important, and they planned for months, and finally all their plans
were complete. They would go first to France, where they had many
friends, and then on to Switzerland. Reservations were made for
Maggie and Annie in a girls school there, and Mile. Nicolet, the
French governess, would lodge near by with Bessie and baby Tanetta.
Mile. Nicolet was a charming woman, of a noble Huguenot family,
and had become a companion to Mother as well as governess to the
girls. After they were settled in Switzerland Father and Mother
planned to go away by themselves for several months of European
travel, a sort of second honeymoon.
Cousin Rob was doing well in boarding school and it was con
sidered advisable to leave him there. Aunty Sims went to stay with
Mother s sister, Aunt Rachel.
28 OUR JERUSALEM
Reservations were made on the most luxurious ship then afloat
the French liner S.S. Ville du Havre.
Just before they left Chicago Father had an offer from a man who
wanted to buy part of the land in which he had invested so disas
trously before the Great Fire.
He could not afford to forego such an important offer. The sale
would relieve the partners of almost all their indebtedness and enable
Father to take his family to Europe without anxiety.
It was decided that their plans should not be entirely postponed.
Mother, the children, and Mile. Nicolet would sail on the Ville du
Havre and Father would join them later in France.
Four French pastors who had been in the United States attending
an evangelical alliance conference were returning to France on the
Ville du Havre. One was the Rev. M. Lorriaux, whose sister had
formerly been governess for my sisters at Lake View. Father asked
Pastor Loniaux if he would look after Mother and her brood, and it
was finally decided they should stay in the quiet village of Bertry,
near Paris, where the Lorriaux family lived, until Father came.
Then, to Mother s great joy, her dear friend and neighbor, Mrs.
Goodwin, with her three children, Goertner, Julia, and Lulu, decided
to go to Europe on the same ship. Also, Mother was asked to take
"under her wing" Willie Culver, the son of other friends, who was
being sent on a visit to his grandparents in Germany. Willie, Goert
ner, and Annie were about the same age, and the other little girls
enjoyed playing together, so it was a merry and companionable group
of twelve that left Chicago in November 1873.
| Father went with the party as far as New York.
Aboard the Ville du Havre, just before sailing time, for no reason
he could ever determine, Father went to the purser and asked to have
the two cabins that Mother, Mile. Nicolet, and the four children were
to occupy changed to two others more toward the bow of the ship.
He said afterward that he fought against the conviction that he must
change them, not wishing to be troublesome, and also because he had
no real complaint to make. He had chosen them himself, carefully,
weeks before. But the feeling was so strong that he could not throw
it off, and at almost the last minute he changed the rooms.
Just before he bade his family farewell a telegram was handed
Father, stating that the man who had been about to buy the Chicago
property had suddenly died of heart failure.
He put the telegram in his pocket. He could not depress Mother
with this disconcerting news just as she was about to start out on her
first voyage without him. Mother had been reluctant to go to Europe
since she found Father could not accompany them, and Maggie
OUR JERUSALEM 29
evidently shared this feeling. Maggie adored her mother so much she
dreaded being separated from her even for a night, but she had been
willing to stay at home alone and in fact begged to be left behind.
She must have had a strange foreboding, for when my sorrow
ing parents returned to their silent home they found a little note
written by Maggie and left in the children s play post office in one
of the tall elm trees:
Goodbye, dear sweet Lake View. I will never see you again.
MAGGIE SPAFFORD
CHAPTER THREE
THE evening of November 21, 1873, found the Ville du Havre,
according to Captain Sunnount s report, prow east for France on a
calm Atlantic, which was good news for everyone aboard. There
had been a sharp squall off the coast of Newfoundland that gave most
of the passengers a few seasick hours. But now there was no motion,
and the calm was so complete that Mother said later she found it
difficult to realize they were on the sea. The weather was clear and
it was too early to fear icebergs.
The Ville du Havre was living up to its reputation as the foremost
pleasure ship of the seas. The bouquets of flowers were still fresh in
the large and sumptuous dining room, where Pastor Lorriaux, at
dinner, was teaching Mother French from the menu in preparation
for her stay in France.
The Rev. Emil Cook, another of the four French pastors, had
organized a Sunday-school class among the many children aboard.
The children themselves chose their first hymn: "I Want to Be an
Angel. *
After dinner Mother helped Mile. Nicolet put the four little
daughters to bed and rejoined her friends in the magnificent saloon.
All the children had left for the night, but the young people returned
from their after-dinner deck promenade and began organizing games.
Another of the French pastors, Pastor Weiss, proposed a walk on
deck, and Mother accepted.
Pastor Weiss was to write a small book, in French, a copy of which
has come into my possession. It is his account of this last night on
the Ville du Havre. He tells how Mother and he walked the deck
and of their conversation. The stars were unusually bright and the
mantle of night diamond-studded, and although the moon did not
shine, the air was transparent and clear. Mother remarked on the
beauty of the night. Then she told him she had been very sad at
the separation from her husband and home even for so short a time
He reassured her. Only a few weeks, he said, and Father would
be with her, and meantime she would be in France, where so many
were waiting to welcome her.
OUR JERUSALEM 31
"I know all this," she admitted, "and I have struggled against my
feelings."
About two o clock that morning, November 22, the Vitte du Havre
was carrying its sleeping passengers over a quiet sea when two
terrific claps, like thunder, were followed by frightening screams. The
engines stopped and the ship stood still. The passageways filled with
terrified, half-dressed people shouting questions no one could answer.
Mother and Mile. Nicolet threw on dressing gowns, drew some
clothing over the children, and ran on deck. Mother carried Tanetta,
a big, healthy girl, more than two years old. They were among the
first passengers to reach the deck. Pastor Lorriaux hurried across the
dark deck to meet them.
"That must be the vessel that struck us," he exclaimed.
Several hundred yards away, to starboard of the Ville du Havre,
towered the masted silhouette of a great iron sailing vessel. This ship
that had rammed theirs and was itself badly damaged was the English
Lochearn, Captain Robertson in command.
I have a copy of the famous Currier and Ives print that tried to
portray the awfulness of this scene. Ships and sea were lighted only
by the stars, but the Ville du Havre and Lochearn were like great
wounded beasts caught in angry troughs of sea created by their
struggles. Aboard the decks was indescribable confusion. Captain
Surmount appeared on the bridge of the Ville du Havre and began
shouting orders. Some of the officers and men were struggling on
the afterdeck to loosen the lifeboats but they could not detach them,
for it was only then discovered that everything aboard the beautiful
pleasure ship was newly painted and stuck fast. By this time crowds
of passengers, in nightdresses or scantily attired, were crowding
about the boats or trying to extricate the life preservers suspended
along the taffrail, but these, too, were stuck fast.
The sailors kept shouting that there was no danger, and all were
to keep calm, but the passengers ran about frantically, fighting to
reach the lifeboats. Curses, yells, and hysterical screaming made the
deck a bedlam. Some people dropped to their knees and began pray
ing.
Everything was happening so quickly, in such confusion, that it
seemed impossible all this took place in a few seconds.
Tanetta was heavy, and Annie put her shoulder under Mother s
elbow to help lift her weight. Maggie and Bessie stood pressed against
Mother. Mile. Nicolet and Willie Culver were there, and Pastor Lor
riaux stood guard over the little group.
Then Maggie saw Pastor Weiss on deck and ran to him.
"You will stay with us, won t you?" she pleaded.
He promised he would. Then he noticed she was shivering with
32 OUR JERUSALEM
cold. He said lie would get some clothing, if Pastor Lorriaux would
keep the little group together and try to get them to a lifeboat. Pastor
Weiss ran below and seized his own overcoat and some shawls and
wraps for the children. As he came back through the passageway he
saw Pastor Cook standing there in his nightshirt, looking dazed.
"Why are you not dressed?" he demanded.
"Our stateroom was smashed in," Cook answered. "How I am
saved I cannot say. I helped a woman look for her children under the
rubbish and found the water rising fast/
By this they knew that the Ville du Havre had been struck on the
starboard athwart the mainmast. The staterooms Father had insisted
on changing were the first to catch the crushing blow of the iron ship,
and their unfortunate occupants were the first on the Ville du Havre
to die.
The hysteria mounted on deck. Hundreds were fighting and crowd
ing to reach the inadequate boats. Several clung to deck settees which
later saved their lives. Two or three succeeded in wresting life pre
servers from the paint, donned them, and flung themselves into the
sea. Willie Culver was last seen trying to loosen the ropes of a life
belt with his penknife.
Mrs. Goodwin and her children did not reach the deck. They were
never seen again.
The ship s doctor, a kind and devoted man, ran below to care
for the wounded trapped in their staterooms, and died with them.
Mother told me that in the space of a few seconds she was forced
through a spiritual struggle. She and the children, being the first to
reach the deck, were nearest a lifeboat being freed, but others,
scrambling, pushed her little group back. Was she doing right, she
wondered, to permit her children to be beaten back by people whose
frantic desire to save themselves left them without mercy? Should
she not fight for her children s lives, if not for her own?
At that moment the ship shuddered, the screaming grew, the con
fusion became more terrifying. Pastor Weiss thought there were too
many people on their side of the ship.
"Huriy to the other side!" he shouted, just as the mainmast crashed
down carrying with it the mizzen, and the two boats over which there
had been so much struggle were carried overboard together with all
those struggling to free them and those who had fought their way in.
Mother and Pastor Lorriaux were both hurt, but slightly, and Mother,
hearing the heartrending death screams from the water, knew that
if she had "stood for her rights" she would have perished with those
who fought hardest to live.
The Ville du Havre was sinking rapidly. Mother knew this was
OUR JERUSALEM 33
the end; she knew, too, it was not hard to die. She thought of Father
with anguish, then, "he would rather think of me with the children."
That gave her courage.
The great ship careened to starboard. The water was very near.
There was a moment of awful silence as the deck slid lower to meet
the sea.
Little Maggie was holding Pastor Weiss s hand. She looked up into
his face.
"Pray," she begged.
"God help us," he responded.
There was another loud crash as the bow broke from the ship and
sank. Maggie, who until this moment had been terrified, dropped Mr.
Weiss s hand and went to Mother. She was suddenly calm and un
afraid. Tanetta, her arms around Mother s neck, was quiet. Annie
was still helping Mother support her, and Bessie, silent and pale,
clutched Mother s knees. Mile. Nicolet, the two pastors, Mother,
and her little girls stood quietly together.
As Maggie stepped beside Mother she lifted her dark eyes.
"Mama, God will take care of us." Then little Annie said, "Don t be
afraid. The sea is His and He made it."
The sea rushed over the afterdeck as a watery canyon opened to
receive the vast ruin of the Ville du Havre. The little group went
down together, with all on that crowded deck and all those trapped
below into blackness whose depth stretched many miles, into a whirl
pool created by suction of bodies, wreckage, and savage water. Only
twelve minutes after the Ville du Havre was struck it sank with all on
board.
As Mother was pulled down she felt her baby torn violently from
her arms. She reached out through the water and caught Tanetta s
little gown. For a moment she held her again, then the cloth
wrenched from her hand. She reached out again and touched a man s
leg in corduroy trousers.
Once in Jerusalem, when I was a child and we were very poor,
someone gave me a little corduroy coat. Mother was pleased that I
had a warm coat to wear, for winters are cold in Jerusalem, but I saw
the agony on her face. She could never touch that material without
reliving the moment of helpless anguish when she felt her baby
drawn from her hands by the power of the Atlantic, and reached for
her again and felt the corduroy.
The splash of an oar brought her to consciousness. She was lying in
a boat, bruised from head to foot and sick with sea water, her long
hair heavy with salt and her thick dressing gown in ribbons. She knew,
with no need of being told, that her children were gone.
34 OUR JERUSALEM
From a watch one of the passengers carried, that stopped when the
ship sank, they estimated that Mother had been in the sea for an hour.
She had been rolled under and down, and as she rose unconscious
to the surface a plank floated under her, saving her life.
The English sailors of the Lochearn were patrolling the littered
waters in their smallboats, saving all they could of the survivors of the
ship their own had sent to the bottom of the sea. Only drifting frag
ments were left of the once magnificent Ville du Havre.
A few minutes later the same boat that rescued Mother picked up
Captain Surmount. He had been thrown from the bridge of his sink
ing ship. Aboard the Lochearn she found Pastor Weiss and Pastor
Lorriaux. Mile. Nicolet was among those lost.
Pastor Lorriaux could not swim, but he caught first a bit of wreck
age and then a life preserver, and finally something like a raft which
must have been a fragment of ship s flooring. While clinging to
this he saw a log floating near by to which ten or fifteen people were
clinging. A boat passed them but was too full to stop, and when it had
hoisted its rescued to the Lochearn deck and hurried back, the log had
gone down with all who had clung to it.
Pastor Lorriaux divided his time between Mother and his friend
Pastor Blanc, who was picked up unconscious, covered with blood
from many wounds, and nearly paralyzed. Some of Pastor Blanc s
ribs were broken and he had great difficulty in breathing. Pastor
Cook was picked up later.
No sooner was she aboard the Lochearn than Mother was told that
two of her little girls, which ones she never knew, had come up in the
sea near a man to whom they clung. He told them to hold to his coat,
for he swam well and hoped to save them. First the smaller one
relaxed and disappeared, and he had nearly reached a boat when the
other child sank.
When Mother heard this, it was with difficulty that Pastor Lorriaux
prevented her from throwing herself after them into the sea.
She knew her children were gone, but she could not forbear hoping.
As each boatload was hoisted aboard the Lochearn she joined the
others who ran to scan the newly rescued relatives or friends. There
were parents who met their children and embraced silently and long.
There were others who turned silently away. Poor Mother was one
of these; still, as each boatload came she sought her four little girls.
The night stayed clear, and from the Lochearn s deck the rescued
could scan every particle of floating debris. Under the direction of
Captain Robertson of the Lochearn sailors continued to ply their
"boats over the scene of the disaster, without a thought of fatigue or
even pausing to rest or eat. There were shouts of finds and of salva
tion, and over all, on the Lochearn, the tragic sound of lamentation.
OUR JERUSALEM 35
Captain Surmount stood silent and apart on the deck, staring at
the calm sea where his beautiful ship had been lost.
The sailors on deck were busy dressing wounds and helping
restore the unconscious. They distributed warm drinks and whatever
clothing they could scrape together. Some nearly stripped themselves
trying to cover the rescued.
The cries for help that at first had come from every direction
were growing fainter. The icy waters were crushing out the lives of
the last survivors swept beyond range of the rescue crews.
One succeeded in holding his wife on the surface until a boat
reached them, and just as he was helping her into it, his heart failed,
and he died.
Another reached a boat just as a woman did. Fright crazed him,
and when the sailors forced him to let the woman into the boat they
found he had gone raving mad and was trying to bite.
A feeble cry was heard from a young girl struggling in the seal A
bloody gash across her face had been made by a man when she came
close to a plank he was holding. From another direction came pierc
ing, insistent cries from a little girl clinging to a piece of wood. "I
don t want to be drowned," she was screaming. They were able
to pick her up the only child saved. As the last boat was returning
with the last survivors the sailors saw a woman rise from the sea hold
ing a child in her arms. They tried to reach her, but she did not reap
pear.
Again and again the Lochearn s boats went out, but no more sur
vivors were found.
By this time it was nearly four in the morning.
The stars were still brilliant, and the skies clear, as they had been
since the beautiful sunset the evening before. If the night had been
stormy, not a soul could have been saved from the Ville du Havre.
Gradually the heart-rending sounds of affliction aboard the
Lochearn gave way to the softer tones of mourning as the last hopes
were replaced by sorrowful reality. Everybody had lost someone, and
some families were totally wiped out.
Over the weeping was heard the tranquil murmur of the Atlantic,
as if nothing had happened to disturb its calm. The sea looked so
placid that it was difficult to realize that it had just annihilated one
of the largest steamers afloat, and engulfed, as if in play, two hundred
and twenty-six lives.
The Ville du Havre had been manned by Captain Surmount and a
crew of one hundred and seventy-two officers and men. When Captain
Robertson of the Lochearn completed the two-hours search after the
collision, his men had picked up six officers and twenty-three of the
crew, twenty-eight passengers, ten of them women, seventeen men,
36 OUR JERUSALEM
and the little girl, nine years old, making a total of fifty-seven saved.
The figures, so sadly eloquent, give no idea of the heartbreaking
realization brought by this reckoning.
They extinguished Mother s last hope.
Among reports later spread about Mother was one that she claimed
supernatural experiences while fighting to save her life under the sea.
I found a scrap of paper on which she wrote the following words:
I had no vision during the struggle in the water at the time of the
shipwreck, only the conviction that any earnest soul, brought face to face
with its maker, must have; I realized that my Christianity must be real.
There was no room here for self-pity, or for the practice of that Chris
tianity that always favours and condones itself and its own, rendering
innocuous the sharp two-edged sword of the Word which was intended
to separate soul from spirit and the desires and thoughts and intents of
the heart. This soft religion was as far removed from Christ s practice
of Christianity as east from west. Nothing but a robust Christianity
could save me then and now. . . .
Mother told me, long after, that when she came back to conscious
ness in the boat and knew she had been recalled to life, that her first
realization was complete despair. How could she face life without her
children? Horrible as was her physical suffering, her mental anguish
was worse. Her life had been bound up in her little girls. What was
life worth now, and what could it ever be without them?
Then, she told me, it was as if a voice spoke to her. "You are
spared for a purpose. You have work to do."
In that moment of returning consciousness she lifted her soul to
God in an agony of despair and humbly dedicated her life to His
service.
One of the first thoughts that came to her was a memory of Aunty
Sims, pointing her finger and saying: "It s easy to be grateful and good
when you have so much, but take care that you are not a f air-weather
friend to God!" That phrase repeated itself in Mother s mind. She
thought, "I won t be a fair-weather friend to God. I will trust Him,
and someday I ll understand."
The shipwreck of the Ville du Havre would remain one of the un
explained tragedies of the sea and its greatest disaster up until the
sinking of the Lusitania. It was never determined what actually hap
pened. There seemed no reason for the collision. Captain Robertson
sighted the great steamer long in advance from the Lochearn, for it
was, as has been said before, a clear night of starlight and calm.
Sailing vessels were always given the right of way.
OUR JERUSALEM 37
It will never be known whether the officer who had taken Captain
Surmount s place on the bridge gave the order to stop, or if the order,
once given, was badly executed, for he went down with the ship.
Captain Robertson did not realize at once that his ship had cut the
Ville du Havre almost in two. Had he known six or seven minutes
earlier how serious conditions were aboard the Ville du Havre, he said
later, he could have rendered much more effective help. But he under
stood from Captain Surmount s shouted French that the steamer was
not badly injured.
Captain Robertson said it was only twelve minutes from the time
the ships rammed until the steamer sank, but the saving of the sur
vivors took more than two hours.
He carried out the rescue work from a dangerously damaged ship.
In fact, he expected the Lochearn to sink immediately after the col
lision and was astonished when it did not, for the bowsprit was de
molished.
The fact that his damaged vessel was able to keep afloat encouraged
Captain Robertson to think it was strong enough to resist the pressure
of the sea, and that by the use of pumps he might bring her safely to
harbor. Because she had no cargo, the Lochearn sat high out of the
water and the holes in her prow were above the sea line, while the
watertight bulkhead prevented the water from forcing its way into the
hold. But it was soon apparent the Lochearn was in danger.
The flag of distress was run up. This is generally the ship s national
flag in this case the English flown upside down.
For a second time the survivors of the Ville du Havre faced death,
this time with their rescuers.
In these days of radio and wireless it is hard to realize the anxious
watching these poor people had to endure with only a flag to indicate
their plight. But it was only a matter of hours before a small ship was
seen approaching under full sail.
Twenty times I have crossed the Atlantic, once by air, and I know
how rare the meeting with a ship can be and how seldom one is
sighted on that vast expanse of water. Yet here, within the space of
a few hours, three ships came together at a given point, and the
arrival of that stout little sailing vessel, the Trimountain, commanded
by Captain Urquhart, in time to rescue the survivors of the ship
wrecked Ville du Havre and the threatened Lochearn was held to be
then and must still be considered one of the miracles of the sea,
Never shall I forget a day some years ago when my husband and
I called on Mrs. Urquhart, widow of the Trimountain^ captain, and
her daughter in Brooklyn, New York, and were shown a sterling tea
service engraved with a testimonial of gratitude that had been pre-
38 OUR JERUSALEM
sented to the captain by the survivors of the Ville du Havre. I looked
at the service as if it were a holy relic. The captain had died, and we
were sad not to meet him, for he had been so kind to those he took
from the sinking Lochearn.
Captain Urquhart told a strange story to the heartbroken people
he saved.
An odd thought had occurred to him early on that voyage as the
Trimountain, carrying a cargo of canned meats, was taking a north
erly course from New York to Bristol, England. Through a miscal
culation made by the charterer a vacant space of about seventy feet
had been left in the upper betweendecks. Never before had he had any
space left by a charterer, and Captain Urquhart thought how useful
the space would be if he met a wrecked ship with passengers to be
cared for.
Another thought persisted in the skipper s mind as they left the
banks of Newfoundland and he took his observations by the Pole
Star. A few nights before, at port in New York, several captains from
other ships had dined aboard the Trimountain. Captains frequently
meet on one another s ships when in port to exchange yarns over a
bottle or two.
An argument started as to the actual existence of certain rocks of
early maritime legend laid down in ancient charts as having been
sighted between America and Europe. One of the party, Captain
Robinson, insisted that he had seen with his own eyes the fabulous
Rock Barenetha.
His ship passed the rock on a clear day, Captain Robinson de
clared, so close he was able to take two good observations and mark
them on his chart, and in proof the chart was aboard his ship, the
Patrick Henry.
The other captains hooted this story, and insisted that Captain
Robinson had sighted the back of a sleeping whale. Only Captain
Urquhart was enough impressed to go aboard the Patrick Henry and
examine the chart. The Rock was plainly marked, and he thought it
might do no harm to chart it, which he did, carefully noting the exact
position and transferring it to his own chart when he returned to his
ship.
On the night of November 21 he chanced to look at his general
chart and saw to his surprise that if his reckoning was correct they
were heading straight for the Rock, only a few miles away.
He tried to tell himself the Rock was mere legend and that he was
a fool for having been impressed by Robinson s story. He went to his
cabin and could not sleep, rose, and looked at the chart again. The
dot in the circle seemed to grow. The Rock, according to legend, was
large and dangerous.
OUR JERUSALEM 39
By this time it was one o clock in the morning. Since he could not
rest, he went on deck.
His first mate was much older and had spent his life in the North
Atlantic trade. He ridiculed Captain Urquhart s rather diffident hints
about a fabulous rock dead ahead. Captain Urquhart returned to his
rest, but the Rock continued to keep him awake. The sea moved
under the ship suddenly, and the ship gave a curious lurch, and for
a moment the captain was convinced that they had struck the Rock.
He waited, but nothing else happened; at last he made up his mind,
went on deck again, and ordered the course of the Trimountain
changed. Only then was he able to fall asleep. He was still fully
dressed, for his night had been spent in apparently unreasonable
apprehension.
He was not surprised when he was called on deck within the hour
and saw the Lochearn flying the distress flag, and knew at once there
had been a terrible collision.
Where was the other ship, he wondered? Only a few spars drifted
on the rising sea.
Captain Urquhart later calculated the time he had felt the Tri
mountain lurch in the sea and thought they had struck the Rock
with the sinking of the Ville du Havre. His little vessel had rocked to
the ocean s surge caused by a great steamer going down miles away.
Needless to say, no such rock ever existed.
Captain Urquhart remained convinced that a divine power had
linked the apparently trivial circumstances that drew his small but
adequate ship directly to the scene of disaster. As he himself ex
pressed it:
"I believe I was under some supernatural control that night."
It took more than three hours to transport the forty-seven survivors
and the Lochearn s crew through the rough sea to the tiny Trimoun
tain.
Pastor Blanc was too ill to be moved, so Pastor Cook volunteered
to stay with him aboard the endangered Lochearn and share what
ever fate might overtake the ship. From its deck Pastor Cook watched
the others being carried in smallboats through the mounting seas to
the rescue ship. Captain Surmount attended to the embarkation of
his crew. He was obliged to leave a fireman aboard who was even
more seriously injured than Pastor Blanc.
These three men, left behind on a sinking vessel, were tossed by
every kind of weather, had to pump continuously to keep the ship
afloat, abandoned it finally, and were eventually picked up by an
other vessel, the British Queen, and landed in England only four
days after those who had been rescued by the Trimountain.
40 OUR JERUSALEM
Pastor Blanc recovered, but Pastor Cook did not long survive the
effects of exposure and the terrible fatigue of continually manning
the pumps. He lived long enough to see his family again in Paris.
Two months after the shipwreck he was dead.
The Trintountcdn was small, but the betweendecks space held the
rescued, and there were plenty of provisions. Captain Urquhart broke
into his canned-meat cargo and fed the survivors, but drinking water
was very scarce.
He put everything the ship possessed at the disposal of the ship
wrecked people. In his wardrobe there happened to be many articles
of clothing belonging to his wife, who sometimes made the crossing
with him, and these he distributed among the women. Thanks to the
captain and the generosity of the sailors of both the Trimountain and
Lochearn? everyone had something to wear, although the attire was
often peculiar. One stout lady was wrapped in a woolen table cover.
That first night on the Trimountain was fearful. Captain Urquhart
asked Pastor Lorriaux to conduct a simple service. Sleep came at last
to the survivors only because of exhaustion.
Each day the realization of loss seemed more acute. The com
panions in grief, living under crowded, almost intolerable conditions,
showed calmness and courage. They organized themselves for their
mutual benefit and each had some duty to perform that drew forth
their spirit of ingenuity and helped make life bearable on the tiny
ship.
Pastor Weiss, in his report on the journey, states that as the days
went by Mother became quieter and outwardly more reconciled. He
quotes her as saying:
"God gave me four little daughters. Now they have been taken
from me. Someday I will understand why."
Nine days after the shipwreck, on December 1, 1873, the Tri
mountain reached Cardiff, Wales.
Captain Urquhart was not expected to touch Wales, and by cutting
the journey short for his sad passengers he ran the risk of forfeiting
the insurance, and I believe he was censured for it.
As soon as the survivors of the Ville du Havre were landed they
were able to send dispatches. Mother s cable to Father consisted of
two words: "Saved Alone. *
^ On the other side of the Atlantic, Father was waiting for news of
his family. A curtain of silence descended upon the Ville du Havre
after she left American waters. Father quieted his anxiety with the
hope that "no news was good news."
On the night the ship went down there was a brilliant wedding in
Lake View. Father was present, and to the many inquiries about his
OUR JERUSALEM 41
family he smilingly replied that they must be nearing the other side
and he hoped to receive word soon.
He wrote Mother a gay account of the wedding three nights after
the shipwreck:
Lake View, Tuesday evening
November 25, 1873
Day after tomorrow will be Thanksgiving Day. I will not say how I
shall miss you and the dear children. But I will not think too much about
that. Let us instead strive to profit by the separation. I think this separa
tion has touched me more deeply than anything else which has ever oc
curred in my life. . . .
I feel more and more that the absorbing pursuit of anything earthly
is not well for one s spiritual life. I scarcely know what to do about the
Park matters. If I should withdraw altogether from taking an interest in
things, it is very possible that great injury might be the result, not only
to my own, but other interests, and yet I feel half inclined to do so, so
harassing, so vexatious, so even dangerous to one s spiritual peace do I
esteem these selfish contests about money, money, money.
Oh, but it is a long distance across the ocean! But, never mind, my
heart. If the Lord keeps us, we hope before many months to be all to
gether again, better understanding than ever before the greatness of His
mercy in the many years of the past.
When you write, tell me all about the children. How thankful I am to
God for them! May He make us faithful parents, having an eye single
to His glory. Annie and Maggie and Bessie and Tanetta it is a sweet
consolation even to write their names. May the dear Lord keep and sus
tain and strengthen ypu. . . .
It was weeks before Mother received that letter in France. When
Father wrote the names of his children, he had no idea that they were
no longer on earth.
Then the blow fell; the cable arrived, not from France, from
Wales. All that night, with Major Whittle and another devoted friend
beside him, Father walked the floor in anguish.
Major Whittle said that toward morning Father turned to him.
"I am glad to trust the Lord when it will cost me something," he
said.
He cabled Mother that she should proceed to Paris with Pastor
Lorriaux, where she had friends, and where he would join her as
soon as he could cross the Atlantic.
The steamship company of the ill-fated Ville du Havre conducted
the survivors to London and provided clothes for them. They were
taken to the best shops specializing in mourning. As Mother stood
before their somber wares, black dresses, black bonnets and hats,
black veiling, black everywhere, she felt her little daughters reproof.
42 OUR JERUSALEM
She had taught them to believe in heaven. She could almost hear their
voices, "Heaven is lovely; it is a happy place." The familiar quota
tions rushed through her thoughts, "We shall see Him face to face."
"We shall know as we are known." "Pearly gates . . . golden streets
... no sorrow ... no tears ... no night there. . . ."
She thought: "I have not lost my children. We are only separated
for a little time." So she invested in a simple black-and-white costume,
in keeping with her thoughts, but not what her companions in sorrow
thought suitable for a mother who had lost all her children. She saw
their glances and sensed their disapproval but she did not explain.
She felt closer to her little girls after she had made this choice. It
helped her to bear her sorrow inconspicuously and alone.
CHAPTER FOUR
RECENTLY I read a novel that interested me greatly, All This
and Heaven Too by Rachel Field. When the heroine, accused of mur
der in France, is finally acquitted, she goes to the home of the Rev.
and Mrs. Frederic Monod, and their ten-year-old son Theodore
comes to her room and talks with her.
This same lad, Theodore Monod, grown and talcing his father s
place, was among the first to reach Mother with comforting words
when she arrived lonely and bereaved in France.
He had met Father and Mother on a trip to the United States and
visited them at Lake View. At this time he was pastor of the Eglise
Reformee Evangelique de Paris, which made him, I understand, the
most famous Protestant clergyman in France.
He wrote:
Paris, 114 Place Lafayette
December 6, 1873
MY DEAR MRS. SPAFFORD,
On my return from Havre, where the fearful news reached me, I find
a letter from Mrs. Sims enclosing one for you. It seems cold and hard
to forward it without a line, but oh! what words can express what is in
my heart, as a friend, as a father; and what voice, except the voice of
Jesus himself, can bring the least degree of comfort to your desolate
heart.
I will not, dare not, cannot speak of you nor them nor of your husband.
I had tried to hope the name did not, could not, mean you, until one item
of information after another left no room for doubt. We cry to God on
your behalf.
Mother was waiting for Father s arrival in the village of Bertry
near Paris, where she had gone with Pastor Lorriaux. Mme. Lor-
riaux, practical and kind, did not overlook Mother s heartbreak in
the joy of having her husband safe. She nursed Mother for two weeks
until she was strong enough to go to Paris and to her friend Mrs.
Bertha Johnson.
44 OUR JERUSALEM
I have a scrap of paper with a sentence in Mother s handwriting,
dated December 6, 1873,
Oh, how sad my heart is without my birds. How little I thought when
I left my happy home that I should set my foot first upon foreign soil
alone!
She was overwhelmed by kindness. Letters came from friends all
over the continent, offering money, a home, help of every kind.
Friends surrounded her: Mme. Demougeot, Mme. Ribot, Pastor
Monod, and many others. Letters began pouring in from America.
Margaret Morse has written me that her mother, Mrs. Ely, "de
scribed vividly to me the darling and beautiful children, so gifted and
wonderfully trained in love of God and knowledge of the Bible, and
in obedience. The news of the disaster was overwhelming to all who
loved your mother. 5 *
In Chicago, Father searched his life for explanation. Until now
it had flowed gently as a river. Spiritual peace and worldly security
had sustained his early years, his family life, and his home. Then had
come one terrible event upon another. The Chicago Fire with its
losses, the failure of his real estate venture, now the loss of all his
children, all had come within the space of two years.
The important thing was not to lose faith. He must wrestle until
he could say all was well.
Added to his grief was spiritual conflict.
The Puritan foundation of the Protestant churches had carried
into the United States many of the harsh Old Testament tenets.
It was universally accepted by all Christians then that sickness or
sorrow was the result of sin. One was the just retribution of the
other.
What had Father done, what had his young wife done, that they
should be so afflicted? He felt that eyes were looking askance at him,
wondering.
All around him people were asking the unvoiced question, What
guilt had brought this sweeping tragedy to Anna and Horatio Spaf-
ford?
Father wrestled with the question on the sad train trip to New
York with Mr, Goodwin, whose wife and children had also been lost
in the shipwreck.
Search the Bible teachings as he might, Father could not reconcile
this harsh Puritan tenet with his concept of Christian teachings. He
had to have a deeper faith in the goodness of God. Father remem
bered Christ s answer to the disciples when they asked whose sin it
was, the parents or the man s, that caused him to be born blind;
OUR JERUSALEM 45
Jesus answered it was neither the man s nor his parents sin that had
caused the blindness, but that the works of God should be made
manifest in him.
Father became convinced that God was kind, and that he would
see his children again in heaven.
This principle, accepted now by all Christians, calmed his heart,
but it was to bring Father into open conflict with what was then the
Christian world.
On the train he wrote Aunt Maggie of this conviction, and in a
letter to Aunt Rachel he asked that she go to the Lake View home
and see that all the children s things were put carefully away.
On the way across the Atlantic the captain called Mr. Goodwin
and Father into his private cabin.
"A careful reckoning has been made," he told them, "and I be
lieve we are now passing the place where the Ville du Havre was
wrecked."
Father wrote to Aunt Rachel:
On Thursday last we passed over the spot where she went down, in
mid-ocean, the water three miles deep. But I do not think of our dear
ones there. They are safe, folded, the dear lambs, and there, before very
long, shall we be too. In the meantime, thanks to God, we have an oppor
tunity to serve and praise Him for His love and mercy to us and ours.
"I will praise Him while I have my being." May we each one arise, leave
all, and follow Him.
To Father this was a passing through the "valley of the shadow of
death," but his faith came through triumphant and strong. On the
high seas, near the place where his children perished, he wrote the
hymn that was to give comfort to so many:
When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea-billows roll f
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say;
"It is well, it is well with my soul."
Tho Satan should buffet, tho 9 trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
My sin oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to His cross and I bear it no more;
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh, my soul!
46 OUR JERUSALEM
And, Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll,
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend
"Even so it is well with my soul."
For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live
If Jordan above me shall roll.
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my souL
That he could write such words at such a time was made possible
by the fierceness of his struggle and the completeness of the victory.
P. P. Bliss, the predecessor of Sankey with Mr. Moody, wrote the
music for this hymn. "It Is Well with My Soul" became very famous
and appeared in many hymnbooks; it is still sung in many Protestant
churches.
Hymns that are the fruit of anguish victoriously overcome are
bound to bring blessing. I have sat by the bedside of a woman dying
of cancer and, holding her limp and clammy hand, have quietly sung
this hymn over and over again. I have sung it by other bedsides as
war after war came to Jerusalem; once, by the bed of a private from
the Argyle and Sutherland Regiment, taken prisoner by the Turks
before Jerusalem was delivered by Allenby s army in 1917. Blood
poisoning was in an advanced stage, and we had very little medicine
and no narcotics to alleviate his suffering. He was doomed, and his
agony was great. I sat by him hour upon hour and sang softly, "It
is well with my soul." Just before the end he looked up into my face.
"Sister, you have fought half this battle."
Innumerable letters have told me the same story in different ways,
as the hymn affected and helped the despondent and despairing. I
turned on the radio once at random and heard a faint voice coming
from a remote station telling the story of the writing of the hymn.
Another time I was standing in a snowstorm on Riverside Drive, in
New York, waiting for a bus, when I heard the carillon in the tower
of Riverside Church send forth its lovely message in music, "It is
well with my soul." I stood transfixed with joy and wonder, tears
rolled down my cheeks. I let one bus after another pass, and was
late for my luncheon engagement, but I could not tear myself away
from the spot until the hymn was finished.
On Christmas Eve Father and Mother were in Paris. Of their
Ejecting Mother never spoke. Some things are too sacred to mention.
This had always been their happiest season, with candles and tinsel
on the tree, and evergreen, holly, and mistletoe decorating the cot
tage "joyous with the merriment of children," as one friend wrote.
OUR JERUSALEM 47
In Paris, where they had planned so much of happiness, memories of
other years must have crushed them. What did they do at this time
of almost unbearable depression?
A letter from the Rev. Theodore Monod holds the answer:
Christmas Eve, 1873
MY DEAR FRIENDS,
Our Christmas tree is over; the hymns are sung, the addresses are
among the things of the past; the many brilliant lights have burned
themselves away or have been extinguished, as all earthly joys must be.
Mr. Weiss was with us and spoke, as you might expect him to do, of
his recent experience, alluding also to the dear children who on the
Sunday November 17th sang, "I want to be an angel," and before the
week was over were singing in heaven. I was not at all surprised that you,
my dear friends, should have both kept away and spent the evening
quietly, prayerfully, tearfully, hopefully, one with another, but I was
surprised when I got home and found that parcel. At first we could not
tell where it had come from; then the handwriting (I once received a
letter from you), the remembrance of your taking down those five names
on Saturday, and I shall add, the sweet sad words "from the children,"
told us from what hand, no, from what heart came the pretty presents, so
thoughtfully chosen, so well adapted to each. But ah! with such tender
memories clinging to them, such brotherly affection, such truly Christian
fellowship of your sorrows with our joys, as made us look upon those
playthings with tears in our eyes. Oh, may "the Father mercies and the
God of all comfort" continue to uphold you, to pour into your stricken
hearts the fullness of his love, and to make that love and power visible
to others through you.
Thursday evening Christmas Day
The children are in possession of their treasures, highly delighted and
thankful. Marcel, who never yet had a plaything given him, smiled at
the bright little doll. I fear I shall not be able to gq and shake hands with
you today, but we are with you in spirit, nor do we forget your friend i
Major Goodwin. 4
THEO MONOD.
On Christmas Eve Mother wrote her friend Maiy Miller in
Chicago who had taken refuge with her during the Great Fire:
Paris, December 24, 1873
MY DEAR MARY,
I received your letter this morning. It was very sweet of you to re
member me in this time of sadness for me but joy to my dear children.
Yes, Mary all are gone Home so early. How thankful I am that
their little lives were so early dedicated to their Master. Now He has
48 OUR JERUSALEM
called them to Himself. I thought I was going, too, but my work is not
yet finished. May the dear Lord give me strength to do His will. The dear
children were so brave. They died praying. Annie said to Maggie and me
just before we were swept off the steamer, "Don t be frightened Maggie,
God will take care of us, we can trust Him; and you know, Mama, The
sea is His and He made it.* " These were her last words. Maggie and
Bessie prayed very sweetly. I have much to comfort me, Mary; they are
not lost, only separated for a season. I will go to them only a few years
at the longest.
Dear little Tanetta sang all the day before we were wrecked "The
sweet bye and bye" ... If I never believed in religion before, I have
had strong proof of it now. We have been so sustained, so comforted.
God has sent peace in our hearts. He has answered our prayers. His will
be done. I would not have my children back again in this wicked
world. . . .
Shortly after this my parents left for England on their way home.
Before leaving Paris a telegram came from Mr. Moody saying he
would meet them in London. He and Mr. Sankey were conducting
the revival meetings in Edinburgh that were making them world-
famous.
Mother told me that when Mr. Moody met them, in the hotel in
London, his sorrow was so great over the loss of the children that
she had to comfort him.
I can well imagine this meeting, for I remember Mr. Moody s
coming to the American Colony in Jerusalem after Father s death.
He was a thickset, short, and highly emotional man, who always wore
long frock coats. With my sister Grace on his knee, he wept un
ashamed for the loss of his friend until two pools of water were
formed on the floor by his tears. I met Mr. Sankey, too, in Jerusalem,
the same year the Kaiser visited the Holy City. I was eighteen and
had been to Jericho and had "Jericho boils" on my face and a swollen
nose, caused, we now know, by the bite of an insect. Mr. Sankey had
called on Mother, and Mother insisted that I go to see him. So I did,
and Mr. Sankey seemed astonished by my appearance, but he did
not say anything. He was not so demonstrative as Mr. Moody.
With an understanding few could give, Mr. Moody divined my
parents* struggle against their natural inclinations to indulge in sor
row. He also realized that a disastrous reaction might follow this
high resolve when they reached their empty house, unless a power
stronger than their grief upheld them. He knew their present state of
trust and faith must be sustained. He begged Mother not to stay at
home, where every room, silenced by the absence of her children,
would remind her of what had been.
"Annie, you must go into my work," Mr* Moody told my mother.
"You must be so busy helping those who have gone into the depths
OUR JERUSALEM 49
of despair that you will overcome your own affliction by bringing
comfort and salvation to others."
Mother promised to follow his advice.
The anguish of their homecoming cannot be visualized. Aunty
Sims was first to greet them, convulsed in tears on the doorstep. Well-
meaning friends, in the custom of the period, had had the latest
photographs of the four little girls enlarged, and they were on easels
in the living room, the sweet faces surrounded by festoons of smilax.
Upstairs four little beds stood empty and four dressers filled with
garments that would never be worn by them again. Toys, books,
lesson papers were reminders of all that had been.
Saddest of all was the attic, where four rows of little rubber boots
and all the paraphernalia of winter sports bespoke the merriment that
once had filled this house and grounds. Last of all, the childishly
scrawled letters were found in the play post office in the elm tree.
Only Rob, Father s nephew, was left, and he was away at school.
Mother followed Mr. Moody s advice and plunged into his relief
work.
She had not taken much active part in charitable or philanthropic
work before. "Charity began at home," and she believed her duty lay
in making an agreeable home for Father and bringing up four small
children in Christian ideals. Only a brief period spent on the board
of the Home of the Friendless and the months of relief activity fol
lowing the Chicago Fire had prepared her for the extensive and
important work she now took on. Mr. Moody put her in charge of all
women s activities for Chicago. Mother realized she was handicapped
by inexperience, and remonstrated with Mr. Moody, but he would
not take no.
Mother did not like serving as the impersonal executive of an ever
growing organization. She preferred coming in actual contact with
the women and doing the real work. She appointed her friend Miss
Emma Dryer, one of Mr. Moody s workers, to act as her advisor. It
proved a happy choice, for Miss Dryer served first as a shadow
executive and later took over and held the official position.
Mother s approach to the women s work and her theories in aiding
them were original and her experiences many and varied. She saw a
seamy side of Chicago life far removed from the placid existence at
Lake View.
A friend wrote of this period in Mother s life
. . . she devoted almost her entire time to Christian and philan
thropic work. She was the first woman, I believe, who in Chicago en
couraged mothers meetings. They met once a week in the church par
lors, and there she taught many a mother to pray. In the meantime
your father led the noon prayer meeting at Farwell Hall.
50 OUR JERUSALEM
Mother told me that the women who attended her mothers meet
ings were of many nationalities and some were especially vocal in
complaining about their lot. Frequently their complaints were about
their husbands who used most of their earnings for drink. In a state
of intoxication the husband would return home with little or no
money left, to find hungry children crying, a harried wife infuriated
by his conduct, and no supper. Unpleasant words would end in a
violent quarrel; more often than not the wife got a beating. The poor
woman would then complain to Mother about her husband, and
black-and-blue marks would be proof of her story.
Mother, incensed, would get Father to prosecute the guilty man.
But when the time came to take evidence against her husband the
wife would invariably take her husband s part, and the case would
be dropped. Mother learned by experience that the best way was to
let them "worry it through" and settle their quarrels themselves.
But she was a sympathetic listener and gave sensible advice. Be
cause she put her life and soul into the work, she was successful.
I remember Mother telling of a predicament she found herself in
when in following Mr. Moody s work she was put in charge of the
rescue work for fallen women. One meeting affected a girl so much
that she wanted to leave her degraded life. Mother knew she should
be taken out of it at once, but where could the girl go? Mother ap
plied to one home and institution after another, none of which was
prepared to accept a girl straight from a "house of ill fame." Mother
was like the little girl who went to the prayer meeting for rain carry
ing an umbrella she expected results.
She felt with keen indignation this defect in the rescue work, that
there was no new environment ready in which these poor derelicts
could be fitted once they were saved.
There was nothing to do but take on the girl s support for a period
of years. She married happily at last and raised a family of healthy
children.
In this pioneer welfare work I do not think Mother was so much
shocked by what she saw as by the complacency of the rich who
permitted such things to be.
The years following the shipwreck were anxious ones, but also
rich in spiritual experience to my parents. In Father s letter to
Mother, written before he knew of the loss of his children, he spoke
of Ms growing distaste for giving so much of his life to the struggle
after money. The struggle even seemed dangerous to his spiritual
peace; and this feeling must have increased as the months passed into
years. Possessions seemed unimportant in the light of his recent expe
rience, which gave him a feeling that everything was transient.
OUR JERUSALEM 51
His letters and notes at this time are revealing, as are the poems
and hymns he composed. Studying both sides in legal fashion, he
pondered the question of future punishment. "I was , * . surprised
to find how many devout and learned men, in every age, had believed
in the final universal triumph of God s love." "Who is there who
would not wish to believe if the Word will permit it, in the eventual
restoration of all?" A hymn, inspired by one of the Psalms, begins:
There s darkness all round in my earthly affairs,
Wave following wave, tribulation and cares;
My way is shut up on the left and the right;
And yet t I ve a mind for a song in the night,
A song in the night a song in the night,
My heart, canst thou give Him a song in the night?
A little book of his poetry, Waiting for the Morning, was printed
privately for distribution among his friends, and met with so much
more appreciation than had been expected that it was reprinted for
public sle.
When, in 1876, Mr. Moody rebuilt his tabernacle on the north
side of Chicago, Father found means to help him financially, and
wrote the dedication hymn beginning:
Our Father, God, Eternal one!
And Thou, the living cornerstone!
And Holy Spirit one and three
We dedicate this house to Thee!
Take for Thine own, and write in power,
Thy name on wall and shaft and tower;
And make it, by Thy blessing given,
A house of God a gate of heaven.
I find it difficult to interpret to this modern generation Father s
and Mother s attitude toward life at this time and throughout the
following years without making them seem impractical, fanatical, nar
row, and visionary. They were none of these things. The world has so
changed in its outlook, its conceptions, its manners, and its vocabu
lary in the last threescore years that the problems which were impor
tant to them then seem almost unintelligible and meaningless now.
Therefore it is hard to do them justice.
This period must have been difficult for my parents in every way.
Their religious life was undergoing a transition nothing was quite
clear.
On November 16, 1876, a little boy came to the childless home at
Lake View.
52 OUR JERUSALEM
He was my parents first and only son, and was named Horatio,
after Father and Grandfather. Also he was named Goertner, for
Goertner Goodwin, my sisters playmate who had gone down with
them on the Ville du Havre.
Little Horatio was a healthy baby, and his birth must have seemed
like a renewal of life to Father and Mother.
In a letter written by a friend in 1876, Father is described as
"walking up and down in the living room at Lake View, holding his
baby son and talking about his Heavenly Father and heaven in the
most intimate and homelike fashion. . . ."
In another letter written by Miss Dryer from Mr. Moody s home
in Northfield:
Mr. and Mrs. Moody talk of you affectionately. He, I think, has a deep
interest in your financial troubles. In talking about them one evening he
said that he thought Mr. Spafford would do well to resume his practice of
law until this hard time is passed. He spoke of Mr. S s success in the
past and that he was in a fair position to succeed again. . . .
I get no comfort except from the promises. How glad I am to know
that they cannot fail.
I think these last words expressed Father s sentiments as well. He
had found the things people strove after in this world as sinking sand
under his feet, and he longed now only to build "on the rock," where
the rain could descend, the floods beat, and the winds blow, but his
house would stand.
In this rather difficult period, on March 24, 1878, I was born, and
named for Mrs. Bertha Johnson, who had been so kind to Mother in
Paris. It proves how near and dear our family doctor had become,
for I was also given his family name, and became Bertha Hedges
Spafford.
In February of 1880 Mother was taking little Horatio and me
away for a visit. I am not sure where we were going, but it must have
been some distance from Chicago, for we were on a train when she
noticed we both had fever. Before we reached our destination she
left the train and caught the next train back to Chicago. Her one idea
was to be near Dr. Hedges. She had to wait in a stuffy waiting room
with two sick babies, then came the long journey back, when she
could see we were growing more ill with every passing mile; then the
scramble to catch "The Dummy" to Lake View.
Peter, who had been telegraphed to, met us with the horse and
buggy. Father was away on business. It was snowing, and the flakes
swirled in the driving wind and settled on us in the open buggy. The
OUR JERUSALEM 53
air was bitterly cold, and cold, too, was the house, for the furnace
had been allowed to go out with the family away.
Dr. Hedges diagnosed our malady as scarlet fever. Horatio had
also taken a bad cold and was dropping off into a coma. Father was
telegraphed to, but reached home only in time to witness the death
of his little son on February 11, 1880.
CHAPTER FIVE
MOTHER never spoke of little Horatio s death. It was a blow
that time never softened.
She could not go to the cemetery. She had to take care of me. Also,
she had a horror of the grave. She wanted to think of her little boy
with her four daughters in heaven.
Our house was in quarantine and only a few learned of this new
sorrow and came unsummoned to the funeral The tiny white coffin
was taken to the family plot in Graceland Cemetery and Father read
the funeral service.
Many wondered at his doing this. Gossip filled in gaps and dis
torted facts.
Among my treasures is a little cardboard box found in Father s
desk after his death in Jerusalem. In it are some faded flowers bound
with white ribbon and the words: "Flowers from little Horatio s
funeral." He brought this with him to Jerusalem when so little was
taken. No one knew how deep was the grief he and Mother shared
in losing their four-year-old son.
Mother s letters to friends after my brother died show perfect faith
and trust* They would shock some people, who would have under
stood her mourning better with a touch of self-pity. People love to
pity others, but pity was the last thing my parents wanted.
After Horatio s death Father wrote the hymn, "A Song in the
Night," which, set to music by Mr. George O Stebbins, was sung by
our choir when the American Colony celebrated its jubilee in 1931,
commemorating the fiftieth anniversay of the arrival of my parents
and their group of friends in Jerusalem.
Long time I dared not say to Thee
Lord, work Thou Thy mil with me,
But now so plain Thy love I see
1 shrink no more from sorrow.
Refrain:
So true, true and faithful is He,
Kind is my Savior;
Alike in gladness and in woe t
I thank Him who hath loved me so. . . .
OUR JERUSALEM 55
My parents were trying to practice what they had come to believe
since the shipwreck through heart-searching wrestling with doubt and
fear. It was not easy to see wisdom in affliction, or reconcile God s
dealing with God s love. Since the church held sorrow to be retribu
tion for sin, the tone of conversations with friends and acquaintances
after Horatio s death stressed again the question raised when the four
little girls died:
"What have the Spafiords done to be so afflicted?"
The Spaffords had long asked themselves the same question. Now
they could only pray for endurance and strength. Father wrote to a
friend: "There is just one thing in these days has become magnifi
cently clear I must not lose faith."
The most eloquent proof of their struggle was in Mother s saying
"I will say God is love until I believe it!"
The first shock of total misunderstanding came when one of the
leaders of the evangelist group that had met so often in our home in
Lake View, and a friend they had trusted to understand their motives,
came to Father and Mother to ask if they would like him to adopt
me.
Why this offer was made I do not know. I was two years old and
the only child left to my parents out of a family of six.
The request opened a wound that only by the grace of God could
Father and Mother forgive. It was the first crushing blow of many
that culminated in their decision to leave Chicago, for a time at least.
The hitherto vague idea that someday they would go to Jerusalem to
watch the fulfillment of prophecy on the spot, and perhaps find re
freshment of the body, soul, and spirit there, became resolute.
From the day of that offer they began to make definite plans for
the journey.
A year after Horatio s death there is an entry in Father s note
book: "Little Grace was born this morning at 6:30, Jan. 18th, 1881."
Mother was very ill when Grace was born. She lay in her bed
exhausted and weak, wondering what to name this baby who had
come as a godsend after her little son s death. She went over in her
mind the names of the four little girls who romped no more through
the house no, they were not lost, she could not name this baby after
one of them.
Her eyes rested on an illuminated text hanging on the wall.
"My grace is sufficient for thee."
So my sister became Grace Spafford, without any addition of
a middle name.
She was born while Father and Mother were completing their
plans to go to Jerusalem.
56 OUR JERUSALEM
I did not realize until I was reading letters written at this time that
the move was supposed to be temporary.
When the time came my parents walked out of their lovely home,
leaving everything valuable furniture, paintings, silver, linen, a li
brary of several thousand books the accumulation of more than
twenty years of married life, and a friend and his family came in and
took possession.
Only a single trunk went with us to Jerusalem.
If Father had lived, I think he would have returned to Chicago.
He was seeking peace and solace for mind and soul. He was leaving
the center of a controversy he was tired of, and hoped to be able to
see things plainly and more in perspective. In a letter to a friend he
explained:
Jerusalem is where my Lord lived, suffered, and conquered, and I
wish to learn how to live, suffer, and especially to conquer.
He and Mother had no grandiose plans or expectations of what
their going to Jerusalem would mean to anyone but themselves.
But that was far too simple a reason to satisfy the curious, and
human nature is credulous of spectacular rumors that make a good
story.
Father and Mother had battled with doubt; they had come to be
lieve in the truth of God s love; they were winning.
They had come to believe that the blows that had been dealt them
were not in punishment for their sins.
They could not believe that their innocent babies, or any other
babies, were in hell. Father probed further he could no longer be
lieve in a tangible hell or a personal devil.
Naturally this doctrine exploded the idea of eternal punishment,
and this was contrary to what was then the tenets of the Orthodox
Presbyterian Church.
Father was not one to keep his discovery to himself. He wanted
to share his comprehension of God s all-embracing love. Father ex
pressed himself freely, perhaps too freely. He made a prodigious
effort to express the state of his soul, and it was misunderstood. It
shocked the complacent; it brought to a head a controversy that
stirred Chicago. The newspapers took it up, and in their misunder
standing of the vital core of his belief and their misrepresentation of
the facts it took on the ridiculous.
Father and Mother were asked to leave the Fullerton Avenue Pres
byterian Church, the church Father had helped to build, the church
of which he was an elder, the church where my sisters and brother had
been baptized, the church they loved
OUR JERUSALEM 57
This arbitrary act caused a rift in the church. A number of their
friends, among them Mr. and Mrs. John E. Whiting, church mem
bers who admired Father and Mother for their courage in adversity
and sorrow, walked out of the church at the same time, in protest.
This rift was the last thing Father and Mother wanted. The un
pleasant publicity it caused was obnoxious and distressing to them.
Now they longed to get away. A complete break was necessary to
brace them to take up life anew.
Perhaps the sojourn to Jerusalem and the Holy Land would help!
Perhaps there, where the "Man of Sorrows," acquainted with grief
yet triumphant, had walked the shores of Galilee and the hills of
Judea, His life and passion would be revealed in such a way that life
would again bring consolation.
They set a definite date for departure.
The Church suffers from its symbolism: presenting an immortal
truth in the terms of the time and generation. Years pass, and a whole
new set of mental pictures and cosmic conceptions take the place of
the old, which lose their value and become meaningless.
Less than a decade after this, in 1890, when the New York Pres
bytery discussed the revision of the Westminster Confession, the
revered minister Dr. Henry van Dyke declared: "I intend to teach
that there are no infants in hell and that there is no limit to God s
love, and that no man is punished save for his own sin."
By this time no one thought this teaching strange. Dr. van Dyke s
announcement had the full approval of the church. Even ten years
had wrought a tremendous change in religious outlook. Father, for
coming to the same conclusion, was turned out of the church.
Father lived ahead of his day. His belief had been too liberal too
early.
One after another, friends learned of my parents final plans to visit
Jerusalem and asked if they might join them on their pilgrimage.
Many of those who had left the church with them wished to go. Then
others wanted to join the party, and there was much coming and
going and meetings and conferences as to what should be planned
and what taken, for travel was not the easy matter it became later and
Jerusalem seemed at the other end of the world.
By this time the Chicago press had become aware that a group of
people were meeting at Lake View for closer religious fellowship and
were planning a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Father and Mother
and their friends were subjected to a campaign of ridicule. The cot
tage was invaded by reporters who left to write stinging banter. A
58 OUR JERUSALEM
great deal was said In the meetings about "overcomers," and accused
them of thinking they were the only people capable of defeating evil.
One newspaper article stated:
A singular sect of Christians which has recently arisen in one of the
northern suburbs of Chicago is known as the "Overcomers." They be
lieve in personal inspiration, in direct communication with God, and in
the literal rendering of the Scriptures as applied to mundane affairs, and
in the final salvation of all the universe, including the devil. A party
under the leadership of Mr. Spafford is about to go to Jerusalem to build
up the ruined places.
Mother wrote to a friend:
A reporter came to see me this week. He asked what was the foun
dation of our religion, and I told him "to love the Lord God with all
our hearts and one s neighbor as one s self." He read me what had been
given him by an "influential Christian," and it was that I went into
trances, etc., and wore spiritualistic emblems (which was my poor
little pin of ivory with a cherub s head you know it). Although I de
nied his statements I am afraid his article will appear in the paper.
I have mentioned that a number of people who left the church
when my parents were asked to leave, accompanied them to Jeru
salem. But there were others who remained behind. Their connection
with the church had been severed, and they were left unattached and
without leadership. Father warned them to be wary of dissension, but
his warnings were ignored.
Before our group reached Palestine there was dispute among the
Lake View remainder.
When the baby of one of the members died, and another member
refused to allow it to be buried, claiming she would raise it from the
dead, an end came to the little group. The scandalous episode came
out, with much unpleasant publicity, and some of the group, instead
of placing the blame on their own gullibility, blamed Father and
Mother as having originally founded the Lake View Group. The fact
that Father had warned them against this happening seemed to make
them more resentful. Some were to go so far as to send violent letters
denouncing us to the English Mission and to the Consul of the United
States in Jerusalem, Garbled rumors flew ahead of the pilgrims.
Not all those left in Lake View became our enemies. Some re
mained loyal. Others relented later and wrote asking forgiveness, and
some even joined us in Jerusalem.
But abuse always travels faster than praise, and a religious perse
cution had been started.
For many years the stories continued to grow wilder on either side
of the Atlantic. Any bit of fact was magnified, to spread eight thou-
OUR JERUSALEM 59
sand miles. Among the many absurd claims Father was accused of
thinking himself the second Messiah.
Subtlest of all accusations, because it wore a sham mantle of
magnanimity, was that "poor Mr. and Mrs. Spafford have suffered so
much they are unbalanced."
Some reports were vicious, others harmful, all untrue.
A story which appeared in the Chicago papers soon ofter our
arrival in Jerusalem was that we went every afternoon to the Mount
of Olives to wait for the Lord s arrival, and made a cup of tea so we
would be the first to give Him refreshment.
As always, there is a sliver of truth in this tall tale.
One of our favorite walks was to the Mount of Olives. We took
simple picnic spreads on these expeditions, and, since we quickly
met many English people in Jerusalem, Mother soon learned to take
along the proverbial tea basket without which no outing was complete
for our British friends.
However, the story persisted through the years, and only a short
time ago I met a lady in New York who, when she heard I had lived
many years in Jerusalem, said: "You don t belong to that group of
people, do you, who went every day to the Mount of Olives and pre
pared tea for Christ s second coming?"
I told her that as far as I knew no such group ever existed. She
retorted: "Oh, don t spoil a good story; I have often told it."
On August 17, 1881, the band of pilgrims left Chicago. Father
wrote in his tiny pocket diary:
"Started for Europe at 9:10 P.M. [for Jerusalem via Quebec]."
Thfcy chose the shorter though colder route to England in pref
erence to the longer one to France, which would have carried them
over the scene of the sinking of the Ville du Havre.
With my parents was my sister Grace, seven months old, myself,
aged three years and five months, Cousin Rob, grown to a tall, good-
looking, brilliant boy of nineteen who teased me a great deal and was
the love of my life, Aunt Maggie Lee, whose husband had recently
died, Mrs. William Gould, Mr. and Mrs. John C. Whiting and their
baby Ruth, eleven months old, Mr. William H. Rudy, Mrs. Caroline
Merriman, Mr. and Mrs. Otis S. Page and their daughter Flora, about
ten years old, and Nora, the daughter of Mother s washwoman at Lake
View, who came along as nurse to Grace and me. Aunty Sims had
died.
Mrs. Gould and Mother had worked together on the committee of
the "Home for the Friendless," and formed a friendship that was per
haps the most cherished of Mother s life. Mrs. Gould s husband, with
60 OUR JERUSALEM
Ms brother John, had a large wholesale grocery business in Chicago.
Mr. Gould had fallen ill, come with his wife to our home in Lake
View, and remained there until he died. Mrs. Gould was intelligent
and aristocratic, with gracious manners. The Gould family played an
important role in the life of my parents and the history of the Ameri
can Colony.
Mr. Page had been a salesman for Mr. Gould.
Mr. Rudy was an Easterner who had been the proprietor of flour
mills, and after a serious illness retired from business. Mrs. Merriman
was his foster mother.
Mr. and Mr. Whiting were among those who had left the Fullerton
Presbyterian Church when Father and Mother were asked to leave.
Mr. Whiting came originally from Massachusetts and was related to
the famous paper manufacturers although he had no share in the busi
ness. Mrs. Whiting, his mother, was still living, a dear old lady, wholly
in sympathy with her son s desire to go to Jerusalem. Mrs. Whiting s
mother was also living, but she was not in sympathy, and later played
an important though unhappy part in the history of the American
Colony.
In London the group was joined by Captain and Mrs. W. C.
Sylvester. , *
Some years before Captain Sylvester had been the youngest captain
in the British Army. He had broken first one kneecap, then the
other, each time by slipping on icy pavements, and was forced to
retire from active service. He came with his wife to Chicago, where
once more, on an icy winter morning, he slipped and smashed the
first kneecap which had been sown with silver wire. This time it had
to be entirely removed, and the captain was told he would never walk
again.
During this period of his invalidism Father met him, and the two
men and their wives became friends.
Captain Sylvester had returned to England, determined that his
broken knees should not prevent his living a useful life. He turned
evangelist, and in a specially constructed van equipped with many
conveniences he and his wife toured England and Scotland preaching,
the Gospel.
If their labor and this pilgrimage had resulted in only one con
version which was to mean so much to the country of Palestine, it
was ample reward. For Dr. Herbert Torrence once told me it was
Captain Sylvester s preaching and his brave fight against his physical
impediment that helped him make his own choice and become a
iBedical missionary. Dr. Torrence started the Scottish Seaman s
Medical Mission on the lake shore at ^Tiberias which for more than
fifty years gave the only medical help the native people had for miles
OUR JERUSALEM 61
around. His son, Dr. Herbert Torrence, Junior, followed in his
father s footsteps and continued the work of healing in the name of the
Master. In the summer of 1946, despite the troubles in the Holy
Land, Dr. Torrence celebrated twenty-five years of work, and Arabs,
Jews, and British and American Christians joined in honoring this
great but unassuming man.
The Sylvesters loved children and had lost their only son. Once,
I remember, the captain asked me to kiss him, and I said, "I will if
you ll lift up your fringes." He laughed that contagious laugh that
drew everyone to him and drew up his mustache for the kiss.
This and a ride on the old elephant Jumbo, who gave his name to
all succeeding elephants, comprise practically all my memories of our
stay in London.
Our arrival in England did not go unnoticed. The following para
graph appeared in an English newspaper, dated September 8, 1881:
H. C. Sp afford, of Lake View, leader of the new sect of "Overcomers,"
arrived in London with a band of these peculiar believers, including sev
eral children, en route to Palestine. They will proceed to the Mount of
Olives, where they expect to receive a new and direct revelation from
the Lord.
CHAPTER SIX
And then 1 saw Jerusalem. . . .
A city from the skies let down
To be henceforth the "whole earth s Crown
Set mid the Holy Land.
JOHN FINLEY
IT WAS a warm September day in 1881, and Father, Mother,
and the rest of our group were bumping over the rough cobblestone
road leaving Jaffa for Jerusalem in several high, uncomfortable spring
wagons.
Around us, though I did not know it then, lay the Holy Land. I was
to become familiar with the utter desolation of the country arid from
the long, dry months of summer and the choking reddish dust coating
the road and hills. Such aridity, Cousin Rob wrote in a letter home,
would bring famine to another Iand 3 and the Chicago pilgrims found
it difficult to believe that the rains would soon come, making the hills
green and filling the plains with fruits, vegetables, and brilliant
flowers.
I had a vague remembrance of our home in Lake View, but the
journey across the Atlantic I do not remember at all. I do not recall
our short stay in Jaffa, which we were leaving behind us, hidden in
the dust of our small caravan. Jaffa had been the principal port of the
Israelites, the portion given by tribal division to Dan. At Jaffa Jonah
had taken ship to escape being sent to Nineveh. Hiram s Phoenician
workmen brought there the floats of cedar for Solomon s temple. On
a reef of low rocks running parallel to Jaffa s shore, according to
Greek legend, Andromeda was chained while threatened by the sea
monster or dragon, until her rescue by Perseus. Saint George, whose
birthplace was at Lydda near Jaffa, had his opposition to paganism
symbolized in local legend by Perseus s dragon.
At Jaffa, where the lighthouse now overlooks the Mediterranean,
stood the house of Simon the Tanner, where the Apostle Peter sat on
the housetop, waiting the preparation of the evening meal, and saw
the vision of the sheet let down from heaven which prepared him for
his mission to Cornelius, the Centurion at Caesarea.
OUR JERUSALEM 63
There was no actual port in Jaffa then. Passengers were brought
ashore in small boats, weather permitting, and not even mail could
be dropped when the rocky coast was lashed by tempest. How long
ingly we were to await the mail held at Jaffa by storm or quarantine
so that it was late in arriving. Normal delivery from America took
three cr four weeks. For imaginary or real cholera scares the Turkish
and Egyptian governments indulged in reciprocally imposing quaran
tine on each other s passengers and mail, and letters were received
punched full of holes and smelling of sulphur.
We were to spend many pleasant holidays in Jaffa, where ever
green orange groves formed an ever-increasing circle around the
town. The world-famous Jaffa orange was developed and exported by
Arabs many years before. Up to World War II the orange industry
accounted for almost the whole of Palestine s income from export.
The American-made spring wagons that were carrying us to Jeru
salem had been brought to Palestine by a group of "Latter-Day
Saints" who had come from Maine, I believe, about twenty years
before, bringing prefabricated farmhouses in sections that they set up
near Jaffa, where some are still standing. They introduced modern
for that time fanning implements, including wagons, to the Holy
Land.
Among remaining members of this colony at Jaffa, occupying their
original houses, were Mr. and Mrs. Rolla Floyd, who proved such
wonderful friends, and Mr. Herbert Clark, representative of Thomas
Cook and Son, and who was in charge of our transportation, as we
were traveling on Cook s tickets. Because the high wagon seat ter
rified me, Mr. Clark held me on his knee all the way to Jerusalem.
I do not remember my first glimpse of Jerusalem. To me, it has
always been home. But I know how it appeared to the others, climb
ing 2,700 feet over the dusty plain to the hills surrounding Jerusalem
on the Judean watershed about thirty miles from the Mediterranean
and twenty miles from the Dead Sea. The old city stands on four hills,
surrounded by historic walls, and set with mosques and minarets,
Herodean towers, and crowded ancient houses, their flat roofs set
with domes.
We stopped first at the Mediterranean Hotel, situated just inside
the Jaffa Gate. It was the only European hotel, and was kept by
Mr. and Mrs. Moses Hornstein, who, with their daughters, did all
they could to make the newcomers comfortable and initiate them into
the strange new ways of this strange and difficult land.
I remember the hotel very well, for I was put to bed early one
night and was wakened by the moon rising, an immense globe of
molten silver, over the Mount of Olives. I had never seen the moon
rise, and I dashed downstairs in my little nightgown and into the din-
64 OUR JERUSALEM
ing room where the hotel guests were assembled at dinner to announce:
"The Lord has come!"
The amusement that met this puzzled me.
We stayed six weeks at the hotel, while the Group went sightseeing,
to the Holy Sepulcher and the Jews Wailing Place, and, often and
repeatedly, to the Mount of Olives, usually in the late afternoons to
watch the lovely sunsets. Father s diary held many notes of "walks
about Jerusalem." I think he felt very much as Dr. Henry van Dyke
did later when he wrote Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land. Father loved
walking about the curious narrow streets, and, most of all, in the
country around Jerusalem; this, he wrote, "is the land that makes one
feel Christ s presence."
On October 4 he notes:
"We are looking at Jerusalem houses."
The Group had arrived without plans, and it seemed feasible that
all should live together. Some had money, others had none, but this
made no difference, nor would it ever do so.
They were shown many houses, but one appealed to them most
because it "stood on a hill with its nose in the air," as it were, a point
to be considered in an oriental city without sufficient water, drains,
or the rudiments of sanitation and hygiene. The house was on the tip
of the hill Bezetha, the highest spot in the walled city, between the
Damascus Gate and Herod s Gate, and overlooked both the old and
the new sections of Jerusalem.
It was not quite finished, and belonged to an officer in the Turkish
gendarmerie, or mounted police. At this time Palestine was under
Turkish rule and had been for four hundred years. This officer,
Yousef Aga Dusdar, was an Albanian by birth. Later he became a
colonel of the Turkish gendarmerie and was known as Yousef Bey;
still later he performed the pilgrimage to Mecca and became a haj.
Father paid our landlord forty napoleons, French gold pieces, in
advance. The first payment was made on the first of Muharram, the
Moslem New Year. The Moslem calendar, being lunar, is shorter than
ours by thirteen days, so that in thirty-three years one pays an extra
year s rent.
Before our Group bought the house, we had lived in it long enough
to pay Yousef Bey for that extra year.
Father noted improvements to be made, and we stayed in the
hotel until the house was finished. A railing around the roof he con
sidered important as a safety provision, for roofs are much used in
Palestine. Downstairs there were no windows at all, so Father had
windows cut, and barred, as all windows, upstairs and down, are in
Jerusalem.
Next to this house was a smaller and older house and garden which
OUR JERUSALEM 65
the Group also rented, paying twenty-two napoleons. There was still
another in which Father had his study and sometimes it was used for
extra lodgings. We called it the "down-to-the-other house."
The houses were ready by October 9, and we were glad to escape
from the hotel. Our combined luggage consisted of twelve or fourteen
large trunks and "no end of parcels." According to Rob, the entire lot
was carried from the hotel and up the hill to the new house, a quarter
of a mile, on Arab backs for $1.60. Wages were extremely low, Rob
comments in a letter. A man worked hard to earn $5.00 a month and
would carry two hundred pounds on his back as much as a camel
would carry to any part of the city for eight or ten cents.
Rob was nineteen, and his notebook and copies of his letters form
a sort of diary which gives a vivid though juvenile picture of the
conditions under which the Group labored in those early days.
Customs and practices have changed since then, and Rob s descrip
tions do not represent life in present-day Jerusalem.
"It is a beautiful house," Rob wrote, "although a little damp
because of its newness. Dampness is common because of the thick
ness of the walls, which are from three to five feet thick and of white
stone." Little wood was used in Jerusalem s houses, as it was scarce
and expensive. All the roofs were fiat with domes, so the walls had to
be substantial, and, Rob added: "The city looks at a distance like a
village of prairie dogs."
Rob gave a good description of it:
Our house is on the highest point of the city and so we have delightful
air and are not troubled by the terrible filth of the low portions of the
city. ...
Read in your Bible the curses against Jerusalem and this land and
you will get an exact description of it today. The center of the city lies
in the Tyropean Valley. It rises in the east toward the Mount of Olives
on two hills, Moriah and Bezetha, and on the west toward the Jaffa Gate
to Mount Zion and Acra. Mount Zion is the Armenian Christian quar
ter and many of the English live there. S. west is the Jewish quarter and
the east and n. east is the Mohammedan, while the south east is the
Temple site, on Mount Bezetha, and accordingly in the Moslem quar
ter. We are up so high that no one disturbs us. The Church of the Holy
Sepulcher is in the center of the city and quite unlikely to be the authen
tic spot.
Around us were Moslem, Jewish, and Mohammedan slums, so
closely set that we could not trace the narrow streets.
Jerusalem lay at our feet. It seemed beautiful then. It will be beauti
ful again.
By night the city was dark and mysterious-looking. Only kerosene
lamps lighted the streets and houses. Those who ventured into the
66 OUR JERUSALEM
dark carried kerosene lanterns. These cast only feeble flutters of light.
The house itself was large and comfortable. It was the first home I
really remember, and it was to be my home for many years. It is now
the Anna Spafford Baby Nursing Home, named in honor of my
mother.
Our group lived together as one large and happy family. Only those
I have mentioned, who came from Chicago with Father and Mother,
were members then, but others joined, and many years later the
Colony grew to contain as many as one hundred and fifty.
How strange and primitive the new life must have seemed to the
Group. The house hunting and furnishing, employing of servants,
and the many problems connected with the new life were confusing
and perplexing at times.
Rob wrote:
We get along amazingly well, considering that we came to Jerusalem
with scarcely one housekeeping article. . . .
We are having bedding made and other articles. I have had several Arab
women to watch from sunrise to sunset. They are a curious but interesting
set of people, and I have had a good deal of amusement with them. I am
learning Arabic gradually and hope soon to "carry on" at least a limited
conversation. Here everyone speaks two or three languages, and many can
use parts of eight or ten, for it is absolutely necessary in order to be
tolerably conversant. In Jerusalem you can find every nationality under the
sun represented, so you can see how many tongues can be used.
The Arab women are good workers when you stand over them and
shout "Yellah [Get going]!"
Rob spent much time watching the native carpenters at work, and
felt he could do as well as men who did not even know the use of a
square. No sooner were we moved in than Rob purchased a fine set of
German and English tools and set up a bench in an empty room,
where, he wrote:
... I carry on a trade of all kinds indiscriminately, blacksmith,
mason, carpenter, and literally astonish the natives with a slight exhibi
tion of American go-ahead-ness. This keeps me busy all the time, al
though you wouldn t think so but among half a dozen women there is
always something that is wanted to be done, especially in a new house.
Among other things, Rob made a finely polished desk with pigeon-
hales for Father for Father s first Christmas in Jerusalem; and Father
used it for the rest of his life, and I ever since, and much of this book
has been written on it. He made a bureau for Mother which is still
in use in the American Colony, and child-size furniture for our
nurseries.
OUR JERUSALEM 67
Mother had tender feet, and when her American shoes wore out,
Rob took them to pieces for a pattern and cut a new pair from the
softest of kid leather; Mother wore the shoes Rob made for five years.
We had no rugs at first, but local matting made of rushes was cheap
and decorative.
There was little choice in materials to furnish the new house, but
Mother used Turkey-red material which was gay against the white
walls. Other curtains were made of white or cream muslin banded
with the Turkey red, so our windows gave a cheerful appearance.
In the living room we learned to call it the salon Mother used
bunches of wild grass and palm branches for decoration, and for pic
tures mounted the cards we received for Christmas.
Aunt Maggie wrote in a letter:
It is a large room, and Annie with her natural ingenuity has made it
lovely with Turkey-red curtains and divan covers ... on the south the
salon has large double windows with broad window sills, one made into a
lounge, and the others hold pots with maidenhair and other ferns. . . .
A garden on the east and south had seven almond trees that were
a great attraction in the beginning, but they died and were replaced
by mulberry trees. There were pine and cypress, and soon we had a
beautiful garden. In time the central open court was enhanced by
pink ivy geraniums and white roses climbing all the way to the second
story.
There was a great deal of work to be done getting the house in order
and Mother, Aunt Maggie, Mrs. Gould, and Mrs. Whiting were kept
busy. I enjoyed the excitement of housekeeping and never had the
feeling of being pushed back, as we children were always part of
everything.
In his diary Father noted that one day "we" made quince jelly. I
am sure it was the first time Father had put his hand to domestic
service. Mother had in him a willing but clumsy helper, and she
always tried to get him out of the house and off on one of his sight
seeing expeditions when there was any special work to be done.
Evidently we moved into the snug new home just in time for the
first rain, for Rob wrote this in October:
This afternoon we received the first wetting of the rainy season and
are rejoicing exceedingly in the fact. You would understand the reason
for rejoicing if you were to stay here one hour. Imagine a city crowded
with people, without rain for six months, and you have Jerusalem.
Everything is utterly barren not a green thing to be seen except the
olive and fig trees and they are literally covered with dust. They say that
now the hills will become beautifully green and everything will be lovely.
68 OUR JERUSALEM
Three months later:
The fields are just turning from a reddish brown to a bright green. The
wild flowers and the new grass cover the slopes and everything has the
appearance of spring. It is a most bewitching climate and nothing could
ever persuade me to leave Jerusalem. ... I am taking drawing lessons,
in self-defense.
Rob was out in his spare time sketching the ruins, the scraggling
olive trees, and the people in their strange costumes. His work was
interrupted by youngsters beggings for baksheesh (a present or alms) .
He made a lovely drawing of the Damascus Gate, near our house,
which I treasure, and drew little landscapes on olivewood with India
ink, which, when polished over, made nice souvenirs for his friends
back home.
We were surprised to find winter could be cold in Jerusalem. Soon
the wind blew loudly around our stone walls as if threatening to
sweep even the stout building away, and sounded, Rob said, "exactly
as it did at Lake View when the snow came down by the yard." We
even learned that it occasionally snowed. One night the gale blew the
"whirligig" off our salon chimney. Rob went up to repair it and if it
were not for the railing Father had insisted upon our landlord s putting
around the edge, Rob would have been blown off the roof.
I find a letter written by Mother on January 6, 1882, in which
she said;
Our Christmas was a very quiet one and did not seem a bit like those
at home, as there was nothing to remind us of it.
Three Christmases later Mother wrote:
Christmas! Glorious rain all night. Fifty-two outsiders here during
the afternoon and evening. The tree beautifully trimmed, supper served
to young and old. Thirty-two outside our "family" received gifts from
the tree. The most wonderful peace and order combined with joy filled the
house.
Christmas was always a joyous celebration, as all our holidays and
birthdays were. Even the ordinary days combined joyous well-being
with hard work. In one of Mother s letters she tells of the large num
bers of people, both Jews and Arabs, who came every day to the
American Colony to visit and attend the daily meetings and listen to
the singing. Among others they became acquainted with Mr. Stein-
hart, a Jew who had traveled widely and was very interesting. He was
employed by a private banker to buy land, which was sold to the im
migrant Jews.
His sister made and sold small cakes, and every Friday we ordered
OUR JERUSALEM 69
enough for Sunday afternoon tea, and larger ones for birthdays or
other days we wished to celebrate. We called them "Steinhart cakes"
and thought them delicious.
I find a typical birthday description in a letter from Mrs. Gould
to Aunt Rachel in Chicago in which she describes one of Mr. Rudy s,
soon after we moved into the new house. Mr. Rudy was business
manager for the Colony and, Mrs. Gould wrote:
... so kind and thoughtful for us all, it was a pleasure to have a cele
bration for him.
Mrs. Whiting and Annie made a large cake and sent it out to be
baked, and we frosted it at home. Rob put Mr. Rudy s name and the
date and good wishes on with the chocolate frosting. We had nuts and
raisins and coffee with it that evening in the parlor and Flora and Bertha
were allowed to sit up until ten o clock.
I remember that evening and the many fancy little parcels wrapped
with funny inscriptions. Not all the gifts were funny, many were
lovely, and among them was a silk scarf worn by certain Arabs and
Bedouins, a headdress appropriate to this country where the sun is
very hot.
Our daily fare was simple but healthy. Our kitchen, Aunt Maggie
wrote, was "different from any you ve ever seen." We had no oven
at first, and all the cooking was done on charcoal, in a row of small
grated ovens set into the kitchen wall. We had little sheet-iron stoves
to heat the rooms in winter which burned olivewood although, look
ing out over the barren country, one wondered where the wood could
possibly come from.
There were copper utensils in the kitchen and lovely copper dishes,
the finest of which came from Damascus.
Our native cooks were taught to make American dishes, but we had
only the local foodstuffs and soon learned to like the native cooking.
We had no potatoes, but rice and cracked wheat, cone sugar solid
and very pure and plenty of vegetables. We never ate anything raw
that was not peeled, or lettuce unless it was grown in our own garden.
But we had radishes, and a squash called cusa, like vegetable marrow*
Cusa was cooked with tomato sauce and mutton, or prepared as cusa
mashy, when it is stuffed with meat and rice, a dish we loved. Mutton
and fowl were our only meats*
Mo a lubi> meaning "upside down," was another native dish we
liked. It was made by putting a layer of chopped mutton roasted in
butter in the saucepan, then a layer of sliced and fried eggplant The
right amount of rice was added and seasoned with salt, pepper, a bit of
cinnamon and allspice, with saffron to color the rice. This was boiled
70 OUR JERUSALEM
until dry, then the whole thing was turned upside down on a large
copper dish and over it was poured melted semin in which snobar
(pine-cone nuts) had been roasted.
Semin was goat s butter boiled until concentrated.
Joseph the milkman kept the goats, and his shepherd herded them
in and out of the city. We had to boil all the milk, of course. Later
we had our own flock of goats, and, still later, cattle.
Sundays we frequently had pancakes with dibbis, a molasses made
of boiled-down grape juice.
We made American coffee for breakfast and tea in the afternoon.
To Arab guests we served coffee in tiny cups, very strong, made in
the Arab way. Once we offered one of our large cups of coffee to our
Arab friend, Abu Nassib, and he was astonished. "What is this you
are giving me a cistern full?"
We had no servant problem in Jerusalem in those days.
Our cook was a Christian peasant woman from Ramallah. We had
five servants, Miriam and her daughter Hannieh, and three young men
who did the marketing, waiting on table, and other work. There was
no electricity in Jerusalem, and cleaning and filling the kerosene
lamps was a task that in itself took much time.
We had an ironing woman named Katrina. She used irons that were
like little stoves. The charcoal was put inside the iron and lighted
and by the time the fumes were gone, the iron was hot.
Rob wrote that our cook, Miriam, looked like a queen, and pre
sided with as much grace and dignity over her fireplace as any lady in
her drawing room. She wore the costume of the northern villages, a
straight-cut gown of cream-colored hand-woven linen, heavily em
broidered in cross-stitch in red with a touch of blue and green on the
side seams, the back of the skirt, and breast. The square "breastplate"
was heavily embroidered and very beautiful. A silken or woolen girdle
around the waist and red leather heelless slippers completed the
costume.
Most beautiful of all was the headdress of the married woman.
Bits of cloth plaited into the hair made a firm foundation for the
headdress, which consisted of a small, close-fitting cap quite un
like the tall headdress worn by the married Bethlehemite and southern
peasants. On the cap was the dowry, of silver coins sewn closely to
gether in such a way that they stood up. Some authorities say that this
headdress may have been the inspiration for the halo to early
artists. From it an elaborate silver chain or chains, with silver coins
attached, hung down to the breast, culminating in one large silver coin,
or, if the woman were of a wealthy family, a gold coin. Over this
went the heavily embroidered veil or shawl, the "veil" Ruth wore
OUR JERUSALEM 71
when Boaz said: "Bring the veil that thou hast upon thee and hold it;"
and when she held it he measured six measures of barley.
When Miriam and her daughter Hannieh were dressed in their
Sunday best they were like pictures of beautiful women in Bible days.
We thought it a pity, when, around the turn of the century, the
Palestine women began discarding their picturesque costumes in
favor of European. The bright colors they loved, so becoming in
native costumes, looked cheap and dowdy when used in European
clothing.
Hannieh was a sort of under nurse and often took Flora and me
walking. We loved going with her; we met other nurses and children
in the Russian Compound and had delightful adventures.
One afternoon Father took me to the Holy Sepulcher. Near the
entrance, at the Stone of Unction, I asked my astonished father to
wait, while I knelt, kissed the stone, and crossed myself.
"Roman Catholics do it that way," I explained.
Hannieh was Greek Orthodox.
Another time Father asked me where I should like to walk, and I
answered promptly, "To the Russian Cathedral, where they serve re
freshments."
He learned that we had been in the habit of going with Hannieh
to the Cathedral where hundreds of Russian pilgrims received the
sacrament from a large bowl of wine with bits of sacred bread floating
in it. I remember the priest would carry the bowl and with a spoon he
would shove a piece of the soaked bread into every waiting mouth.
Everyone was devout and exceedingly religious during this ceremony,
but Flora and I, not understanding, only knew we liked eating the
soaked bread.
This put an end to our strolls with Hannieh to the Holy Sepulcher
and the Russian Cathedral.
In the narrow, exciting streets there were little cookshops that sold
kebab (shish kebab is the Turkish form) , bits of meat, tomato, and
onion broiled on spikes. In the early spring bunches of green chick
peas, roasted in the bread ovens, were sold. These foods were sold to
the peasants who came into the city to work, and our nurses liked
them, and we liked them too.
Father put a stop to all this.
That we did not contract some serious disease remains a mystery.
But we were healthy and robust children and as fascinated by our
strange new surroundings as were our elders.
Of the three young men who were our original houseboys in the
American Colony, one is still with us after sixty-eight years, and a
72 OUR JERUSALEM
loved and highly respected member of the Colony. Elias must be
nearly ninety by now.
One was dismissed after several years, and the front door still bears
the dents he made pounding with the iron knocker, hoping he might
wear us down and make us change our minds.
The next time we saw him, he was wearing the reversed collar of
a preacher. He had been to England, joined a small religious sect, and
was conducting a group of Bible students through the Holy Land. He
brought his party to visit the American Colony, and on entering the
front hall knelt and said, "Let us bray," and of course we children
giggled.
The Arabic alphabet has no equivalent for the letter p> which is
often pronounced b. A cook we had used to say, "I can say p but I
don t know where to but it."
Maarouf , the third young man, was a Moslem, about eighteen years
old. All our "help" came to morning prayers, and Maarouf s interest
grew from day to day, until in 1884 he announced his wish to be
come a Christian.
Father knew the consequences that would follow persecution and
perhaps even death, but Maarouf seemed steadfast, and eventually he
was prepared in the Christian faith and baptized by Father. All his
family, except his mother, turned against Maarouf.
His stepfather was a muezzin who called the Faithful to prayer five
times a day from a minaret near the Dome of the Rock. He felt that
Maarouf s apostasy was an insult to the family and to himself in
particular. The simplest and most effectual way to remove Maarouf
from the scene was to request the Turkish Government to draft him
into the army for five years of service.
We were helpless. We had no idea of surreptitiously hiding him,
but evidently Maarouf s family thought we might have, and they ap
pealed through Raouf Pasha, governor of Palestine, to our American
Consul, Selah Merrill, who wrote Father a not unfriendly letter point
ing out that the governor was requesting the delivery of a Turkish
subject named Maarouf, and under existing treaties and regulations
the United States could not prevent the delivery of Maarouf when he
was called for. Father answered that we would certainly not detain
Maarouf; in fact that his summons was expected. But it was a sur
prise to find that when the Turkish soldier came to arrest Maarouf he
was accompanied by the American Consul s dragoman.
Maarouf was held in the Turkish barracks inside the Jaffa Gate.
On April 1, 1884, as we were at supper, a man came with a scrap of
paper on which was written a little note beginning "Dear sisters and
brethern." It was from Maarouf, and I found it many years later in
Father s desk. Maarouf and other prisoners were about to be taken
OUR JERUSALEM 73
to Damascus and at that moment were standing outside the Damascus
Gate. Everyone hurried out to say good-by to Maarouf.
Mother wrote, "We found ourselves silently surrounding the dear
boy."
All the recruits had their hands tied behind them, only Maarouf s
were not tied at the wrists like the others, but by his thumbs. Later
we heard this caused great suffering, for his thumbs became infected.
In this fashion Maarouf walked approximately three hundred miles
to Damascus, where he was kept in solitary confinement, and beaten,
to make him recant. Then tactics changed. He was taken to Beirut,
treated with flattering consideration, and offered a government posi
tion and an advantageous marriage if he would give up his Christian
faith.
Maarouf stood by his convictions. He managed to send several
letters to Father. One read in part:
. . . The Lord is teaching me many lessons and bringing me close to
Him. They said to us that they are going to send us away to the place
where the war was. But I am not attending to what they say. I am waiting
to the dear Lord for deliverance. Anyway He want it only may I glorify
His name in this thing. Salute the dear ones at home and my earthly
mother comfort her for me. Salute the children.
Your son, MAAROUF.
Then we learned that Maarouf was sent to Yemen, where the
Arabs were continually rising against the Turkish rule, where the
climate was unhealthy, and he could not be expected to survive the
five years of hard military service. It must have seemed the easiest
way to get rid of him.
The Turks were having difficulty. In 1881 Abdul-Hamid lost
Tunisia to France, and the following year England occupied Egypt.
The whole of North Africa was lost to Turkish domination with the
exception of Libya. Arabia was a continual source of trouble.
Maarouf survived his five years in Arabia.
I remember being awakened in the dead of night by a great bang
ing on the front door. Everyone in the Colony wakened, and when the
door was opened, there stood a dirty, weary, and forlorn Turkish
soldier, who said simply, "I am Maarouf."
When he was rested and fed and his beard shaved off, we could
recognize the lad, now about twenty-two, who had been led away
from the Damascus Gate with his thumbs tied at his back.
We children were much excited and made a great ado over our
hero.
The respite was short. His stepfather heard Maarouf was back
and began his old intrigues. Six months later Maarouf was again
74 OUR JERUSALEM
taken from us, this time as a reserve to quell the troubles in Crete.
Across his taskara, or military paper, was written that he was never to
be released because he was a "kafir" an unbeliever.
Maarouf was in the mountains of Candia for two years, but when
the Greeks conquered the Turks, Maarouf took advantage of a mid
night retreat. By slow degrees he got to Jaffa, to Jerusalem, and to
the American Colony.
The stepfather heard Maarouf was home again. He was dum-
founded, for he believed he had secured his permanent banishment
and probably his death. He came to the American Colony, bringing
Maarouf s mother and all his brothers and sisters.
"I see now," he said humbly to Maarouf, "that you have not
changed your outer garment [religion] but it is a change of heart.
If I work against you, now that I am convinced of this fact, I will
be fighting against God. It is written kismet. I have become your
friend, and I respect you."
All our Moslem friends treated Maarouf in the same manner. H$
was received by his Moslem superiors as an equal. In the American
Colony he was no longer regarded as a servant.
Another who was to live with us for the rest of her life was Wardy,
a Greek Orthodox Arab woman who was John Whiting s nurse. John
grew from babyhood to manhood and went away to the United States
and returned again and Wardy was still part of the family. When she
was taken ill, we nursed her, and when she died, and was prepared
for burial, a ragged cap John had worn as a boy was found inside her
clothing, next to her heart. "Tat-toot-mat-toot" was her absurd pet
name for him; it was the last word on her lips.
These early days were stirring and eager for the Group from
Chicago. The tempest brewing in Lake View had not yet burst over
our innocent heads, and we were making new friends, both native-
born and otherwise, for, as Father noted in his diary, "at one time or
another the world and his wife come to Jerusalem. . , . Let no one
think of the Holy City as out of the world. One has opportunities of
meeting people one would never meet at home under normal circum
stances."
The very day we were climbing the hill to our new home Father
and Mother were stopped by one of the neighbors, who shook their
hands. His name was Abu Ali, and he was the kavass, or guard, to
the Russian Archimandrite. He welcomed them to this portion of the
walled city and promised he would always be their friend. This
promise was kept, and today the third and fourth generations of his
family are just as loyal in friendship to the American Colony as was
their great-grandfather, Abu Ali.
OUR JERUSALEM 75
Father noted in his diary that on their first Sunday in Jerusalem he
and Mother attended Christ Church, seat of the Anglican bishop, and
met several of the leading men in the "Society for the Propagation of
the Gospel Among the Jews." He wrote that on June 26, 1882, Raouf
Pasha, the governor of Jerusalem, called at the American Colony, and
that the next week he and Mr. Rudy, with Mr. Gargour as interpreter,
returned the Pasha s call.
One of the first things Father did was to pay his respects to our
American Consul in Jerusalem, the Rev. Selah Merrill, former
Congregational minister of Andover, Massachusetts, who served from
1882 to 1886, and then, after four years of respite, returned to com
plete a tenure of office which, with one more break, covered eighteen
years. Father s call was not returned, and as long as he remained in
Jerusalem Mr. Merrill never set foot inside the American Colony
Compound. In all those years his acrimony against the American
Colony never abated, and his official position lent weight to his dis
approval and increased his ability to do us harm.
Consuls in the East, before the Capitulations were abrogated, and
especially for Americans who had extraterritorial rights, had enor
mous powers for good and evil. This was before the United States had
a consular service as a career for trained men. Consuls were political
appointees.
Mr. Merrill had definite ideas as a Congregational minister about
how philanthropic work should be done, so he would have nothing to
do with our Group. His resentment was hidden at first and did not
disturb our serenity for several years.
But we were on friendly terms with all the other consular groups
and especially the English Consul.
Father s notebook continues to hold accounts of walks of explora
tion within and outside Jerusalem s walls. He wrote of going to the
"Valley of Hinnom . . . returning by the village of Siloam and back
through the Zion Gate." He tells of a trip on horseback to Bethlehem,
with Mother tumbling from her horse several times on the way, until
she learned the poor beast had "the staggers." They enjoyed many in
teresting journeys in these early years, and Father never tired of his
rambling trips of discovery.
CHAPTER SEVEN
JERUSALEM in those days was a medieval city, snugly crowded
within its walls and only beginning to spread its suburbs beyond.
It is generally believed that Salem, to whose king, Melchizedek,
Abraham gave tithes (Genesis 14), was Jerusalem. Apart from this,
the earliest records referring to this city are the cuneiform Tell el-
Amarna tablets, written about 1400 B.C. to the King of Egypt.
Later the King of Jerusalem is named as one of the five who under
took to punish the Gibeonites for making their truce with Joshua. To
help the Gibeonites Joshua came and defeated the confederation
(Joshua 10). Later, in Samuel, we read: "David took the strong
hold of Zion, the same is the city of David."
This first small Jebuzite settlement was situated near the Virgin s
Fount, the only living water near Jerusalem.
According to some scholars, but not universally accepted, David,
learning that the Jebuzites had a tunnel by which they drew up the
water from the Virgin s Fount, boldly conceived the plan to surprise
them that way, and succeeded. What is believed to be that tunnel has
been discovered. The Jebuzite village then became the national capital
and in time Jerusalem was the religious center.
Titus destroyed Jerusalem in A.D. 70 so thoroughly that it was
plowed with salt so that nothing would grow. It even lost its name at
one time under Hadrian and for several centuries was called Eelya
Capitulina.
The city has had one of the most checkered careers in history,
having suffered something like fifty sieges. Some of these made only
slight changes; others resulted in partial and even total destruction,
filling up the valleys and greatly altering the city s aspect.
The miracle is that Jerusalem has survived.
The Valley of Kedron separates the city from the Mount of Olives
to the east, while the Valley of Hinnom, which starts on the west
side, protects the city there and then swings eastward to join the
Kedron, so furnishing sufficient defense on the south side. The
vulnerable point has always been the north, where no valley guards
OUR JERUSALEM 77
the city, and where at two different periods suburbs grew up which
needed defense. Hence in Roman times the north side had three walls.
It is noteworthy that almost every attempt against Jerusalem except
AUenby s has been directed from the north side, from which point
alone it has been successfully taken.
The Tyropean Valley runs north to south through the city and is
filled up near the southern end to a depth of ninety feet. It was across
this valley that Josephus tells of two viaducts spanning the valley
which enabled those in the Upper City to get to the Lower City and
Temple.
The present city walls are Saracen and date from 1542 and are
the work of Suleiman the Magnificent. They vary in height from
thirty to seventy-five feet, and follow in part the line of wall of Christ s
day, especially on the east side. A goodly section on the south, which
now lies outside the walls including the Pool of Siloam, was within
the walls in Solomon s day. The present south wall probably follows
the line of the Crusader s south wall limit.
Few cities can claim rampart walls of such perfect preservation.
These picturesque battlements narrowly escaped demolition by Djemal
Pasha, who was Turkish Generalissimo of the campaign against the
British in 1914-17. Demolire was one of his favorite words. I heard
him say that he intended to give Jerusalem fresh air by demolishing
the city walls and make it more modern by hacking a boulevard,
which would of course bear his name, from the Jajffa Gate to the
Temple area. Such "hacking" might have uncovered much of antiquity
that would have been of inestimable archaeological value, but at a
time when no one was there to record it scientifically, and it would
have been immediately and irretrievably lost.
The last fifty years have done much to obscure the western and
northwestern sections of the wall by the erection of huge buildings
hard against it, but this has been stopped, and recently some of the
unsightly modern buildings near the Jaffa Gate have been pulled
down, exposing the old ramparts. During the recent civil war many
of these buildings belonging to Arabs and Armenians were demolished
by the Israeli army.
January 17, 1883, a letter by Aunt Maggie told of the new build
ings going up in and around Jerusalem:
The activity of rebuilding is by no means confined to the Jews. Catho
lics, Greeks, Mohammedans, and Protestants are all taking part in it.
There are at the present time more than one hundred buildings going
up, all of stone, and most of them of carefully cut stone. The new method
is to use iron girders to support the ceiling. This is then covered with
French tiles instead of the older and more picturesque dome roof.
78 OUR JERUSALEM
Each house had its cistern, Jerusalem s only water supply. Aunt
Maggie said she believed the new tile roofs became so popular be
cause they afforded an increased area for collecting water.
She teUs of the Grand New Hotel, then being built, just inside the
Jaffa Gate opposite the Tower of David, with an arcade and shops
below. All were being built by the Greek Orthodox father who was the
treasurer of the Holy Sepulcher.
Still deeper inside the old city he built massive blocks of shops
with chambers overhead, covering the site of the Crusader inns,
hospitals, and churches, especially those of the Knights of Saint John
of Jerusalem. Inside the Jaffa Gate the Franciscans were finishing
their church, with a clock tower adjoining which "will contain chimes
of bells." I remember Father took me up on the scaffolding of the
church tower before the tower was finished, and I was frightened but
would not acknowledge it because I was thrilled at being treated like
a big girl.
Near this church the Franciscans were also erecting large buildings
to accommodate priests and pilgrims, and workshops for the employ
ment of men of the community. The French hospital building was out
side the north city wall its first story barely finished when we came.
Adjoining it the French Catholics were building a large, expensive
stone structure called the Notre Dame de France to accommodate
six hundred pilgrims.
One hotel was building an addition to be used as a restaurant,
for there was not a restaurant in Jerusalem except the "cookshops,"
where people bought native food.
Aunt Maggie wrote again in 1883 that on the Jaffa-Jerusalem
Road, more than thirty miles long because of its winding course up
the hills, about four thousand men, women, and children were em
ployed making a new road. In places they followed the old cobblestone
road, which in turn followed the still older Roman road. Near the little
village of Kulonia they built a beautiful arched stone bridge over the
watercourse, which is dry in summer but in winter swells to a
dangerous torrent.
From this watercourse, but lower down where it reaches the plain,
David picked the five stones that killed Goliath.
Nearing Jerusalem the Jaffa Road becomes "main street." It was
treeless, with long lines of ugjy houses put up cheaply for the incom
ing Jews, over which a good deal of speculation was practiced as
their demand increased.
The British Consulate, where our friends the Moore family lived,
was the last house west on the Jaffa Road. Two stucco lions stood
before the gate. It became a police station during the British Man
date.
OUR JERUSALEM 79
Opposite the British Consulate on the Jaffa Road a half-built
house stood. Years later it was completed and used as the Municipal
Hospital, and still later, after the British occupation, it became the
headquarters of the Public Health Department. The reason it remained
unfinished so long is another of Jerusalem s tales.
It was being built, about the time we arrived, as the future home
of a couple about to be married. The young man was the only son of
an Arab Roman-Catholic family who lived near our home in Haret-es-
Sa ad-ieh. Before the wedding took place he died. Mother attended
the, funeral services, where the actions of the heart-broken parents
can be attributed only to wild and uncontrolled hysteria.
The mourners gathered in the room where the dead man was
propped up in a chair and his lovely young bride was brought up to
him, gorgeously decorated with jewels and flowers and wearing an elab
orate brocade dress and the customary wedding veil. The "joy shout"
was raised by the mourners, or guests, and his mother danced before
the couple with a lighted candle in each hand, the traditional dance the
mother and relatives perform before a bridal pair.
"It is my duty to dance," she repeated, and the guests joined in,
"Yes, it is your duty."
As she finished her dance she tore her clothes, gave the terrible
death cry, and snatched the veil from the bride s face.
Then the corpse was laid in the coffin and the funeral ceremony
held.
Mother came home shaken by the spectacle. The violent demon
stration of grief evidently killed the mother, for she died soon after.
So one more house stood unfinished for many years in Jerusalem.
On what is now the Street of the Prophets but was then called the
"back road" was the house where Holman Hunt, the pre-Raphaelite
artist, had lived with his family while painting some of his most
famous pictures, including the "Shadow of Death," or "The Shadow
of the Cross," a robed figure standing in the sunset with arms lifted,
casting a shadow of a cross. Many of Hunt s pictures, painted in and
around Jerusalem, were reproduced in two large volumes, Pre-
Raphaelism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was gone when
we came, but we heard many anecdotes about the famous artist and
met many of his models; I remember particularly a converted Jewish
girl whose waving golden hair he had copied for the Christ in one of
his paintings.
The "back road" was muddy or dusty according to the season of
the year.
The London Jews Society had a small house on the "back road"
in a large compound which was used as a camping ground in sum-
80 OUR JERUSALEM
mer by the English missionaries. Later the English Mission Hospital
and girls school were built there. As I write this it is being used by
the Hadassah Hospital as their buildings on Mount Scopus are in the
Arab zone. The Mission House and the home of the clergyman, Mr.
Kelk, stood conspicuously in a large garden.
The Arabic Church, belonging to the Church Missionary Society,
stood apart, not surrounded by houses as it is now.
There was then no Mea Shearim, in Hebrew, "One Hundred
Gates," which became such a blight on the landscape and where so
much of the fighting took place in 1947-48 between Jews and Arabs.
There is a tragic story connected with the construction of these
hundred houses. They were not built by Jews, as might be supposed,
since they became a one-hundred-per-cent Jewish quarter, but by a
Swiss banker who thought the return of the Jews to Jerusalem was
imminent but was not too pious to make a little money out of it, so
he bought up all the property on the measuring line supposedly laid
down in Jeremiah 31:38-40 and put up rows of rooms, each room
with a small kitchen attached and intended to hold a family. These
dwellings were sold to the newcomers who flocked to Palestine in
consequence of the Russian persecutions, which became almost a
hegira about 1882.
This banker built a magnificent residence for his large family
where we enjoyed playing with his children in their nursery and
garden, which was filled with many toys and other equipment for
play and where one of the boys who used to tease me was Frederick
Vester, whom I later married.
I remember Father remonstrating with the banker for speculating
with the prophecies and before long he did come to grief.
Every once in a while Sultan Abdul-Hamid of Turkey would
become alarmed at the great influx of Jews into Palestine and issue
an order that the immigration must stop. I remember how distressed
Mother and Father would be whenever they heard this, knowing of
the hardships the immigrants must endure. The Jewish people would
leave their ships at Jaffa in rowboats to be taken to shore, as there
was no harbor, only to find the Turkish authorities would not let
them land. They would be rowed back to the ship, where the cap
tain would not accept them. Between boat and shore they were
taken back and forth, and eventually landed when the bribe, under
these trying conditions, had grown as large as could be extracted.
Then pressure would be brought to bear on Constantinople by a
great power, and the doors of Palestine would open again, until
again, suddenly, and without warning, another order would clamp
down on whatever unlucky group arrived at that inopportune mo-
OUR JERUSALEM 81
ment, and they, in turn, would be caught between the upper and
nether millstones.
It was during one of these periods, when Palestine was closed to
the Jews, that the Swiss banker found he had bought property too
lavishly. The poor man was forced into bankruptcy. The mansion
he once occupied is now the Evelina de Rothschild School for Girls.
Some distance to the south of Jerusalem was a cluster of houses
known as the German Templar Colony. Few buildings were between
it and the Jaffa Gate, so it stood conspicuous and alone. These
people were Unitarians who had left Germany to obtain religious
freedom, drifted to Palestine, and founded colonies.
In 1881 the hills around Jerusalem, so thickly populated now,
were open fields where we picked wild flowers in the spring.
Ras Abu Tor, or the "Hill of Evil Council," was marked by a
large dark green mace or hackberry tree on which Judas was sup
posed to have hanged himself. I remember being afraid of that tree
and thinking how wicked it looked. It vanished, and Ras Abu Tor
became covered with modern buildings. The hill has seen much
fighting in recent years and little is left of the buildings now.
Two windmills were conspicuous in the Jerusalem landscape, one
built by Sir Moses Montefiore, who also built near by the row of
houses used for the accommodation of poor Jews rent free, still
called the Montefiore Quarter.
After the Montefiore mill was built no one knew how to set the
sails and Cousin Rob was called in. He made a study of windmills
and did his best, but the mill was only partially successful. The
other, the property of the Greek Orthodox Convent, is now part of
Rehavia, the large new Jewish settlement.
No buildings existed in those days between this windmill and the
Convent of the Cross, the fortresslike monastery on the traditional
spot where the tree grew from which was made the Cross of Calvary.
Now the solid mass of buildings there is Rehavia.
The Convent of the Cross was used as a seminary for Greek
Orthodox students, who, after graduating, were eligible to become
members of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulcher. From this
Brotherhood the Orthodox Patriarch was chosen when he had risen
to the proper ecclesiastical rank. An Arab could never become a Pa
triarch of the Orthodox Church because Arabs were not permitted
to attend the seminary. This was and still is the burning controversy
between clergy and Arab laity.
The olive grove surrounding the Convent of the Cross, Musalaby,
as the convent is called in Arabic, was one of our favorite resorts
82 OUR JERUSALEM
for picnics and we children loved to go there. In one of the upstairs
rooms there was a sort of museum. One of the exhibits was a rather
moth-eaten stuffed lion with staring glass eyes, said to have been
killed in one of the nearby valleys. I often begged to be taken to the
convent, and the lion was the attraction. I would hold tightly to
Father s hand and keep my eyes shut until we came before the lion,
then I would open them quickly and stand transfixed by that men
acing glassy stare. In my mind I was convinced that this was the
actual lion that had not eaten Daniel, but I was scared because I
wasn t sure he wouldn t eat me. I was no saint like Daniel, of that
I was sure.
The Russian Compound outside the walls northwest of the city
was much as it is now, only the glaring new white stone has mel
lowed with age and the saplings of cypress and pine are grown to
large trees, and there are fewer of them. A strong wall surrounds
the cathedral, hospital, consular residence, and hospices for pilgrims.
Enormous crowds of Russian pilgrims trekked through Palestine
in those days and up until World War I. They began to gather in
Jerusalem at Christmastime we saw them that first Christmas in
1881 and by Easter there would be between fifteen and twenty
thousand. They came on foot in large caravans, always escorted by a
kavass on horseback, heading the procession, while another brought
up the rear. These were generally in Cossack or Montenegrin cos
tume and looked fierce but very grand, and as a child I imagined
them to be generals at the very least. Many of these pilgrims had
beautiful voices and sang and chanted as they walked along.
After the Holy Fire, which takes place on the Saturday before
the Greek Easter, there would be a great scramble among them to
get away by carriage and, in later years, on the narrow-gauge rail
road to Jaffa, the port of embarkation.
The Russian State Church was Greek Orthodox and encouraged
these pilgrimages by building hospices as accommodations in many
of the Palestine cities and in remote spots which marked holy sites.
In these the pilgrims could be housed and served hot water in sam
ovars and leave a few kopeks when they departed. The Imperial
Russian Government also subsidized the steamers that brought the ,
pilgrims from Odessa on the Black Sea to Jaffa and back again to
Russia.
The pilgrims had little money individually, but because of their
vast numbers they contributed the major part of the support of the
Greek Orthodox Convent and Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and the
hospices. They created a demand for all kinds of trinkets, and many
kinds of industries in the manufacture of souvenirs gave occupation
to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Candle-dippers
OUR JERUSALEM 83
worked the year round to have a supply equal to the demands of the
thousands of Russian, Greek, Armenian, Coptic, and Macedonian
pilgrims who attended the annual celebration of the Holy Fire. Then
there were the makers of ikons and mother-of-pearl and olivewood
trinkets. Shroud makers made a good living stenciling black skulls
and crossbones on white muslin to be worn by the Russian pilgrims
when they were dipped in the Jordan River at the Feast of Epiphany,
and eventually to be used when they were buried, and they would
carry back dipped shrouds to their relatives and friends. They be
lieved by symbolic washing they would obtain a blessing because it
was there the Lord was baptized.
The Russian pilgrimages that were part of life in Palestine and
supported so many families ceased with World War I and the Rus
sian Revolution,
In a letter dated 1885 Aunty wrote:
... on the very summit of Olivet the Russians have begun to build
a tower. It is said it will be one hundred and sixty-two feet high when
completed, and from its top they hope to see the Mediterranean and the
Dead Sea.
A 12,000-pound bell, cast in Russia, was brought for the tower. It was
drawn from Jaffa to the top of the Mount of Olives last winter by Rus
sian pilgrims, mostly women. It took them three weeks to get it to its
destination. These Russian peasants have beautiful voices and they
chanted the whole way. They changed places every few minutes, the
rested taking the places of the tired.
I remember the day the bell passed below our house on its way to
Gethsemane. We all went up on the roof and watched and listened.
The singing reached us and was very sweet. Before the faithful
workers was still the great pull up Olivet, but they were cheerful,
waved to us on the roof, and proceeded with their precious load.
A slaughterhouse stood where the Dominican Monastery and
Church of Saint Stephen now stand in their lovely tree-shaded
grounds, the supposed site of the stoning of Saint Stephen. As the
prevailing wind in summer is northwest, we in our home on the city
wall at times got the full discomfort of the dreadful stench. It was
a happy relief when the property was bought by the Dominican
Fathers and the slaughterhouse was moved to the Valley of the
Kedron. The Fathers soon began their excavations and unearthed a
number of tombs. I remember they had a narrow-gauge and. hand-
propelled railway to carry the debris away, and I often stole a ride
on it, for it was the nearest thing to a railroad I could remember.
Mamilla Road, now one of the principal business streets of Jeru
salem, was then an insignificant lane. It improved near the corner,
where the present Saint Julian s Way crosses it. A large house on
84 OUR JERUSALEM
the corner was used by Thomas Cook and Son for their tent-equip
ment depot. Everyone traveled on horseback in those days and
needed tents. It was expensive to travel in comfort, but you were
not whisked from Dan to Beersheba in a day, so that you were likely
to forget, as did one tourist I recently met, whether you saw the
Church of the Nativity in Bethany or Bethlehem.
Farther west on Mamilla Road the only residence belonged to the
Vester family, where lived the twelve-year-old boy I would eventu
ally marry. Mr. Ferdinand Vester, Senior, his father, came to Pales
tine in 1853 as a Lutheran missionary, and lived first, like all
Europeans then, inside the city walls. In 1868 he had considered
the country safe enough to settle outside. Bishop Gobat had built his
school outside the walls on Mount Zion, and others were taking the
risk of building out where the air was fresher and the houses less
crowded together. My future husband was born in the new house in
1869. It is now the Consulate General of the United States.
A conspicuous landmark on Mamilla Road near what is now
King George Avenue was a huge mysterious building, unfinished
then, and still unfinished after nearly three quarters of a century. It
was known as the "Home of the Hundred and Forty-four Thou
sand." Of excellent masonry, the large stones well cut, it bespoke
large sums sunk in a visionary but frustrated enterprise.
It was built by a rich Dutch lady, a countess, who had come to
Jerusalem in the late seventies and bought the land through an
agent and in his name, since it was against Turkish law for a for
eigner to own property in Palestine.
She evidently possessed an idee fixe, as do so many who come to
the Holy Land, for she felt an exaggerated responsibility for housing
the ransomed souls spoken of in Revelation 7:4. The massive and
expensive foundations testify as to the enormous size of the planned
structure. The venture was interrupted by the Serbian War, and the
countess returned to Holland to equip and command a company of
soldiers to help fight the "Infidel Turk/ doubtless expecting to see
the Turkish Government s removal as custodian of the Holy Land.
I do not know what became of her plans for a personal army, but
after the Serbian War ended she returned to Jerusalem and stayed
for a time as a guest of the American Colony. I remember her quite
well indeed; one could not easily forget such a person. She was tall
and masculine-looking, with a few hairs growing on each side of her
mouth that increased her masculinity, but she had a very real
feminine love for pretty clothes. She wore her long hair piled
fashionably on the top of her head and dresses with long, enveloping
skirts under which were heavy boots that made such a loud clop-
clopping when she walked that I wondered if they were not topboots.
OUR JERUSALEM 85
One afternoon some Turkish officers called on Father. Tea was
announced, and the countess came, as usual, into our drawing room.
Father rose to introduce her to his guests, but at sight of them the
countess stood rigid. Her dark eyes snapped fire and the atmosphere
in the room was electrified. This was the field of battle, where enemy
met enemy.
Father, having no idea as to the cause of this, tried to say some
thing to ease the situation.
The countess finally spoke. "This is a house of peace and I offer
my old enemy my hand."
Soon after this the countess left Jerusalem.
Her martial undertakings had taken most of her money and she
was unable to complete the house on Mamilla Road. For years there
was litigation over the monstrous pile, with the agent claiming pos
session, and finally winning, after her death. The ruin stands, a
monument to another of the strange dreams in Jerusalem.
The year after our arrival, in 1882, the Turkish Government
began to repair the streets and improve the sewefs. By 1883 they had
made an important beginning and were digging the foundations for
some shops just outside the Jaffa Gate, on the new Jaffa Road.
I remember quite well being taken by Father to watch these im
provements. At the Damascus Gate near our house we could see
where Roman pavement was exposed about fifteen feet below the
present level of the street. "Look down, Bertha," I can still hear
Father saying; "that is the the very pavement our Lord and Saint
Paul walked upon." The Roman cobblestones were still there, un
broken.
The mayor who made these improvements was Salem Effendi al
Husseini, who held the post for eighteen years, and both of whose
sons, Musa Kazim Pasha and Hussein Effendi, also in time became
mayors of Jerusalem. It was Hussein Effendi who capitulated to the
British on December 9, 1917 and delivered the letter of surrender to
General Sir John Shea on that memorable day, at which I was priv
ileged to be present.
Before Cook s on Mamilla Road was a beautiful old terebinth
tree. This spot had been used for public executions by decapitation,
but by the time we arrived the Turks had abolished capital punish
ment and fifteen years imprisonment was the sentence for murder.
There was a legend that when the tree died it would signal the end of
Turkish rule in Palestine. Every care was taken to preserve it: iron
bands were fastened around its trunk and props placed under its
branches.
By strange coincidence, in 1917, the year Allenby s victorious
86 OUR JERUSALEM
entry marked the end of the Turkish rule in Palestine, this tree did
die.
The valley outside the wall under our house we called "Our
Valley." About halfway up the hill between our door and the
Damascus Gate the ruin of a Crusader clinic was now used as a pot
tery. The potter was an Orthodox Jew who wore the little skullcap,
beard, and side curls. He was very good to us. His son Chaim was
about my age and one of our playmates.
The potter taught us how to shape pottery and turn the wheel,
and we made and baked our own dishes and ate from them when we
gave "play parties." We children often picnicked over an open fire in
"Our Valley." One of the elders lowered our tea in a basket on a
rope over the wall, which was about sixty or seventy feet high at this
point and twelve feet wide. Our Arab nurses taught us to cook over
the open fire.
We invited Father to our outdoor teas, but when he accepted
Mother insisted upon our having baked potatoes. She drew the line
at letting him eat our messes. The Arabs, like the French, eat snails,
and once we were going to be very clever and cook some. We did,
and I hated to eat them, but I forced myself to and was terribly ill.
The old moats surrounding the city wall were filled in with rub
bish, especially near the Jaffa Gate and the Damascus Gate, where
they were still being used as dumps. Carcasses of dead animals were
brought there to be devoured by pariah dogs, but, even worse, living
animals, worn-out or disabled, were left there to suffer until slow
death brought relief.
Several times Father and Rob went out and put poor dying beasts
out of their misery. Each time the owners promptly put in an ap
pearance, clamoring for compensation. They demanded, and re
ceived, the price of a healthy animal.
Directly below our house was Solomon s Quarries.
The entrance was an opening in the ground about three feet high.
Cousin Rob set out alone one day to explore the excavations made
by King Solomon. It is supposed that the stone to build the Temple
came from these quarries. It is very white, and Josephus describes
the Temple as "a mountain of snow."
Rob wrote of his adventure:
I took a lantern and a ball of string and started in. The bats flew
past my face by the hundred, but I kept on, tied my string fast, and
went through blackness, room after room, from which stone had been
cut
He saw marks of ancient iron picks on the walls, and wandered
on and on, even after his string ran out. But he knew this subter-
OUR JERUSALEM 87
ranean roving was dangerous^ so he finally retraced his steps. He
had entered the quarry in daylight and when he came out it was
night. The quarries ran underground from the north end almost to
the Dome of the Rock.
Another time Rob wrote:
The other day we were visiting a vineyard outside the city, on the
north side. In the vineyard was a rock-hewn tomb. [Rob is not describing
the so-called Garden Tomb but another tomb of earlier date].
You go down a hill to the entrance, enter a large room hewn from
solid rock where a cistern opens, then another doorway you stoop to
enter, as in the Bible "stooping down" you descend three steps into an
other room. In this, niches were cut to hold bodies, and in the center was
a shallow place cut about ten inches deep. . . .
On such a place the Lord was laid. I tell you, this sight made me feel
the nearness of God. . . .
North of the Damascus Gate on the Nablus Road is the "Tombs
of the Kings." The name is misleading; it is not, as one would think,
the tombs of the kings of Judah, but the tomb .of Queen Helena of
Adiabene in Asia Minor, who became a convert to Judaism and
whose philanthropic distribution of help in time of the famine spoken
of in The Acts won the respect of the Jews. Here she was buried,
with her sons and grandsons, in this masterpiece of man s workman
ship. The tomb has enormous courts and steps leading down and
reservoirs with the rock-cut gutters to conduct the rain water to
them which was used for the washing of the dead all hewn out
of solid rock. Beautiful carvings adorn the outside of the tomb. Here
was an example of the "rolling stone" in perfect condition.
Rob wrote of his first visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher,
"rather hodgepodge from being destroyed and repaired so many
times":
Thousands come to worship here from all parts of the world. This
alone makes it sacred. But on entering you see Turkish custodians sitting
cross-legged on an elevated platform. Just think of its being necessary,
in the most sacred church of Christendom, to place a lot of these men
there to keep Christians from fighting.
This church, so familiar to us as children, had a large courtyard
and Rob describes the way it was "always crowded with vendors of
rosaries, relics, pictures, and the endless little knickknacks of olive-
wood made for the tourists and pilgrims, and the miserable-looking
beggars raised the cry of baksheesh with redoubled vigor there."
Rob wrote that "it was impossible to imagine the wealth repre
sented in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, with its costly images,
88 OUR JERUSALEM
jeweled halos, and altars covered with precious articles of gemmed
silver and gold."
So little of Jerusalem lay outside the walls in 1881 that I remem
ber Mother saying that she could look out from our roof over the
Damascus Gate and count the buildings outside the walls on the
fingers of her two hands. Looking from our roof now it seems un
believable that such a change could have taken place in sixty-eight
years. Jerusalem is at least ten times larger.
Beyond the walls were a few scattered buildings, with fields and
olive groves between and unpaved roads that were dusty in summer
and rivers of mud in winter.
As a child I picked flowers outside the walls, first the big anem
ones with long stems one must go far to find them now then
the red ranunculus with its tinge of yellow; later the scarlet poppy
with its black cross. These carpeted the fields, and we came to be
lieve the "lilies of the field that toil not" were meant to mean
Palestine s flowers in the aggregate and not one individual flower.
The flowers begin in March and reach their peak of color in April
and May. Then the drought comes, and there are few flowers in
summer.
We longed for green as we longed for rain. The principal trees
were olives, their silvery green too often veiled in dust. Palms and
citrus were along the coast, but it was too cold for these in Jerusalem.
A few palms survived ancient planting. Later, when we moved our
residence outside the walls, we planted palms in the garden.
Sometimes summer started early and other years we would have
a late spring. Mother s first letters home speak of "brazen skies
without a cloud," and in our first May, she wrote with delight that
we had rain, "an almost unheard-of thing here*"
About half a mile north of the Damascus Gate is the Sheik Jarah
Mosque, supposed to be named for the surgeon of Saladin s army.
Jarah means surgeon in Arabic, and he may have been the identical
Jarah sent to King Richard by Saladin, made immortal in Lord
Beaconfield s Tancred.
Between the mosque and the Damascus Gate in those days there
was a still smaller mosque or well dedicated to two lovers, Sa ad
and Se ed. During Whitsuntide the olive groves surrounding this
shrine would be filled with Christian, Moslem, and Jewish picnickers.
They brought out their tom-toms and other musical instruments,
pitched tents, and spent a happy and carefree week in a way that has
quite disappeared.
Close to the Sheik Jarah Mosque was a cluster of houses sur
rounded by large vineyards where grape clusters grew, as they will
OUR JERUSALEM 89
in Palestine, some three and four and a half feet long. Several of
these houses, since enlarged, are now the American Colony, The
largest was bought from the Husseini family. This is one of the oldest
Moslem families in Palestine. They claim descent from Hussein, one
of the two sons of Fatima, the Prophet Mohammed s only daughter.
In one of these houses lived Rabbah Effendi, who was, I suppose,
the richest and therefore the most powerful member of this large
family. He was an old man when we knew him; he was still head of
his clan. One story his family loved to tell about him was that many
years before he gave a picnic in one of the vineyards. It must have
been about May, for it was the season of ripe mish-mish, as apricots
are called in Arabic.
In those days the summit of the Mount of the Olives, reaching as
far as Bethany, was covered with mish-mish trees. The trees were
later demolished by a scourge of locusts which visited Palestine in
1864, and they were never replanted, because of the severity of the
Turkish law taxing fruit-bearing or any trees from the date of plant-,
ing.
One of the guests at the picnic was the "Father of Wind," as the.
sheik of the village on the summit of Olivet was appropriately
named. He brought a large basket of the ripe mish-mish as a present
to his host, Rabbah Efiendi, who said to his guests:
"Shall I divide this fruit among you with the justice of God or the
justice of man?"
"With the justice of God!" the guests shouted in unison.
So Rabbah Effendi gave to one man a single apricot, to others
two, to another twenty, or five, and so on in a seemingly hap
hazard manner. If a guest tried to protest, Rabbah Effendi put up
his hand for silence until he had finished his work of division. Then a
burst of protest came from his guests. "We asked for the justice of
God!"
Their host stopped them with dignity. "Is this not the way God
divides His bounty?"
CHAPTER EIGHT
JACOB ELIAHU was two years younger than my cousin Rob and
his closest friend. His parents were Sephardic or Spanish Jews who
had come to Palestine from Turkey, and were among the first con
verts made by the London Mission to Jews, i.e,, London Jews 7
Society, in Jerusalem. Jacob was born in Ramallah, a village about
twelve miles north of Jerusalem, where his mother had gone to
escape a cholera epidemic then raging in the Holy City*
He was seventeen years old and a pupil-teacher in the Boys
School conducted by the London Mission when he left the mission
and came to live with us in the American Colony. Father continued
his education, and a year later I found a note of Father s: "During
family prayers on July 9, 1883, Rob and Jacob were formally
adopted to be our children."
Later he took our name and assumed great responsibilities in the
American Colony as Jacob Spafford*
Jacob was above the average in intellect, with the oriental aptitude
for languages. He spoke five fluently, with a partial knowledge of
several others. He was interested in archaeology, and the year before
we came to Jerusalem he discovered the Siloam Inscription.
The year before our arrival, when Jacob was sixteen and a scholar
in the Boys* School of the London Mission to the Jews, his imagina
tion was fired by learning about the subterranean tunnel in the
Ophal Hill that had been excavated by King Hezekiah to bring water
inside the threatened city. King Hezekiah lived in what is called the
Middle Iron Age, or early Iron Age II, and when threatened with
siege by the King of Assyria
Hezekiah took council with his princes and his mighty men to stop
the waters of the fountain which were without the city, and they did
help him. (II Chronicles XXXII:3.) And the rest of the acts of Hezekiah
and all his might, and how he made a pool and a conduit and brought
water into the city. . . . Are they not written in the book of Chronicles
of the Kings of Judah? (II Kings XX:20.)
On the approach of Sennacherib, Hezekiah diverted the spring
through the tunnel that pierces the hill sinuously and empties its
OUR JERUSALEM 91
waters into the Pool of Siloam; by covering up the spring the water
was thus insured for the city but made inaccessible to the enemies.
(II Chronicles 32:2-4.) From the overflow of these waters the
King s gardens were sustained.
The tunnel therefore ran from what was now called the Virgin s
Fount or Well to the Pool of Siloam.
The Virgin s Fount was the small living spring where, it is quite
certain, the first small Jebuzite settlement stood that became Jeru
salem, and the women of the city drew water and did their washing
there.
It is supposed to be haunted by a dragon or genie. Even in Biblical
times Nehemiah referred to it as "the Dragon Well."
Nevertheless, Jacob determined to explore the tunnel.
Because of its reputation for being haunted he had some trouble
persuading his friend Sampson, a boy about his own age, to explore
it with him, but at last he was persuaded. The boys kept their plan
a profound secret.
They had no idea of the height or width or length of the tunnel,
nor how deep the water. They prepared floats with candle and
matches attached, and tied these around their necks with strings.
Jacob started from the Pool of Siloam side while Sampson entered
from the Virgin s Fount. Their plan was to meet in the middle.
Jacob found himself in total darkness and muddy water up to his
chin. It was cold and drafty in the tunnel, his candle blew out, his
float with the matches submerged in the water, and he could not re
light the candle. But he kept on, guiding his way by keeping his hand
on the damp stone wall and feeling under his fingertips the marks
of ancient chisels going forward, from right to left.
The tunnel he followed forms an enormous arid irregular S, a fact
that has puzzled archaeologists. Why did the King s engineers follow
this crooked course and not a straight line? Pere Vincent wrote of
this "wonderful installation" in his book Underground Jerusalem:
"Its curious form arouses curiosity. Why this long, winding circuit?
Being almost a semicircle, instead of a straight line direct from the
spring?" M. Clermont-Ganneau, the French archaeologist, suggested
that the great sweep of curve might be to avoid the rock-hewn tombs
of the Kings of Judah.
Jacob, feeling his way, suddenly was conscious that the chisel
marks had changed and were now going from left to right. He real
ized he must be in the exact place where the King s workmen had
met under the city. Carefully he felt all around the walls, and was
certain that his fingers detected an inscription chiseled in the stone.
He hurried through the watery tunnel to tell Sampson. A point of
light shone ahead and he knew that he must have reached the other
92 OUR JERUSALEM
end and was coming out at the Virgin s Fount where he was certain
Sampson would be waiting. He did not know Sampson had long
since abandoned his friend and gone back to school.
Jacob rose out of the pool dripping muddy water and half blind
from the dark tunnel, and dimly perceived many figures about.
Among them was a lad about Sampson s size. Jacob clutched him,
crying: "Sampson, I have succeeded!"
It was not Sampson but a peasant boy, who thought the genie of
the tunnel had captured him, and collapsed into the water in a dead
faint.
The women about the pool, filling their jars with water and doing
their washing, nearly tore Jacob to pieces. He ran for his life, fol
lowed by their screamed curses.
When he reached school, he confessed the escapade to the head
master. He expected punishment. Instead, his report of an inscription
in the Siloam tunnel caused a sensation in the school and throughout
Jerusalem. Plans were soon afoot to investigate, but before they
were completed a Greek with an eye to financial gain entered the
tunnel by night and blasted the inscription out of the solid rock,
breaking it in the process. Before he was able to spirit it away the
Turkish authorities captured him. He paid for the theft, and the
inscription is now in the museum at Istanbul, with the crack plainly
across it.
The inscription is not on a separate piece of stone but crudely cut
in the wall, very likely by one of the workmen. Its translation was
published by the Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement
for July 1881:
Behold the excavation. Now this has been the history of the excava
tion. While the workmen were still lifting up the pick, each toward his
neighbor, and while three cubits still remained to be cut through, each
heard the voice of the other who called to his neighbor since there was
an excess of rock on the right hand and on the left. And on the day of
the excavation the workmen struck each to meet his neighbor pick against
pick and there flowed the waters from the spring to the pool for a thou
sand two hundred cubits and a hundred cubits was the height of the rock
over the head of the workmen.
Professor Sayce, the great archaeological authority, described the
Siloam Inscription as the oldest record of Biblical Hebrew yet dis
covered. Subsequent discoveries, the Samaria Ostraka, for example,
are older.
My foster brother often told the thrilling story of the Siloam In
scription. But Jacob spoke of the discovery as made by "a school
boy." He seldom mentioned the fact, weU known to archaeologists,
that he was that boy.
OUR JERUSALEM 93
Jacob was one of my teachers.
I always say I was educated in spots, but I found many who
enjoyed a regulated curriculum who feel the same way.
When the late Dr. Mary E. Wooley, president of Holyoke College
where my daughter Tanetta graduated, asked me to address her
students, I was warned I might find the girls inattentive or blase. I
made up my mind to shock them into listening, and opened my talk
with the assertion that I had never been to school a day in my life.
I had no trouble holding their attention after that.
On another occasion an association of university women in Jeru
salem asked me to join. I was pleased that the kind ladies should
consider me eligible, and startled them, I think, by confessing that I
had not only never attended a university, I had never attended any
school, only a kindergarten.
This was the kindergarten of Miss Clara Johanna Brooke, the
English missionary who was headmistress of the London Jews So
ciety. Miss Mary Hornstein was my teacher, later my dear friend,
and I have two memories of this short session with formal educa
tion, a note of Father s of a birthday present I made him of a
"pussy s head framed with straw," and of coming to Miss Mary and
asking her to wash my cheeks, and when she asked me why, answer
ing: "Because the boys have been kissing me."
In a letter to Aunt Rachel in February 1882 Father mentions
that I was attending Miss Brooke s kindergarten and that I was given
to writing my aunt letters "which I fear Mr. Rudy, with lacking re
spect, never mails." I can understand Mr. Rudy intercepting these
missives, for I have a specimen:
DEAR ANTY,
How I wod like to see you i am a big gril now I am five now. ther
are no florss now or I wad send you some.
My papa has skul [school] with us every day too or thee ars. after
skul Flora gose to sister Carline and has sowing too or tree ars then she
plase or woks her sum She is 12 now. She has got nu doll I havnt got
any doll
from Bertha
to Anty.
I soon stopped going to the London Jews Society. Miss Brooke
became interested in the Bible-study classes Father was conducting
and was thinking of joining when one of the mission heads who
disapproved of the Group, ordered her not to visit the American
Colony. This arbitrary order helped her decide which course to take.
That summer of 1882 the Whiting children, Ruth and John
David, were "dedicated to the Lord." Miss Brooke and six other
94 OUR JERUSALEM
guests were invited, and our servants were also present. Father bap
tized the children.
I have heard I disgraced myself at the baptism. A beautifully
decorated cake stood in readiness for tea on a low table, with sil
vered candies and roses made of frosting in the decoration. We
seldom had a large cake, and while everyone else had their eyes
shut in reverent prayer my naughty little fingers were picking off
the candies. I suppose I was punished, but as I never seem to re
member my punishments I must have felt that I deserved what I got
and held no resentment. That I was sometimes spanked by Mother is
certain, for once when Father tried, I turned around over his knee
and told him he should hit harder, for Mother s spanking hurt more.
After the baptism Miss Brooke turned to Mrs. Gould.
"The Lord is very near to you all here," she said. "I want the
Lord to take the same tender care of me."
Mrs. Gould said she might have that care as she chose, that we did
not claim any special or singular treatment, we only desired to live
"very close to God, and that God came very close to us."
Miss Brooke then spoke to Father and Mother, and as a result
she left the English Mission School and came to live at the American
Colony. She took charge of our education, and Aunt Maggie implies
in a letter that the Colony was educating Miss Brooke. She had been
the type of Christian, Auntie writes, "who has been very strict in
keeping the exact letter. She is learning now that the letter killeth
but the spirit makes alive. 5 "
The British Consul, Mr. Moore, had a large family, and his three
younger children, two sons and a daughter, came over every day on
donkeyback to share our splendid teacher.
As I have mentioned, I was educated at home, and my teachers
were excellent, first Father and Aunt Maggie, then Miss Brooke, and
Mr. Drake the young Church of England chaplain who came to
Palestine with General Gordon and my foster brother Jacob.
I can understand my parents, who had lost five children, not want
ing to put eight thousand miles between themselves and Grace and
me. But when I became a mother, my husband agreed with me, and
we sent our six children to school and college in the United States.
The salvation of the British colonists has always been in their
sending their children back to English schools. It is all too easy to
lapse in an alien land. All around us in Jerusalem we saw families
who had lost their standards of living.
We children were never allowed to wear the attractive native
costumes, as this might be construed as a letting down of standards.
But we did wear at home, and loved, the little red native slippers.
Most of all, I missed school companionship in my schooling.
OUR JERUSALEM 95
Mother s stanchest friends were those who had been her school
mates, and I missed contacts made early, when one is more trustful
and less critical and friendships made then often remain firm through
life.
Still, there were enough colony children for pleasant times. There
were the Whitings, Flora Page, my sister Grace and I, and often
Arabic children came in to play with us so that we learned to speak
Arabic as well as we did English. Only a few who learn Arabic as
adults speak it correctly.
As we brought no belongings, we had very few books and fewer
toys. There were no native toys; the children of Jerusalem did not
know how to play, but the Floyds sent us some from Jaffa and
Father and Mr. Whiting made us pinewood blocks, and with a fret
saw they made us jigsaw puzzles, pasting pictures on thin board and
cutting them into pieces. Rob also made toys for us, little chairs and
tables and cradles, and a wonderful doll carriage of spools and a
little peasant basket.
Books were more difficult to get. The Turkish censors held books
for months in Jaffa and then they would "get lost." Some arrived
censored without reason. For example, Dr. van Dyke s Out-of-doors
in the Holy Land, the most innocent and even reverent sort of book,
arrived with entire sentences cut out.
But we had Shakespeare and other classics, and Plutarch s Lives,
and an old encyclopedia which we wore to ribbons, and, best of all,
Father and Mother told us stories. We knew all the children s fairy
tales, and, better still, the Bible stories, for all we saw around us was
straight from the Bible and we saw them being lived.
The Bible stories were familiar to me before I could write. I can
remember carrying my big Bible, which I could not read, to Sunday
school, which was held in the large living room or in the sewing
room.
Living in the Holy Land we almost spoke in Biblical speech, and
I still find myself saying, "I verily believe . . ."
We became archaeologists as children, and all we experienced we
tried to translate in Biblical terms.
In our garden was a cemetery we kept for years, where all our pets
were buried. Twice we had pet gazelles that we had to keep tied up
for fear of "pye-dogs," the scavenger dogs of mixed origin that would
set on a helpless animal left alone. One tangled and choked itself
and we had a splendid funeral.
Then there was our pet sheep, that, grazing in a pleasant meadow,
toppled over and died before our eyes without apparent reason, until
we found on its nose the mark of a sand viper, one of the few poison
ous snakes in the Holy Land. His enemy, of course, we children
96 OUR JERUSALEM
reasoned! From that time on we were convinced that the Twenty-
Third Psalm was entirely a pastoral song: "The Lord is my Shep
herd . . . Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine
enemies . . ."
When in the hot summers, in the far pastures, we saw the shep
herds anoint their heads with olive oil, we remembered: "Thou
anointest my head with oil."
The Arabs believe that running water is pure, but there were few
running streams around Jerusalem, and cisterns and troughs held the
never-adequate supply of water. So the Arabs let water pour: "My
cup runneth over."
I remember the summer I was five, standing on a stool in the
nursery wearing crisp white muslin while Nora, the nurse, tied my
sash in preparation for a children s party. My greedy eyes were on a
level with the broad stone window ledge where Grace s can of con
densed milk was kept for coolness, as there was no ice. Nora had to
leave the room for some reason and on her way out turned to me and
said, "Now don t touch the condensed milk while I m gone."
I loved condensed milk and still do, and of course her warning
gave me an irresistible urge, and Nora returned to find the evidence
of guilt smearing my face and party dress*
Soon after this I was in Sunday school. It was our custom to learn
a verse each Sunday. I was too young to read, but I opened my Bible,
laid my finger on a verse, and said, "Teacher, may I learn this one?"
She read the verse: "Touch not, taste not, handle not*"
"Does that mean condensed milk?" I demanded.
Evidently she knew of my misdeed in the nursery, for she smiled
and agreed that it must.
Some years later I insisted to Father that it was expressly forbidden
in the Bible to touch condensed milk. After some discussion I turned
to Colossians 2:21 to prove my point, and it was a shock when I
could not find the words "condensed milk," I had been so certain
they were there.
Five is not too young for hero worship, and my hero was a fre
quent visitor to our house, General Charles George "Chinese"
Gordon, "the fabulous hero of the Sudan." He was fulfilling a lifelong
dream with a year s furlough in Palestine, studying Biblical history
and the antiquities of Jerusalem.
This was the only peaceful time the general had known in many
years, and it was to be his last. He was the hero of the siege of
Sebastopol and the occupation of Peking, As head of the "Ever-
Victorious Army" in China he had taken Suchow. He had been
awarded the Yellow Jacket, the highest Chinese honor, and was a
OUR JERUSALEM 97
Companion of the Bath. As Governor General of the Sudan he had
traveled eighty-five hundred miles in three years, on camel- and mule-
back, always trying to eradicate the evils of slave trading and to
improve the living conditions of the people. His genius lay not only
in generalship, but also in diplomacy. He had the ability to make
peace between great nations and the power of making friends with
and befriending the common man. He once rode alone into an enemy
camp to discuss terms.
The general lived in a rented house in the village of Ein Karim in
"hill country of Judea," which is one of the sites shown as being the
birthplace of John the Baptist. No road led from Ein Karim in those
days, only a bridle path wound over the hills, and General Gordon
came often from his village home to Jerusalem riding a white donkey.
He had a servant, a man of all work and cook, named Joseph, and
as he was a native of Ramleh, the traditional Aramathea, General
Gordon called him "Joseph of Aramathea."
Whenever General Gordon came to our house a chair was put out
for him on our flat roof and he spent hours there, studying his Bible,
meditating, planning.
It was there that he conceived the idea that the hill opposite the
north wall was in reality Golgotha, the "Place of the Skull," men
tioned in Matthew, 27:33, Mark 15:22, and John 19:17.
He gave Father a map and a sketch that he made, showing the hill
as a man s figure, with the skull as the cornerstone. Part of the scarp
of the rock of what is known as Jeremiah s Grotto made a perfect
death s-head, complete with eyesockets, crushed nose, and gaping
mouth.
Ever since then this hill has been known as "Gordon s Calvary,"
although archaeologists are skeptical on the subject, and some prefer
the site of the Holy Sepulcher. Until excavations place the correct
location of the second wall there will always be a controversy over 1
Calvary.
Father did not agree with all the general s visionary ideas, but he
liked to talk about these and many other subjects with him, and they
were good friends.
Mother wanted General Gordon to have peace when he was medi
tating on the roof, and cautioned me not to disturb him, but I would
creep up the roof stairs and crouch behind a chimney; there I would
wait. I watched him reading his Bible and lifting his eyes to study the
hill, and my vigil was always rewarded, for at last he would call me
and take me on his knee and tell me stories. He was not very tall,
and had fair, curly hair, and I remember how blue his eyes were, and
the blue double-breasted suit he wore.
He told one .special story about a brave knight who lived and
98 OUR JERUSALEM
died in Palestine and who killed a dragon. Not until I was much
older did I realize that he was telling me about Saint George and the
Dragon, and of the town of Lydda, about twenty miles from Jeru
salem, where Saint George was born, and buried after his death by
torture at Nicomedia. The Mohammedans identify Saint George with
the Prophet Elijah.
I did not know General Gordon was famous, only that he was my
friend, and I loved him.
I always say the general taught me to swear. This has shocked
those who made a saint of him, but to me it makes him more lovable,
less the myth and more the man, and besides, I did not retain the
habit.
He often stayed for meals, and once Mother asked him to stay to
lunch, and he accepted, adding, "I hope you are not having chicken."
Then he told us how Joseph asked every morning: "General, sir,
what shall we have for dinner?" "Well, Joseph, what have you got?"
"I have chicken, Sir General." "Then have chicken, Joseph." This
was repeated daily, until one morning the general saw Joseph ap
proaching and anticipated him by saying, "Damn it, have chicken
for dinner."
The general gave one of his hearty laughs and said: "And now
you see, Mrs. Spafiord, why I do not want chicken."
I was taking all this in, and soon after, when asked about my
supper, which was invariably bread and milk, I said, "Damn it, have
bread and milk."
To my utter consternation I was punished. For many years I
puzzled why, when General Gordon said "damn," Mother had smiled,
but when I said it, I was spanked.
Before his year of furlough was over General Gordon was called
away from Palestine. He left in 1883; there was revolt in the Sudan.
Then we heard of the dreadful siege of Khartoum in 188485, and
of General Gordon holding it, with only one white officer and native
troups, long after it seemed any human power could hold it. I heard
Father and Mother discussing the siege. The general thought his
uncanny power over the dervishes would keep him inviolate, and I
heard Father and Mother speaking of this. The world knows what
followed, how Kitchener sent his army into the Sudan to his rescue,
but it was too late. Khartoum had fallen, and the revolutionists,
knowing of the approach of the British across the desert, made haste
to kill General Gordon.
He left his communion service and a few trinkets in Father s care.
Father gave them to his friend Mr. Henry Oilman when he was the
American Consul in Jerusalem.
The Rev. Herbert Drake, the young chaplain who had come to
OUR JERUSALEM 99
Palestine with General Gordon, whether in an official capacity or not
I do not know, stayed on after the general left and joined the Ameri
can Colony. He gave me lessons, especially in English literature.
Besides taking charge of the education of the children of our Group,
Father and Mr. Drake and Miss Brooke taught English in several
schools and to Christian and Arab individuals as well.
Father was never able to master Arabic, but Cousin Rob in about
nine months learned the language sufficiently to serve as Father s
interpreter and accompanied him on a horseback trip through
Samaria and Galilee.
Father wrote this hymn while riding along the beautiful Galilean
Lake shore:
Blessed Land of Galilee
O Blessed land of Galilee!
Rare was the lot that fell to thee
Familiar to His gaze so long:
So oft thy paths His feet among
Chorus :
O Galilee, dear Galilee,
Knit with His life and ministry!
What shall thy heights and vales yet see?
Thrice-blessed land of Galilee?
Ye heard the cries, ye saw the tears.
The suffering of those -waiting years,
Ye saw Him stand in glittering white;
Ye saw Him clothed in risen might.
To toilers on thy hill-bound sea,
First came His word, "Come, follow me!"
And men from out thy coasts -were those
His lips last blessed, that day He rose.
O Galilee that lieth now,
A stranger s brand upon thy brow,
By strangers? feet thy shrine downtrod,
Yet standeth sure the -word of God!
The longer Father remained in Palestine the more he found of in
terest. Bible history, of which he had long been a student and an
authority, was unfolded to him in a new light, illuminated by living
in the country and seeing the people and becoming acquainted with
their customs at firsthand. Archaeology at this time was emerging
from amateur to scientific handling and in consequence was increas-
100 OUR JERUSALEM
ingly important. The pursuit of botany, stimulated by the large num
ber of wild flowers in the spring, was a continual source of pleasure
to him* He regretted the denuding of the hills and mountains of trees
by wanton cutting down with no reforestation through centuries of
Turkish misrule. He deplored the consequent erosion of the soil,
exposing rock, and making the country look barren and arid. He
spoke much about the necessity of planting trees. He tried to stimu
late tree planting, but as the Turkish policy was to tax a tree from
the date of planting there was no incentive.
I found an entry in Father s diary in January 1883 saying that he
had received from his friend John B. Cotton of Tasmania a packet
of blue gum tree seeds that he had sent for. Througji his friend Mr.
Nissim Behar this packet of seeds was given to Mr. Netter, then head
master of Mikveh Israel Agricultural School near Jaffa. At that time
Mikveh Israel was conducted by the Alliance Israelite.
Father adds, "May a mighty blessing come through these seeds to
Palestine."
In 1940 I told the late Dr, Arthur Rupin about this discovery in
Father s diary. Dr. Rupin searched the school records and f ound that
the group of eucalyptus trees in the grounds near the schoolhouse
had been planted in the spring of 1883 by Mr. Netter. My husband
and I, with Dr. and Mrs. Arthur Rupin, visited the school soon after
this. We made the acquaintance of Mr. Klause, the present head
master of Mikveh Israel Agricultural School and his talented daugh
ter. We visited the different departments and saw a few Jewish and
Arab lads learning to become farmers, using modern methods and
machinery; we saw cows that the school had crossed and recrossed
with different European breeds making a species that are good
milkers, able to stand the Palestine climate, and, most of all, could
subsist and produce milk on the minimum of green fodder. We were
gratified to find a few Arabs who were broadminded enough to allow
politics to take a back seat and to avail themselves of what they could
learn at the school.
We were interested to see youths who had been rescued from Nazi
tyranny trying to forget the horrors of their experience in wholesome
outdoor occupation. But to me the high spot of the afternoon was to
stand under the mammoth trees while their branches met overhead
like a Gothic cathedral. I felt that the moment was sacred as I thought
what one person s vision had done for Palestine. A simple act: just
a few seeds planted in a fertile soil! These trees, as far as we can
know, are grandfathers and great-grandfathers of all the eucalyptus
trees in Palestine. Dr. Rupin said that this group of trees should be
called the "Spafford forest/
What greater memorial could Father have? Now there are euca-
OUR JERUSALEM 101
lyptus trees everywhere in Palestine. They are quick-growing, they
supply firewood and useful lumber, and they are planted in swamps
to help absorb the superfluous water, thus turning malaria-ridden
places into healthy localities. "A mighty blessing ... to Palestine."
As I stood under those magnificent trees I thought how truly
Father s prayer had been answered.
CHAPTER NINE
I AM often asked how the "work" of the American Colony
started.
Soon after we were settled in our house on the city wall we went
on a picnic to Wad ez Joz, which means "the valley of walnut trees,"
although only a few were left standing in the valley that was once
filled with beautiful trees. One comes to realize, in a treeless land
like Palestine, the meaning of "the shadow of a rock in a weary land."
There are many more rocks than trees in the Holy Land.
Above, on the hill, were some Mohammedan residences, and a
young man, hearing our merry voices, came down to investigate. We
had not known we were trespassing on his land. Through an inter
preter he asked who we were and what we were doing. He was very
friendly and Father invited him to share our picnic lunch. Mother
was feeding Grace her bottle, and he was interested. "My mother has
twin baby girls she cannot nurse," he said, and added that she was
trying, without much success, to feed them artificially. Mother went
at once to his house and was given a friendly reception. She told the
mother, through an interpreter, how ill baby Grace had been and
how, through experience, she had learned what foods agreed with
hen The twins were put on Nestle s Condensed Milk, the only tinned
milTc we could buy in the market, and a friendship began that lasted
to the present day and which was to start child welfare and nursing
in the Holy City. The grapevine method of transmitting information
soon spread the news.
The young man who joined our picnic was Mehedean Effendi
Husseini and one of his baby sisters whose life Mother saved was Sitt
Zakieh, who became the wife of Musa Kazmi Pasha, at one time the
great nationalist leader of the Arabs who is buried in the Dome of the
Rock compound the Arab Westminster.
Immediately after the picnic in Wad ez Joz the Group was asked
to give private lessons and instruction in schools.
Soon Mother s letters home were filled with accounts of the work
that needed to be done far more than the Group had the strength
or ability for. She, Mrs. Gould, and Mrs. Whiting were nursing many
sick people and teaching Arab and Jewish mothers how to care for
OUR JERUSALEM 103
their children, and Father and other men of the Group were teach
ing English and nursing.
They were beginning to find the consolation and healing of their
spirits that they had hoped to find in Jerusalem.
Before long our house was a gathering place. Father s Bible-study
classes were popular. The mothers meetings conducted by Mother
and Mrs. Gould were well attended. More people, Arabs and Jews,
flocked to the daily meetings and to hear the singing.
The days were not long enough to accomplish all they were asked
to do. They had not anticipated this need, and were happy in the
openings for usefulness they found.
Before long our Group was conducting a sort of Y.M.C.A. or
settlement work. Settlement work, as we know it now in Hull House
Settlement in Chicago, Henry Street Settlement in New York, and
Bethnel Green Settlement in London, had not yet started. Our work
pre-dated any settlement work, although it resembled it more than
any other.
Mother wrote to her sister, Aunt Rachel:
Last Saturday two hundred and twenty Jews came and among them
were three learned Rabbis. About twenty of them surrounded Horatio,
with the three Rabbis, for discussion. Horatio would not enter into any
argument with them. He said that only love would conquer the world,
and before they left they seemed melted. Their questions made us realize
so clearly how Christ had to answer them. They talk in the same man
ner now. "Do you keep the law? * That is their great question. They are
exceedingly polite to us, which they are not to everyone. They have in
vited us to their synagogues and to their Feast of Tabernacles. . , .
One Sunday we had two Mohammedan Effendis, rich and learned men
who came to inquire about our religion. They took dinner with us. At
the same time we had two Greeks. They sat down together as happy as
could be. Sheik Racheed Arakat and Abou Nasib came too. Miss Brooke
can speak to the Jews in French or German, and Jacob can speak to
them in Spanish, Rob can speak Arabic, so we get on beautifully.
A description of the Colony was written by our friend the late
Rev. T. F. Wright after a visit to Palestine:
There is in Jerusalem at the present time a remarkable American
Colony which it was my privilege carefully to examine. The house of
these Americans is daily visited by persons coming from all parts of the
land to inquire into this wonderful phenomenon. The Bedouins of the
desert lean their tall spears against the wall and are cordially welcomed.
The fellaheen, or peasant class of the country, find always here a cor
dial welcome. No evening passes without seeing its company of poor and
rich, of peasants and Turkish effendis gathered in the salon, to listen to
the hymns, which the Americans sweetly sing, and everyone on leaving
104 OUR JERUSALEM
the room expresses his gratitude for what he has come to regard as the
greatest comfort of his life. Mohammedans and all classes in Jerusalem
are reached for good, and a lesson is taught us in regard to the spirit in
which Christian missions should be carried on.
I was never afraid of the tall Bedouins and their spears. But then
I was never very much afraid of anything until I met up with the New
York subways.
One of the first friends Father made in Jerusalem was Mr. Nissim
Behar, headmaster of a boys* school conducted by the Alliance
Israelite, attended by both Arabs and Jews, Father volunteered to
give English lessons to the boys. Mr. Behar was a highly educated
French Jew, a public-spirited man of culture, and his friendship was
a source of much pleasure to Father. Through these classes Father
came in contact with and taught English to many who are now among
Jersualem s prominent citizens, both Arabs and Jews.
Some of Father s pupils were not so apt at learning English as
others. Ali supplied us with many amusing anecdotes. "One devil!
One devil!* he exclaimed when the sunsets from our windows were
particularly beautiful, convinced he was saying: "Wonderful!"
Once, when he was incapable of pronouncing a difficult word, he
challenged Father, "Can you say this in Arabic?" and rattled off
a catchy limerick. Father could not twist his tongue or use his throat
to pronounce the Arabic guttural sounds, so he turned the tables on
Ali by saying, "You try to pronounce, It is a suspicious hypothesis,
and *I guarantee the authenticity, and it will be my turn to laugh."
Ali mastered these sentences after much practice. One day when he
was on the "Green Hill" (Gordon s Calvary) he met a tourist, an
American clergyman. Ali was a dealer in antiquities and had a quick
eye to business. He saw in this gentleman a potential purchaser of
his antiques, so he approached him with an old coin in his hand. "Is
it genuine?" asked the American. "I guarantee the authenticity,"
answered Ali. The gentleman was impressed. "Seeing your English
is so excellent and your intelligence so good, please tell me," he said,
"whether this is actually the place of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ?"
Ali looked at the man and repeated the only other English sentence
he knew perfectly. "It is a suspicious hypothesis," he said. The
clergyman was dumfounded. "Where did you learn your English?"
Ali s education and culture, given him by the American. Colony,
sent his family far up in the social scale. We are dealing now with his
descendants. Every day, through the Arab-Jewish troubles, Ali s
great-graiidson called at the American Colony to see if all went well
with us.
The Arab s sense of humor is different from ours. They are touchy
but Immorous, and love to play practical jokes, and even the children
OUR JERUSALEM 105
play them. They like to laugh, and are highly amused by funny words.
Our Arab friends would try to get Father to repeat odd-sounding
words and double up in glee at his atrocious Arabic.
Another friend, Abou Yousef, dealt in charcoal, and when we
could afford it, we bought from him. The open fireplaces in which .we
burned it were the only means we had for cooking in those days.
When money got scarce, we told Abou Yousef not to bring charcoal
at regular intervals as had been his wont, but to wait until we ordered
it, and naturally we would order it only when we had money to pay
for it. Abou Yousef took no notice of our admonition, but kept our
charcoal room full all through our lean years. Mr. Rudy kept strict
account of what he brought. However, Abou Yousef trusted us. He
was devoted to Father. He said once that Abou Horatio had the head
of a king or sultan and he was going to pray to God to make him one.
Abou Yousef could not understand a word of English but he came
regularly every day to the Colony and sat through the morning family
prayers. He wore a white turban and robe and looked venerable.
When he became old and deaf, and could hear nothing of what was
taking place, it made no difference, he still came and remained silent,
sometimes fingering his prayer beads, until our Christian prayers were
over, and then he would go away. He said he could feel the spirit of
the prayers. This continued until he died. Some of our Group nursed
him through his last illness, which happened while I was in America,
about 1895. But before he died we were able to pay him in full.
Another Moslem who came frequently to our home wore a green
turban and was the custodian of a mosque on the western boundary
of the city limits. In a note Mrs. Gould wrote: "The Dervish came
and said he wanted to spend the three hours in prayer here, rather
than in the Haram es Shareef ."
I reproduce these notes because they show the friendly feeling be
tween the community and the Colony.
Cousin Rob commented in a letter:
We have been greatly favored in our relationship with the Arabs. While
other Europeans and Americans complain of the Turks and Arabs and
warn us against them, we go right into their gardens and find people
ready to do any favor for us. We have met the greatest kindness, bankers
and merchants give us credit without asking for security, and not only
give us this, but offer it of their own free will.
As the work grew, the American Colony grew. After Miss Brooke
and Mr. Drake joined, others, from the Church Mission to the Jews,
the House of Industry and Inquirers Home, were attracted to the
American Colony.
There was Mr. Nathanial Piazza, Mr. Pincus we called him Noah
106 OUR JERUSALEM
and Joseph Vinietsky. Mr. Klinger, a consumptive, who was very
ill, we took in and nursed. There were Yoffe and Maurice, and the
Hermaline family with all their children.
Some Father baptized. Some had quarreled with groups they had
left and Mother wrote that under these circumstances resolutions
were taken not to listen or allow gossip or faultfinding against the
organizations or places they had left. "How often unkind gossip is
mistaken for valuable criticism/ she wrote.
There was Jacob Rosenzweig, a Rumanian Jew, who spoke Yid
dish and was very poor. He was called "Kleine Yacob" because he
was so diminutive. He was a dapper little person with quaint and
courtly ways and excessively proud of his stiffly starched shirt and
bowler hat, remnants of the past affluence, I suppose, in which he
appeared resplendent on Sundays.
It was the custom since the Colony group had increased in num
bers to sing grace before meals. Generally we chanted,
"God is great and God is good,
And we thank Him for this food.
By His hand must all be fed t
Give us Lord our daily bread."
But sometimes one or another at the table would call instead for a
favorite hymn.
I remember a Sunday when Kleine Yacob appeared at dinner with
a harried air and took his usual place next to Mrs. Gould. One of
Mrs. Gould s duties was to distribute the Colony laundry. Just as
grace was about to be said, Kleine Yacob leaned over and whispered
to her in his broken English, "Him steal away my shirt," meaning
his beloved Sunday shirt had not returned with the wash.
Mrs. Gould misunderstood, and told Mother, "Kleine Yacob is
asking us to sing the hymn, Steal Away. "
Mother was rather surprised, although one was seldom surprised
at anything Kleine Yacob might do, but she closed her eyes and
started the old Negro spiritual, "Steal Away to Jesus." Around the
table the choir joined in, their voices clear and rich. The choir was
noted for its harmony, especially when singing the Negro spirituals.
Those who did not sing were absorbed in listening to the beautifully
rendered hymn, all except Kleine Yacob, who was convulsed in
noiseless laughter.
Like so many others who came to us, Kleine Yacob remained with
us until he died many years later.
When Miss Brooke came to live with us at the American Colony,
she brought a number of things that helped make our lives more
OUR JERUSALEM 107
interesting, notably books and pictures, for she was a student and
artist. To us children, conspicuous among the innovations was
"Waterloo."
Waterloo was a large black donkey. In those days donkeys were
the usual means of transport in Jerusalem, and people rode donkey-
back on their business rounds and even when paying social calls.
Waterloo was well named; he was a fighter. Being well fed, with
little work, his donkey stubbornness and assertiveness were well
developed. Other donkeys, poor little underfed beasts of burden,
Waterloo passed with his nozzle in the air and braying lustily.
Mother told me her first experience in the Near East was of awak
ening to a sound so dreadful that she was positive some monster, at
least as large as an elephant, was loose in the street. Father showed
her a tiny gray donkey tethered below the window.
"You don t mean to say that small animal made all that noise?"
Mother demanded.
She had never heard a donkey bray, but she became accustomed to
the sound as people at home are to the purring of a cat.
Our Arab nurses told us the story of how the donkey got his bray
when we were little, solemnly assuring us it was true. When Noah
was collecting the animals for the ark, Mr. and Mrs. Donkey came
early, but lingered a few minutes on the green turf for a last nibble
of grass. They did not notice the gathering clouds nor the first huge
drops of rain. Then Mr. Donkey looked up to see that the door of
the ark was closed!
He was terribly frightened. What if he and his mate were left be
hind? So he lifted up a loud voice and called, "No-ah! No-ah!"
The rain beat and the lightning flashed and thunder tore, and sud
denly Noah opened the door of the ark to them.
Mr. Donkey was so relieved to see Noah that his shouting subsided
into "Ah! ah! ah!" and that is how the donkey got his bray, and the
reason why it is so loud, for he had to raise his voice above the down-
pouring of the Flood.
The story is much better told in Arabic, where the cries of Noah
sound exactly like the donkey s bray.
We children had glorious times riding Waterloo. He was big and
strong and could carry several of us at one time. An ingenious con
trivance of panniers made of two upholstered kerosene boxes was
slung on either side an Arabic saddle, on which was fastened, throne-
like, a coffeeshop stool upside down with one rung cut out to make a
chair. Plump and cheerful John Whiting sat in this, his sister Ruth
and my sister Grace in the kerosene boxes, and we older children
walked or ran alongside. Mr. Drake or Captain Sylvester led Water
loo, who held strong notions as to actual leadership and would nip
108 OUR JERUSALEM
the arm of anyone urging him in a direction he did not care to take,
so the captain invented a broom-handle lead covered with tin which
was fastened to Waterloo s bridle, and the frisky donkey could be
managed at "arm s length."
We often went donkeyback to Ein Farrah, and in my parents
letters are many mentions of picnics in this wildly picturesque and
rocky gorge near Anathoth, the birthplace of Jeremiah. It holds the
most copious living spring in the vicinity of Jerusalem, flowing even
through the dry season, therefore many shepherds from Jerusalem
and the adjacent villages gathered there with their flocks in summer.
The herds pasturing on the slopes made it a perfect Biblical setting,
and some authorities consider Ein Farrah the place the Shepherd
King had in mind in the Twenty-Third Psalm.
We liked going to Ein Farrah early, to avoid traveling in the sum
mer heat, and generally arrived by sunrise at a certain plain which
we children dubbed "The Plain of the Rising Sun," for we loved
giving names to places. On this plain was a Moslem shrine or "weli,"
and we noticed that aE the donkeys lifted up their voices in a tre
mendous bray as they faced the first rays of the rising sun, which
was usually just as we were approaching the weli. Because of the
Arabic tale of the donkey and his bray, we called the shrine "Noah s
Tomb."
A few years ago I gave a tea party to a group of Biblical students
visiting Jerusalem. They were late, and in their apology mentioned
that they had been taken to see Noah s Tomb. I questioned them, for
I knew there was no tomb in Palestine that could possibly be at
tributed to Noah.
To my amusement I found they had been taken by one of our old
"donkeyboys," now graduated into a dragoman, or guide, to our
shrine on our "Plain of the Rising Sun," both named by us when we
were children. So does fantasy get handed down to become tradition.
One of our favorite excursions with Waterloo was to the Garden
of Gethsemane. We children became good friends with the Francis
can father who was custodian of the Garden. On the slope above,
where the Church of Saint Mary Magdalene now stands, was open
ground with numerous olive, mulberry, and charub trees, where we
often picnicked. All this property belonged to our friend Abu Nassib.
Later he sold it to the Russians, and we children watched the entire
process of building the church beside his house, from its foundation
to its golden domes. We called it "The Church of the Golden
Domes," because the onion-shaped cupolas were coated with real
gold leaf, and Abu Nassib s daughter picked up enough tiny specks
after the workmen left to make herself a ring.
Abu Nassib was tall and quite dark, with flashing black eyes, and
OUR JERUSALEM 109
he was very kind. Like all Arabs, he was also very hospitable, and
during one of our first visits to his towerlike house on the slope of
Olivet he urged us to enter. We found ourselves, when our eyes got
accustomed to the subdued light after the glaring sun, in a large
room. We also perceived sick people lying about the room on mat
tresses.
Abu Nassib, without the slightest suspicion that anything was
amiss, informed us cheerfully that his family had smallpox.
We left with haste, but the mischief was done. Poor little Grace
had the worst case, and I escaped most lightly of all.
This was the first of many experiences with Abu Nassib.
He came to my rescue soon after this. I had gone with Father and
Mother and some guests from America and Hannieh to watch the
Nebi Musa (Prophet Moses) procession, which was one of our yearly
excitements. This feast and procession are to the reputed tomb of
Moses on the west side of the Jordan, although the Bible tells us he
never crossed the river. The custom was instituted by the Turks some
hundred years ago as a political measure to attract Moslem pilgrims
and offset the large number of Christian pilgrims who gather in the
Holy City for the Easter festivities, .or it was feared that at such a
time the Christians might rise and take possession of the Holy
Sepulcher.
The shrine of the Prophet Moses, a huge rectangular building of
about one hundred rooms, is richly endowed, and during the feast
days the pilgrims are housed and fed in the building. The cenotaph,
covered with green cloth, is in the mosque on the ground floor. Pil
grims occupied the rooms surrounding the court and overflowed into
tents stretching out over the surrounding hills. The shrine is in the
foothills of the Judean mountains with a magnificent view of the
Dead Sea and the Jordan Valley. Since the feast at Nebi Musa always
coincides with Greek Holy Week, the rolling foothills at this time are
covered with short spring grass and beautiful wild flowers yellow
and white mustard so tall that "the birds of the air find shelter" in it,
wild stock scenting the evening breeze, yellow daisies or wild chrys
anthemums that give the scene a golden aura. The beauty is short
lived.
The celebration always starts with a procession from Jerusalem,
where the Holy Flag is kept. Days before Hebron, Nablus, and the
other cities and the surrounding villages send their own flags and
bands, consisting of drums and cymbals, into the Holy City to take
part in the procession. Bandsmen and banner bearers gather in the
compound of the Dome of the Rock or the Mosque of Omar.
The Husseini family are custodians of the shrine and the hosts at
Nebi Musa. The Grand Mufti, a member of the Husseini family, al-
HO OUR JERUSALEM
ways rode on horseback in the procession immediately behind the
Jerusalem Holy Flag made of rich green and black satin embroidered
in gold. Crowds of spectators milled around, and the road was lined
with Turkish soldiers to keep a passage open for the procession.
As the Jerusalem flag reached Saint Stephen s Gate or the east
gate a salute of cannon thundered and the women in the crowd gave
the joy cry described by Cousin Rob. Then the procession, led by the
Turkish band playing Turkish music in a minor key slightly off pitch,
slowly wound out of the city and past Gethsemane. At the point
where the Bethany road turns east, a large marquee was pitched,
where the mayor of Jerusalem received the Mufti and other notables
in the procession. Coffee was served, and a short prayer offered by
the Mufti while the guests stood with their hands out, palms upward,
then wiped their faces to receive the blessing. Another salute of seven
cannon shots sent the procession on its way to the shrine in the hills.
Carriages were used from this point, but many who could not afford
carriages rode on donkeys, horses, mules, and camels. Later, when
automobiles were introduced, the picturesqueness faded, and halts
at the tent became a great social event. I was in the marquee during
World War I when Djemal Pasha received the Mufti, and I have been
there with each successive British High Commissioner. In 1947,
because of the unrest and political tension between the Arabs and the
Jews, the procession of the Nebi Musa did not take place for the first
time in several hundred years.
Nor do we now have the many kinds of dervishes who lent so
much color to the celebration when I was a child. They came to
Jerusalem especially for the Prophet s feast and procession. Some ate
live coals, others forced spikes through their cheeks. Snake charmers
came from Upper Egypt.
During this particular procession, when I was five or six, I was
walking along unconscious of fear when I realized I was alone. Father
and Mother were busy with their guests and Hannieh had stopped to
chat with some Arab friends.
It is one thing to watch such a scene from a safe distance and an
other to be in the midst of it. Suddenly I found myself walking in the
procession surrounded by one of the village bands. Over me towered
fierce-looking men carrying banners, and others were pounding on
large and small drums, while others were making a terrific clashing
with their cymbals. Amidst these were dervishes twirling round and
round in religious frenzy, their bushy hair sticking out all over their
heads, their eyes rolling, and spikes sticking through their cheeks.
I did not cry for once I was too frightened to cry. I just stood
petrified, and suddenly, pushing through the hysterical crowd to my
OUR JERUSALEM 111
rescue, came my tall, dark, kindly friend, Abu Nassib. Oh, how glad
I was to see him.
As well as the land on Olivet, Abu Nassib owned a plot of ground
outside Saint Stephen s Gate which he kept planted with tomatoes.
In those days potatoes were a luxury, they were imported I believe
from France, and when we could get any they were a great treat.
Father succeeded in getting some potatoes for seed and prevailed
upon Abu Nassib to plant half his field with them, leaving the other
half for the tomatoes.
Some time later he came to call, and Father asked Abu Nassib
about his potato crop.
"Oh! No good! No good!" said Abu Nassib, and emphasized his
disgust with freely gesticulating arms and hands. "Tomato plant here,
good. Batata [the Arab pronunciation of potato] plant here, good.
Tomato grow, batata grow, good. Tomato much fruit, good! Batata
not one fruit no good!**
And Abu Nassib struck his hands together in the Arabic gesture of
finality.
Father took a shovel and went with Abu Nassib to the field, where
he dug the first crop of potatoes ever grown in Jerusalem. Abu Nas
sib had no idea "fruit" grew underground. After this he was known
as Abu Batata Father of the Potato.
Once, excavating for a new cistern in his property on the slope of
Olivet, Abu Nassib uncovered a pottery cruse filled with silver
shekels. He was very secretive about his discovery, but he must have
uncovered other valuable antiquities as well, for after this food was
more plentiful in the tower house and the family better clad. He built
a handsome new home in the old city.
An old Arabic saying describes the perverse nature of Beni Adam
(son of Adam, meaning man), "when his wealth increases, he com
mits folly, precipitating his fall." This proved true of Abu Nassib. His
bonanza left him restless, and although he was married and the father
of two daughters and two sons, he began looking about for a bride.
A girl cousin secretly let him know by a professional "go-between"
that she would not be adverse to a proposal of marriage.
Abu Nassib confided his secret to Father.
This was Father s first encounter with the custom of plural mar
riage. He argued with Abu Nassib, but as Moslems are allowed four
wives by the Sharia, or religious law, there was not much he could
say about it.
One would think that as the Arabs religion allows plural marriage
and Moslem women are brought up to consider it right, they would
not mind, but this is not so. The wife lives in fear all her married life
112 OUR JERUSALEM
that this may happen to her, and if it does, it is a real tragedy and
causes suffering, as it would to any family.
After Father s talk with Abu Nassib the matter seemed to drop for
a time. Then came the three days feast at the end of Ramadan, which
is the month of fasting.
In those days it was the custom to picnic in the open fields outside
Herod s Gate, where the American School of Oriental Research now
stands. No buildings were there then, only levl fields and a few
sparse olive trees.
Merry-go-rounds and swings were erected for this celebration, and
there were peep shows many exhibiting obscene pictures and
hawkers who made a roaring business selling Damascus sweetmeats
and Sha r el Banat (maiden s hair), candy shredded so fine it resem
bled hair, and Lahit el Halkum (Turkish delight), and salted and
roasted watermelon and pumpkin seeds, and, in season, green and
roasted chick-peas tied in bunches. There was sus (licorice water)
and pink lemonade in brightly decorated receptacles, served in shal
low brass cups the vendors used almost like cymbals in a dexterous
rhythm to attract customers. Gypsies, notorious fortunetellers, in
their gay costumes gathered there from neighboring countries.
The scene resembled an old-time country fair. These quaint cus
toms with an atmosphere of conviviability have all disappeared.
The people wore their best clothes and spent lavishly the savings
stored up for the occasion. Crowds of women were kaleidoscopic in
their brightly colored izzars, or outer street costumes, and the bright
parasols they loved added color to the already gay picture.
Horse racing was the chief attraction. Arabs do not have our idea
of competitive racing. The gaily-bedecked horses rushed madly around
the field, while their excited riders dug in their spurs. Some of the
horses trappings were really beautiful, with silver-mounted bridles
and gaudy tassels, and some even had ostrich feathers fastened to
their heads. The wilder the horse and rider became, the more the
spectators enjoyed the race. There were no cups or prizes, and the
only award was a handkerchief tied to the horse s bridle. The winner,
generally the most reckless rider, carried off the greatest number oi
handkerchiefs. Especially imported cheap but highly colored hand
kerchiefs or veils were sold in the crowd to award the riders.
Abu Nassib was racing his mare wildly in the contest when he saw
the professional go-between among the watchers on the field. A secrel
signal, which he understood, led him to ride toward a group oJ
women. He knew the closely veiled charmer who tied her kerchief tc
his horse s bridle must be his "fair one," and, inflamed with desire
and excitement, he whirled his steed, dashed madly into the centei
of the field, and was thrown.
OUR JERUSALEM 113
He was carried to his towerlike house near Gethsemane, and the
same messenger sent to fetch a doctor also came for Father, who went
at once to our friend. For three weeks Abu Nassib was nursed back to
health by the men of the American Colony, and he told Father the
accident which nearly cost him his life had brought him to his senses,
and that he gave up his idea of a second marriage.
For a time Abu Nassib remained aloof although the cousin began
her overtures again. He and his wife had another child, a much-
wanted son. Then one day we heard that Abu Nassib had succumbed
he had married the cousin. We also heard that his little son, now
almost a year old, died on the evening of his marriage.
After a long interval we saw Abu Nassib again. He was a sad man.
"Abu Nassib naughty boy," he said, and seemed to mean it. His
two families lived separately the new wife in the home he had built
inside the city and at odds with each other, and serious troubles had
come to both. The second wife had lost her first baby and was to
have another, and wanted to make her peace with the American
Colony. All Father s warnings about a disunited household had
come true and, being superstitious, she was convinced she was under
a spell or curse. She was assured of our blessing and friendship, and
Mother and Mrs. Gould nursed her when her second baby arrived, a
beautiful boy.
He grew to be a fine man, and only a short time ago called on me,
with his wife and children, and recalled this story. I was surprised
at how much he had been told. He concluded by saying, "So you see
I am an American, for I was their {the Colony s] son and I have their
blessing on my head." He had made peace between the two families
and brought about the first happiness they had known in many years.
We all cared a lot for Abu Nassib. He lived to be an old man,
handsome still. I remember him best at our table, when he drank
with a great noise and ate with loud smackings, which is Arab
courtesy, to show how much you ehjoy your host s food. "You mustn t
eat like Abu Nassib," I warned my children, and once Anna Grace,
in her high chair at the table, watched, fascinated, as he drank his
coffee, and piped, "See, he s drinking like Abu Nassib!"
He recognized his name and became quite excited. "You must tell
me what she said. Wallah! you must tell me."
I steered through a touchy situation. "Anna Grace said, Tm drink
ing coffee like Abu Nassib. "
Abu Nassib took it as a great compliment.
During the bombing in 1948, Abu Nassib s great-grandson s widow
made her way through the blitz to ask me for aid. His children and
grandchildren still live in the towerlike house above the Garden of
Gethsemane.
CHAPTER TEN
WHEN the teaching and nursing of the Group won a reputation,
it became apparent that the American Colony was being regarded as
a nuisance by certain staid and static missionaries working in
Jerusalem.
It is a fact and perhaps unknown to Father and the others of the
Group that in the 1870s a controversy had arisen in Jerusalem
between the American and English missionary societies. An under
standing had developed of dividing the spheres of influence. Syria was
to be the American sphere and Palestine that of the British, a deci
sion, alas, that carried the American University to Beirut.
While our Group knew nothing of this agreement, I doubt if it
would have made any difference in the choice of domicile.
As far as my parents were concerned, our residence in Jerusalem
was still temporary. They were more concerned with what the country
was doing for their souls than what they were doing for the people of
the country. It was only as the work grew, because of the need for it,
that the Colony took on a more permanent aspect.
The local people first called us the Americans, later they added the
American Colony. We had not taken that name. We were as yet unique
in our approach to the people and perhaps on that account we
were misunderstood in certain circles. The very success of the venture
was in part the cause of misunderstanding.
Our Group, as devout Christians, felt there was nothing higher
under heaven to teach than the Christian ethics and way of life, but
did not believe in coercion, or, as sometimes happened, turning a
good Jew into a bad Christian.
Some of the missionaries regarded this new work with the narrow
regard of the conformists for the non-conforming.
One article in a mission publication made these charges against
the American Colony: "One of their beliefs is that none of them will
die before the Lord s coming." . . . "Nobody seems to know what
tfaefr religious beliefs are, for their members never reveal them."
"They do not believe in missions and so they never make any
missionary efforts among the Jews and Moslems."
OUR JERUSALEM 115
By this time the hysterical attacks by members of the Lake View
group had arrived in Jerusalem. The garbled facts were seized upon
and enlarged, and everything we did was distorted by the missionaries
who resented the American Colony.
These were trivial clouds on our horizon, but they were to grow.
Among the most virulent of the attackers was one of the heads of
the English Mission, who resented Miss Brooke s leaving it to join
our group, and spread the report that the American Colony had
exerted undue influence to cause her to do so. Father s notebook
contains an account of a visit he and Miss Brooke paid this man, in
which they tried to explain the Colony s position and its work "so that
he, a school head and minister of the gospel, could no longer make
such charges through ignorance."
"But he declared," Father wrote, "he would say this house was a
house of devils as long as he had breath and strength."
Not all Jerusalem s missionaries resented the American Colony. We
had many friends among other groups, and mission leaders from every
part of the world were to visit the American Colony and study our
work as it grew. Among Father s and Mother s papers are hundreds
of letters from ministers and missionaries bearing friendly testimony
and appreciation for work quietly done. Some, after their visits, sent
back gifts of money to further the work of the American Colony and
others sent their appreciative acknowledgment and prayers.
I am not running down mission work. I know how much good
missionaries can do and have done in many countries, and I do not
underestimate the heroic sacrifices of many, I only state that in
Jerusalem, at the time about which I am writing, some of the mission
ary workers used formalized and antiquated methods and resented any
innovation.
Their unfriendly attitude toward us embittered my early years with
a feeling that we were different, marked and strange. That is an un
pleasant experience for a child. One of our games, I remember,
was to dress up and call ourselves missionaries, and, looking down our
noses at the smaller children we made represent the American Colony,
we would say: "Oh, those are the crazy Americans!"
From notes and letters I get the impression that the Colony turned
neither to right nor left on account of the misrepresentations, persecu
tions, or whatever one chooses to call them.
Sometimes it seemed to me, in my younger days, that a complete
circle of opposition had surrounded us, starting with the Lake View
group as originators, followed by the antagonistic missionaries, and
completed by the Mr. Selah Merrill whose resentment of Father and
the American Colony tormented us for eighteen years.
116 OUR JERUSALEM
What faith did the American colonists hold to make them the
victims of a religious persecution that would last nearly two decades?
I find it best expressed in a letter Mother wrote to Father in January
1884. She was worn out by much nursing, and had gone with Rob
for a few days of rest with the Floyd family, in Jaffa. She writes
first of a visit to a mission hospital where all around lay sick and
wounded and dying men, women, and children, some in bloody rags,
others shaking with fever, while over them a nurse stood, in im
maculate white uniform, and in classical Arabic read the Bible.
Mother wrote:
An hour of it the price the patients had to pay for receiving medical
attention. In a corner a sheik lay in dirty rags stuck fast with dried blood,
with many severe wounds from a village fight; his leg seemed fractured.
... All around sick people were waiting for the scripture to end.
Christ would have relieved the suffering with gentle fingers and ten
der words and allowed the spirit to do the preaching.
The long Bible reading, she said, was in the Arabic of educated
people, far above these simple people s understanding, and after it
came prayers, and then a hymn. . . .
One evening in Jaffa a group met in the Floyds living room. They
represented several faiths, including Episcopalian, Methodist, and
Friend. Mother joined in the conversation, and she wrote Father:
I spoke concerning our faith and belief that someday God would unite
the whole Christian world. I cannot describe to you the strange feeling
that I had. Here we were, all professing Christians and yet separated and
divided as far as possible. It was so evident that each one was worshiping
God from behind the little fence that he had made to enclose himself.
, . . How I would like to see all these man-made "walls of partition"
broken down. I asked if they could explain to me these separations be
tween Christians, each claiming that the Holy Spirit has taught them,
but they could not attempt an answer. Someday the Episcopalians and
Methodists, and even the man from Ramallah and Plymouth Brethren,
will all join in a great world power for unity. We must press forward and
pray that such a power will unite all Christians.
In the notes and letters written during these early years there are
many allusions to nursing English and European patients as well as
Jews and Arabs. There were no trained nurses in Jerusalem, and
Mother, Mrs. Gould, and Mrs. Whiting were considered the best to be
had and were in great demand. There ^ure numerous mentions of nurs
ing different members of the Bergheim family.
The Bergheim family was a rich English-Hebrew-Christian f amily
who conducted a private bank in Jerusalem, and were kind and gener
ous to us.
OUR JERUSALEM 117
We made no specific charge for teaching and nursing. People paid
what they could, and this might be little or nothing. Most of our
patients were poor. Sometimes they paid us in food, so that often
we would be surfeited with one kind of food while lacking in others.
The Bergheims were among the few who gave more, but then they had
more to give. Their splendid residence was surrounded by a large
quantity of land, and among their large properties they owned the
historical village of Gezer, called in Arabic Abu Shuche.
In revenge for wrongs, imaginary or real, one of the Bergheim
sons was murdered by the fellaheen (peasants) while riding in his
carriage near Gezer. The motive was not robbery, for his money,
watch, and other valuables were found untouched on the body. His
English wife was pregnant and the shock endangered her life and the
unborn babe s. Mother and Mrs. Gould nursed her through trying
weeks, and both mother and child survived.
When the Bergheim bank failed, the Bergheim holdings passed into
other hands. Why the Marquis of Bute had invested money in Berg-
heim s bank I cannot tell, but after the bank failed he was given the
Bergheim residence in lieu of part of his money. Under the British
Mandate the house was enlarged to become Government Hospital
including the British section.
The vacant property facing the Bergheim residence was given to the
Jerusalem municipality to be made into a much-needed park. From
one part of this gift a large modern building was erected. The
southern half was Barclay s Bank (D. C. and O.) and the northern
half was municipal offices.
On May 15, 1948, when the British Mandate ended, it was taken
over by Israel.
Gezer continued to hold its place in history. The site was first
identified by Dr. Clermont-Ganneau, who had excavated the so-
called Tomb of the Kings and detected the forgery of the Temanite
scroll.
Extensive excavations have been carried on at Gezer by the
Palestine Exploration Fund under the able supervision of Professor
R. A. S. Maclister, LL.D., Litt D. F.S.A. Remains that were found
covered all periods from the Neolithic to the time of the Maccabees.
There was much evidence of Egyptian influence.
In I Kings 9 : 16 we find that Pharaoh, King of Egypt, went up and
took Gezer and burned it, killing its inhabitants, and then gave it as a
present to his daughter when she became Solomon s wife.
In 1924, Palestine s first High Commissioner, Sir Herbert Samuel,
cut the first sod at Gezer in land which had been acquired for an
English- Jewish settlement.
One of the Bergheim sisters married the German Consul, who was
118 OUR JERUSALEM
the son of Dr. Von Tischendorf who discovered the famous Sinai
manuscript and in whose home I spent many pleasant afternoons as a
small girl. Frau Von Tischendorf was anxious to improve her paint
ing, and our Miss Brooke was an art teacher, so we started a painting
club. We met each week at the different houses of the members.
Miss Brooke must have been teaching me to enlarge, for she
allowed me to copy on a large scale a small picture of Axel Strasse in
Geneva, in the William Tell country, and I presented this atrocious
painting to Father s friend, Hadj Racheed Nashashebie.
Many, many years later my husband and I were invited to an Arabic
luncheon in a palatial house in Wady Ehnain on the Plain of Esdralon
near Rehoveth. As we sat in the drawing room I whispered to my
husband, "I believe that painting over there is mine!"
I went over to investigate, and sure enough, there was my maiden
name, Bertha Spafford. My host, seeing my interest, followed me.
"I see you are admiring that painting, Mrs. Vester," he said. "I also
admire it very much. I got it as a present from my good friend Hadj
Racheed Nashashebie. It is the work of a famous artist."
What could I say?
As the demand for such services as the Group could render in
creased, with it increased the personal animosity of Mr. Merrill. It
seemed a waste of time to deny his ridiculous accusations, but they
were refuted eventually, and in an astonishing way.
His campaign of antagonism began when the American Colony
gave shelter and support to the Bentons, a family of the type we
came to classify as "Simples in the Garden of Allah."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JERUSALEM attracts all kinds of people. Religious fanatics and
cranks of different degrees of mental derangement seemed drawn as
by a magnet to the Holy City. Some of those who particularly came
into our lives were men and women who thought themselves the
reincarnations of saints, prophets, priests, messiahs, and kings.
Among the first Americans we met in Jerusalem was a family I
shall call Benton. Old Mr. Benton thought he had invented perpetual
motion. Why he came to Jerusalem on that account is hard to tell,
except that people less cranky than he believe Jerusalem to be the
center of the universe and he may have thought his discovery would
get a better start from this point. He was sure his theory was plausible,
yet it was quite evident Mr. Benton was not right in his mind.
He bought a small bit of property in the open fields beyond the city
limits, near the spot where Jerusalem many years later, in 1917, was
surrendered to the British, and built a small house consisting, I
believe, of two rooms, one upstairs and one downstairs. In it he
lived isolated and alone. In those days it was considered dangerous to
live so far outside the city limits, but because Mr. Benton was notice
ably simple even the peasants of the village of Lifta, the notorious
thieves of that time, would not molest him. The Arabic conviction that
"God has touched his head" established Mr. Benton as a "holy man"
or dervish, and assured him safety.
He had been occupying his lonely abode for some time when his
wife and son Frank arrived. They had hunted for him everywhere
and at last traced him to Jerusalem. They bought a small bit of
property adjoining his, put up a slightly larger replica of his house, and
moved in. Their intention was to look after Mr. Benton, but he
thought differently. Soon after his wife and son settled in their small
house Mr. Benton vanished, and as far as I know was never heard
from again.
Mother and son were taken ill with malaria, the so-called Assyrian
fever, and Mother and Mrs. Gould, Rob and Mr. Rudy took turns
nursing Frank, two by two, for he was dangerous in delirium.
Mother wrote to Aunt Rachel while sitting up during the long
120 OUR JERUSALEM
night vigil beside young Frank Benton as he raved with fever, on the
verge of death, while an Arab sang outside in the dark field:
"He has been singing for an hour, I should think, on two notes.
To me it is a most distressing sound and they call it music."
The mother and son got well. Later, very early one morning, Mrs.
Benton arrived at our home in a state of collapse. A number of men
armed with knives had burst the door open at night and fought
with Frank while she hid in the upstairs room. They gashed her son s
throat several times and left him apparently dead while they ran
sacked the house.
Father and Rob took a doctor who sewed up Frank s cuts, which
had missed the jugular vein. He was taken to a hospital until he
was strong enough to be brought to our home. Mrs. Benton stayed
with us.
Father asked Mr. Merrill to request the Turkish governor for a
guard to be stationed at the empty Benton house to prevent the furni
ture, doors, and windows from being stolen while Frank and his
mother were being nursed back to health at the American Colony.
Mr. Merrill had little if any knowledge of law. Because Father was
an attorney, people in need of advice naturally came to him. Mr. Mer
rill would have found a willing assistant in Father had he wanted one,
instead, he seemed jealous and resentful of the fact that Father was
giving legal advice. Wanting, perhaps, to put Father "in his place,"
Mr. Merrill refused what was the legitimate and obvious thing to do
under the circumstances.
"Go and watch the house yourself if you like," he answered.
Father answered that it was not his place to stand guard and
that the Turkish governor would be glad to grant such a request.
The Consul stubbornly refused to ask for a guard.
Father did not want the poor Bentons to lose the little they had
left. There was nothing he could do but ask Raouf Pasha to protect
their property. The governor promptly set a guard over the Benton
house.
Mr. Merrill was very angry and accused Father of meddling.
As far as I know, this was the first open clash between Father and
the American Consul.
In 1885 an excitable, moody lad by the name of Joseph Vinetsky
came to the Colony with a sad story. He had been brought to the
London Jews Society Boys School by a stepmother when he was
about four years old, and that was the last seen of her. Since then he
had drifted. The Colony took him in and cared for him for several
years. Joseph was a big-hearted, demonstrative lad who was a sore
trial to everyone. Father placed him as a day scholar in the Alliance
OUR JERUSALEM 121
Israelite School for Boys, where Father taught English. It was an
industrial school, and Joseph chose to learn blacksmithing. He would
return home in the evening with black hands and face and before
cleaning up would give an affectionate greeting to Mother and Mrs,
Gould, who were his favorites, ruining their spotless white dresses or
blouses. We children were terrified by his fierce temper. When any
thing crossed him Joseph would say warningly, "Look out, I have the
beast," and we would scatter for safety.
Joseph was eager to be a sailor, and when the United States flagship
Pensacola came to Jaffa and the chaplain visited the American Colony,
Father took Joseph to Jaffa and delivered him to the chaplain.
In 1908 we heard from Joseph again. A letter signed Joseph
Spafford came to the American Consul in Jerusalem inquiring about
Mother and the Colony, and enclosing fifty dollars for Mother.
Mother said she knew no one by that name and refused to accept the
money until she discovered who had sent it and for what purpose.
Back came a fifteen-page letter giving Joseph s history from the
day he left us. He apologized for assuming our name without per
mission.
"I took it from the time I came to the States," he wrote, "and I
have kept it good and true. . . ."
He asked for everyone, remembering something about each of us,
and of Father: "I remember how gentle he was with me. I often think
of the time he took me to Jaffa, and I can hear him now as he said to
the chaplain, take care of my Joseph. "
He had retained his faith in the Christian religion and reminded
Mother that he was born of Jewish parentage. He wrote: "From you
I learned a great deal. All the goodness I have in me I can thank your
household for."
In 1922, when my husband and I with our three children returned
to the United States, we got in touch with Joseph. He was the same
Joseph I remembered, warm-hearted and generous, and just as touchyj
in temper. He visited us often in our home in Lynn, Massachusetts,!
and was the same trial to our children as he had been to us.
In the American Colony we still say in cross-tempered moments:
"Look out! I ve got the beast!"
Elijah, as he called himself, was a naturalized American and con
verted Jew. His education was scanty enough to make him certain he
knew all there was to know, and he brought his family to Jerusalem
evidently expecting to be the only Americans in the Holy City and per
haps in the Holy Land. He thought of himself as unique. He was not
pleased to find an American colony in Jerusalem, and was even more
disappointed when he learned one of our members was of Jewish
122 OUR JERUSALEM
origin. He had very little money and failed to find employment-
Mother learned the family was suffering and invited Elijah to come
to our house with his wife and four-year-old son until he could find
work.
Elijah did not come down to meals for two days. On the third day
he was so weak he had to keep to his bed. Mother, thinking he was
ill, went to his room to inquire.
"I m all right," he insisted, then began to question Mother as to what
she thought about Christ s second coming.
Mother told him she was certainly looking for it, but instead of
setting dates she thought the important thing was to get ready. Then
he asked what she thought about the Elijah "who must come first
and prepare the way of the Lord."
From his talk Mother suspected that he was convinced he was the
prophet. She answered that she did not believe any one person was
the Elijah, that it was a principle or dispensation in which to get
ready.
He became terribly excited. "You ve got to take that back! 5 * he
shouted over and over.
Mother understood and pitied his poor, unbalanced mind. By this
time we knew several like him, who thought they were John the
Baptist or Elijah, or another of the prophets. There were several
Messiahs, too, wandering about Jerusalem. She saw how physically
weak the man was, so she prevailed on him to take a little milk.
He rose early next morning and left the house, and, as we learned
later, went to the top of the Mount of Olives. He had fasted three
days and expected the hill to "cleave in two" before him. I m afraid
he had his prophecies slightly mixed, but as no two people agree on
them, that part was not important. He had been so positive, that when
the prophecy was not fulfilled, his disappointment was terrific.
The poor man could believe only that his failure was owing to
breaking his three-day fast, and that Mother was the evil spirit who
had tempted him.
He came back from his unsuccessful pilgrimage in an excited state,
shouting, gesticulating, and condemning everyone in the Colony,
especially Mother, to outer darkness. We did not have to ask him to
leave, he had already arranged for that. It was Sunday, and during
our afternoon service the Arab porters came to remove Elijah s
trunks and other belongings. Since Arab porters can do nothing,
however small, without making a great deal of noise, there was con
siderable disturbance.
We knew Elijah intended to disturb the meeting, so we took no
notice of him or of the noise.
,OUR JERUSALEM 123
We were sorry for his wife and little boy, who were the victims
of a maniac. Later we heard they were living in a pitiable state of
poverty in a small room in a Jafia Road tenement, that he had no
work, and they were really starving. After that we carried provisions
to them every day. I remember going to the tenement house with
Father, and how frightened I was for fear we would meet Elijah, but
we never did. We always found the empty basket of the day before
outside the door with a scrap of paper in it, with a note from the
man s wife, "Thank you, * or "God bless you."
From Father s notes, on September 21, 1883, the Group was leav
ing the dining room and passing into the open court when they caught
sight of a man who had crossed the court and darted up the stairs.
Elijah stood above us on the balcony, his face flushed and wild and his
hand raised, holding a large stone. For once I was scared. I rushed
into Mother s room and crawled under the bed and stayed there.
Father was beside Mother, and he was the first to realize Elijah was
dangerous. He made a rush for the steps, and Elijah, seeing him com-
ing, aimed the stone at Father s head. Mr. Drake threw himself on
Father as a shield, and Elijah, seeing he could not hit Father,
screamed: "I ll kill that Jew, anyway."
"That Jew" was my foster brother Jacob, who had stepped beside
Mother to protect her. Elijah hurled the stone but instead of hitting
Jacob it grazed Elias, hurting him slightly, and by this time Father
and Mr. Drake were at the top of the stairs and had him pinioned.
He smelled strongly of arak the strong native liquor and was shak
ing violently. He struggled to reach his penknife, evidently to cut his
throat, so Mr. Drake tied his hands behind him with his handkerchief.
Food and strong coffee gave Elijah a different frame of mind and
rendered him quite harmless.
Then he confessed that he thought he was "the Elijah" and had
expected great things to happen when he got to Jerusalem. His first
disappointment was finding other Americans already in Jerusalem,
then one disillusionment had followed another.
We brought his wife and son from the old tenement and cared for
them all at the American Colony until a collection was taken up and
they were sent back to the United States.
One of our first callers when we visited Chicago twelve years
later was Elijah. I got a shock when his name was given, but Mother
welcomed him cordially. He invited us to his home on the outskirts of
North West Chicago, bordering on the prairies, where he and his wife
were raising poultry.
Their four-year-old son had grown to be a splendid young man, and
there were other sons, all wage earners. They seemed to be in com-
124 OUR JERUSALEM
fortable circumstances. His wife was very pleased to see Mother and
pressed her to her heart and kissed her warmly, and I remember we
had stuffed turkey and cranberry sauce for midday dinner.
Elijah came to Jerusalem again. This time he was selling vacuum
cleaners, a type that was pumped by hand. He sold only one, to our
family, and so it happened that a second time we had to help pay
Elijah s passage back to the United States, for he had settled down
on the American Colony with every apparent intention of remaining
with us for the rest of his life.
Miss Poole, a dear, queer little English gentlewoman, lived in one
large room in a big tenement house near the Russian Compound.
Flora, the eldest of the Colony children, went to Miss Poole for
English lessons, and came home with such wonderful stories of her
remarkable room that I was crazy to see its wonders for myself.
Miss Poole had lived many years in Jerusalem and in that room,
and accumulated so many objects that one could hardly move about
in it. She could not bear to throw anything away. "Waste not, want
not," she would say, and her red-apple cheeks would shake with a
winning laugh. However, when she wanted anything she could never
find it and still the accumulation grew. When General Gordon was
in Palestine he called on Miss Poole several times. The matches he
used in lighting his cigarettes were never thrown away, but treasured
in a box and shown to visitors.
Miss Poole was even more remarkable than her room. She was like
a character in a Victorian novel. She still wore hoopskirts and lace
caps, under which her tiny curls bobbed up and down in the most
charming manner.
She was an astronomer and an astrologer. She studied the skies and
read your horoscope if you would let her. She was highly educated,
and Father enjoyed her conversation, but there were drawbacks, for
she never stopped talking. When Miss Poole came to call no one knew
how long she would stay, but she always got a welcome at the Ameri
can Colony. She would arrive with the condescension of a queen. Very
soon after her arrival she would explain that she must go home
shortly, as she had some important writing to do. Teatime would come
and go. Dinner would be served. Miss Poole would still be with us.
Then, of course, it was too late for her to go home, so she must stay
the n^ght
These apologies would be repeated before each meal for several
days. What made her finally leave we never knew, but she did not
become a burden, for everyone went about their affairs as though she
was not present.
With all Miss Poole s eccentricities, she graced any drawing room.
OUR JERUSALEM 125
Her conversations were amusing and often interesting. She was kind
and generous, and gave away what she needed herself. She visited the
poor in the worst parts of the old city, and I am sure she never went
empty-handed.
By a strange coincidence a meteor dropped one night. It tore down
out of the skies like a bomb and lodged before the door of Miss Poole,
the astrologer and astronomer of Jerusalem! Poor Miss Poole could
not leave her room, for the large stone was wedged against her door.
She called through the window to her neighbors and made them under
stand they must get help from the American Colony.
Mr. Drake went to Miss Poole s rescue. It took several strong
porters to shove the meteor away and set her free.
As we were finishing family prayers one morning there was a loud
summons at the front door, and when it was opened ten Germans
entered with an air of rightful assurance. The leader was a stocky,
dark man and by contrast his fragile wife looked downtrodden and
dispirited. There were three old women, looking more like witches
than humans. A young couple with three children seemed to be the
only normal members of this strange group.
They stalked into the living room without invitation and seated
themselves without being asked.
Father questioned them through Miss Brooke, who knew German*
The leader s answer was in the form of a proclamation. He had
a spiritualistic mission in Jerusalem, he announced, and had been
led by the Spirit from Germany to Palestine, to Jerusalem, and to this
house, to take possession.
How soon could we vacate? he wanted to know,
He added that we would be allowed to stay if we joined him in his
undertaking.
It was quite in vain that Father tried to convince him we had no
intention of leaving our home or aiding his mission. Hours went by,
and the Germans were still "in possession." During the long-drawn-
out discussion food was brought, and they devoured it ravenously.
Father realized that a higher authority would have to intervene. He
went to the German Consul, who sent his kavass, who persuaded the
strange company that they must go.
The leader marched out neither crestfallen nor dejected. Our
residence, he said in parting, was his by right of supernatural revela
tion and would soon be his. We felt very sorry for the old women and
children. They had seemed so hungry, and almost as if hypnotized
with fear of their leader.
Not long after they left the young man came back, bringing his
family. They had at last seen through the leader. He went into
126 OUR JERUSALEM
trances, they said, in which he had promised them great riches
spiritual and material, but his "revelations" were chiefly about his
own greatness. They begged our protection.
We rented a flat for them near the Damascus Gate, and until they
could manage for themselves allowed them to have their meals at
the American Colony. The young man was a tailor by trade and our
Mr. Rudy got employment for him as assistant to Mr. Eppinger, a
German merchant tailor in Jerusalem. It was not long before they
were on their feet again.
The rest of the group were still dominated by their leader. He was
enraged by our refusal to vacate our home, so he took up his abode
below us, under the city wall in Solomon s Quarries, to wait until
the spirits moved us out. The immense cavernlike quarries under the
old city, from which Solomon is supposed to have hewn the soft white
limestone out of which he built the temple, were dark, damp, and un
sanitary.
We were astonished when an Arab reported that "some Euro
peans" were living in Solomon s Quarries. After investigating and
finding the rumor true, Father notified the German Consulate. The
spiritualists were brought out and given medical care, but the women
had endured hardships too difficult to imagine, and the leader s wife
and two of the old women died in the German hospital. The mad
leader was sent back to Germany by his government.
In 1886 a man asked if he could get board and lodging at the
American Colony. He had a name, but he called himself "Titus." He
was a tall, heavy-set German-American from Texas, with small, pierc
ing dark eyes, black hair and beard, and a rather uncouth appearance.
After some discussion Titus was taken in as a paying guest.
Like so many others, Titus was in Jerusalem in answer to what he
considered a special call from God. He interpreted a remarkable
dream he had had in Texas to mean that he was destined to be a
conqueror and ruler of men. He felt convinced that he was signally
chosen by God for this unusual destiny, which was to be carried out
in Jerusalem.
At first he seemed harmless. He was illiterate, and at his request
Father taught htm to read and write. He attended family prayers
and came to the meetings for Bible study. He seemed to have money,
and once he offered to pay in advance for his board and we accepted,
for this was after we had spent considerable sums on the Gadites, or
Yemenite Jews, and were in need of money.
After making this advance, Titus began behaving strangely. He
was away from home for long periods, and returned smelling of
liquor. Mother went on a visit to the Friends Mission in Ramallah
OUR JERUSALEM 127
and wrote back that the head of the mission there had warned her
against Titus, as he was considered to be a dangerous character.
Not long after this Titus began making unseemly advances, first
to our maids, then to the ladies of the group. Father asked him to
leave. Titus refused, saying that if we insisted he would bring the
"American Consul down on us!" The Colony was in a predicament,
for we did not have enough money to pay back what Titus had
advanced for his board.
Finally, when his behavior had deteriorated below the confines
of decent hospitality, we persuaded him to move into a room in the
detached "down-to-the-other house." Here we promised to keep
Titus housed and fed, with the understanding that he was never to
come near the main building for a period of time that would more
than compensate for his advance payment, including interest.
Titus was drinking heavily now of the powerful local arak and
looking crazier than ever. When in his room he spent his time writing
reams of interpretations of his dreams. He did a great deal of shout
ing and muttering, and when we passed the window, he was often
there looking out, as though watching for us, and he would shake his
great fist in a terrifying way.
The neighbors began to complain that his shouting and pacing
his room all night kept them awake. Once he developed delirium
tremens and screamed of goblins and devils in his room; that cats
were sitting on his chest and choking him. The men of the Colony
had to go down and quiet him.
No matter how much disturbance Titus might make, he did not
approve of noise made by others. I remember an incident during the
Mohammedan fast of Ramadan. As we lived in a Moslem quarter,
we heard the man come round every night to wake the "faithful"
for their last meal before dawn, when the fast began. He carried a
small drum and pounded it to the chant, "Let the faithful arise and
take refreshment. Your prophet is passing and will bless you."
Titus shouted down to the man to keep quiet.
Of course the summoner went right on calling the faithful, so
Titus came out on his balcony cursing, and emptied onto the poor
fellow s head the contents of the receptacle he kept under the bed.
What excitement followed! What recriminations and explanations!
I shall never forget Father, summoned from his bed in the middle
of the night, tall and majestic in the Turkey-red dressing gown
Mother had made him out of a blanket, and surrounded by a great
crowd of the neighbors who had risen for the last meal. Father and
Mother met such crises with calm, but Father knew no Arabic, and
it was difficult to explain that the man living on our premises did not
belong to us and that we were not responsible for his actions.
128 OUR JERUSALEM
Maarouf was there, and EUas, and they translated and explained,
and once the Arabs understood they forgave all. Ill feeling vanished
the instant they realized Titus was simple.
"Allah has touched him," they said, as they do in such cases, only
they simply say, "Touched," and pat their heads. Many of the
dervishes were "touched."
It was a day of rejoicing for the American Colony when the debt
to Titus was finally paid. For years we used to see him roaming
about Jerusalem, living where or how we did not know, but looking
wilder and more unkempt as time went on.
Then there was the "Prophet Daniel," so called, who had been
"summoned" from the United States to the Holy Land, where he
believed his identity would be publicly proclaimed by supernatural
means. We first learned of him when word came that an American
couple and their five children were lying ill in the Jewish quarter of
Jerusalem. The Prophet and his family had been stricken with small
pox and the baby had died. A kind missionary lady had bravely
gone to nurse them, but she was worn out with tending them all, as
well as doing all the cooking and housework.
Two of our Group volunteered, and went into a month of trying
exile. During their quarantine all the food for both invalids and
nurses was sent from the American Colony. When our nurses left,
the house was clean and the patients well.
Gratitude is not always returned for unselfish and devoted care,
One day when on the road the Prophet s wife met one of our ladies
who had nursed her family back to health she turned her head away.
We did not share, she had learned, some of the pet theological be
liefs of her husband, the living reincarnation of the great prophet
saved from the lions den.
Mother heard that another American, "looking like one of the
prophets, with a flowing white beard," was ill in the home of an
Arab in the poorest quarter of the city. She found him and brought
foJTT) home. His malady proved to be smallpox.
In those days smallpox was thought to be one of the illnesses
that children must go through, and instead of shunning an infected
house some mothers took their children there to "get it over." The
nature of the old man s sickness made no difference to the American
Colony, except that proper precautions were taken so it would not
The old man was Mr. George A. Fuller from Lynn, Massachu
setts, U.S.A., which information he gave to everyone, never omit
ting the U.S.A., which he pronounced with emphasis on each letter.
OUR JERUSALEM 129
He was a carpenter by trade, and had read glowing articles in the
Age to Come Herald that led him impulsively to pack his tools and
sell all his possessions, which brought him just enough money to
take him to Jerusalem.
He drifted about the city with his carpentry tools, doing odd jobs.
Because of his advanced age and ignorance of Arabic, he could
barely earn enough to keep body and soul together.
He was nursed back to health and his devotion was touching. He
lived with us for the rest of his life. He made himself useful in the
carpenter shop, and we loved dear old "Brother George A."
He studied his Bible assiduously and was troubled by the many
sins he might commit without being aware of sinfulness. Before he
knew Father, he would lie awake at night begging God to forgive
him. His sins seemed all in his own imagination, for I never knew
a more simple and guileless individual. Father s theory of God s
complete forgiveness was a comfort to Brother George A., and he
became a different man, cheerful and contented.
We children haunted his carpenter shop and liked to handle his
tools. He taught us to use them correctly, and this knowledge has
stood me in good stead all my life. We must have bothered the dear
old man, but he never grew impatient. Our questions never ceased:
"Brother George A., what axe you making? How is this done? Are
you going to do this? What is that? Why?"
One time he had enough of this, so taking us gently by our hands
he led us to the door. As it closed behind us I heard him say, "My
dears, it is a fact: I know it is true now that children and fools
should never see unfinished work."
Another day, when one of the smaU boys was put to work sand
papering the back of a bureau Brother George A. was making, the
boy asked why he had to clean the back of the bureau, since it would
never be seen. Brother George A. answered, "Your behind is never
seen and yet you keep it clean" a lesson the small boy never forgot.
Brother George A. mended old furniture and made new. His work
was neat but graceless. Mother was given a large plush photograph
album Brother George A. considered beautiful, so he made a box
of common pine shellacked a bright yellow with black trimmings
to hold it. It took up half the center table and was a dreadful eye
sore to Mother. We children nicknamed it "The Coffin."
One day the milkman arrived with a large bill. We were hard up
for funds, and as Mother stood wondering how to pay, he pointed
to the box and offered a substantial reduction of the bill for it. His
offer was gratefully accepted.
Brother George A. saw the milkman leave the house with "The
130 OUR JERUSALEM
Coffin" under his arm. We heard him groan. "My conscience, there
goes the box!" But he never mentioned it to Mother.
There was an old American couple living in Jerusalem named
Black. Mr. Black thought he had discovered the North Pole. He
would talk endlessly, if one had time to listen, about his imaginary
experiences in the land of the Midnight Sun.
They had some money which they deposited wisely, as they
thought, in the two private banks in Jerusalem, not to have "all their
eggs in one basket." First Bergheim s banks, then Frutigar s, failed.
The Blacks were old, simple, and now penniless. Mother and other
members of the Group visited them regularly and sent provisions,
but when they both got sick, and their room rent came due, there
seemed no other way but to make room for them in the American
Colony.
After several years Mr. Black died, but Mrs. Black lived on with
us for many years. In conversation one day she disclosed that her
first husband was killed in the Civil War. We took the matter to the
American Consul, and he succeeded in getting her a small pension.
Her whole outlook changed with her first installment. She felt
independent, and became critical and hard to please. She accused
us of stealing some handkerchiefs we had given her on Christmas and
which she had mislaid. When we denied this, she said she must leave
us, delivering this declaration like an ultimatum,
She had gone only a few days when she asked to come back. This
time, however, the Colony was firm. A group of Mormons lately
come to Jerusalem as missionaries had taken her in, and it developed
that the Blacks had been Mormons all along. We were glad and
relieved to know she had found some of her own people and had
friends who were willing to look after her.
The Garners had no special or grandiose ideas about themselves
but they had drifted from New England, I believe, to Palestine
among the "simples." I was a child when I first met Mrs. Garner,
who was housekeeper for a strange Englishwoman who certainly had
a mental twist. This lady was doing what she considered missionary
work by showing the natives how to dress. She used great economy
in her materials, and her skirts were so narrow she could hardly
walk. I remember imitating her walk, and the other children would
be convulsed with laughter. Another of her idiosyncrasies was exag
gerated modesty. She draped the legs of her chairs and tables with
material so as not to have the legs uncovered. She was so economical
with her food that Mr. Garner had to leave her, and when she was
found dead in her room, it was believed she had died of starvation.
OUR JERUSALEM 131
The next we heard of the Garners, they were in Jaffa. We were
paying Mr. and Mrs. Rolla Floyd one of our annual visits when
Mrs. Garner, looking very old and exhausted with worry and hard
work, came to ask the Church Missionary Society Hospital in Jaffa
if they would take in her husband, who had had a stroke of paralysis.
The verdict of the Society was that they could not accept a chronic
case.
Of course Mother put her shoulder under poor Mrs. Garner s
burden. Mr. and Mrs. Garner were brought to the American Colony
and Mr. Garner, a large, heavy man and completely helpless, was
nursed there for five years, until he died.
He had been a soldier in the Civil War and the Colony tried to get
a pension for Mrs. Garner, appealing through a friend to Mr. Merrill,
who in turn appealed to Washington. Nothing came of his attempt,
and the American Consul wrote to the friend:
I fully expected to succeed, but at last his claim was rejected on what
seemed to me a most flimsy excuse. I was thoroughly disgusted and
ashamed that our government should treat in such a way a faithful sol
dier who had been in over fifty battles.
The house where she [Mrs. Garner] is in Jerusalem does not bear a
very good reputation and she ought to be got away from there. If she
had a pension and- it were put into her hands the people in that house
would get it away from her I am almost certain.
Yours sincerely,
SELAH MERRILL
That Mrs. Garner had contributed nothing to her support made
no difference to the American Colony and evidently less to Mr.
Merrill. She lived on with us through many years. The children of
the Colony serenaded her on the morning of her eightieth birthday.
One verse had this line: "May you in wisdom grow," and in memory
I can still hear her protests, for she thought it was an insinuation
against her mentality.
I remember one exaggerated case that shocked us all. I have for
gotten the sect that called the meeting, but a zealous leader preached
an impassioned sermon on the text in Matthew 5:29, "If thy right
eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee; for it is profitable
for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy
whole body should be cast into hell."
This was taken literally by a young girl in the audience. That
evening, in her room, she tried to cut off her right hand. She was
taken to the German Hospital in a mutilated and bleeding condition,
but the hand was saved. Next morning, when the doctor entered her
132 OUR JERUSALEM
room, he found one of her eyes on the floor, and she was digging out
the other with her fingers, so that it had to be surgically removed.
Later, when she was in a sane and sorrowful frame of mind, we
were asked to give her shelter. We kept her for some time and
taught her Braille.
After leaving the American Colony she went to the Syrian Or
phanage Blind School and found consolation in service.
During our lives in Jerusalem we witnessed many tragedies caused
by religious frenzies and fanaticisms, and followed the courses of
numerous unbalanced cranks. There is a thread of similarity in all
their stories of the same sad, exaggerated egotism. Something in the
brain suggests the idea of their uniqueness as chosen by God, or
reincarnated to fulfill some tremendous purpose. I could continue
indefinitely, for the simples in Allah s Garden were many, seeming
to gravitate to the Holy Land to enter our lives for long or short
periods of time, sometimes with direful consequences. The few I
have told about are typical.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE Gadites entered our lives a few months after our arrival
in Jerusalem, and until civil war divided Jerusalem into Arab and
Jewish zones, with no intercourse between except bullets and bombs,
they continued to get help from the American Colony.
One afternoon in May 1882 several of the Group, including my
parents, went for a walk, and were attracted by a strange-looking
company of people camping in the fields. The weather was hot, and
they had made shelters from the sun out of odds and ends of cloth,
sacking, and bits of matting.
Father made inquiries through the help of an interpreter and
found that they were Yemenite Jews recently arrived from Arabia.
They told Father about their immigration from Yemen and their
arrival in Palestine. Suddenly, they said, without warning, a spirit
seemed to fall on them and they began to speak about returning to
the land of Israel. They were so convinced that this was the right and
appointed time to return to Palestine that they sold their property
and turned other convertible belongings into cash and started for the
Promised Land. They said about five hundred had left Yena in
Yemen. Most of them were uneducated in any way except the knowl
edge of their ancient Hebrew writings, and those, very likely, they
recited by rote. As appears, they were simple folk, with little knowl
edge of the ways of the world outside of Yemen, and that is the same
as saying "the days of Abraham."
When they landed in Hedida on the coast of the Red Sea, they
were cautioned by Jews not to continue their trip to Jerusalem and
that if they did so it would be at peril of their lives. Some of the
party were discouraged and returned to Yena. Others were mis
directed and were taken to India, The rest went to Aden, where they
embarked on a steamer for Jaffa, and came to Jerusalem before the
Feast of Passover.
They told about the opposition and unfriendliness they had en
countered from the Jerusalem Jews, who, they said, accused them
of not being Jews but Arabs.
One reason, they said, for their rejection by the Jerusalem Jews
134 OUR JERUSALEM
was because they feared that these poor immigrants would swell the
number of recipients of halukkah, or prayer money. Early in the
seventeenth century, as a result of earthquakes, famine, and persecu
tion, the economic position of the Jews in Palestine became critical,
and the Jews of Venice came to their aid. They established a fund
"to support the inhabitants of the Holy Land." Later on the Jews
of Poland, Bohemia, and Germany offered similar aid. This was
the origin of the halukkah. The money was sent not so much for the
purpose of charity as to enable Jewish scholars and students to study
and interpret the Scriptures and Jewish holy books and to pray for
the Jews in the Diaspora (Dispersion), at the Wailing Wall in Jeru
salem, and in other holy cities of Palestine. The halukkah, as one
could imagine, was soon abused. It only stopped, however, when
World War I began in 1914 and no more money came to Palestine
for that purpose.
In 1882, when the Yemenites arrived, those who had benefited
from the generosity of others were unwilling to pass it on.
Father was interested in the Gadites at once. Their story about
their unprovoked conviction that this was the time to return to
Palestine coincided with what he felt sure was coming to pass the
fulfillment of the prophecy of the return of the Jews to Palestine.
Also, Father was attracted by the classical purity of Semitic features
of these Yemenite immigrants, so unlike the Jews he was accustomed
to see in Jerusalem or in the United States. These people were dis
tinctive: they had dark skin with dark hair and dark eyes. They wore
side curls, according to the Mosaic law: "Ye shalt not round the
corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy
beard." Otherwise their dress was Arabic. They had poise, and their
movements were graceful, like those of the Bedouins. They were
slender and somewhat undersized. Many of the women were beauti
ful, and the men, even the young men, looked venerable with their
long beards. They regarded as true the tradition that they belonged
to the tribe of Gad. They believed that they had not gone into cap
tivity in Babylon, and that they had not returned at the time of Ezra
and Nehemiah to rebuild the temple. For thousands of years they
had remained in Yemen, hence their purity of race and feature.
The thirty-second chapter of Numbers tells how the children of
Gad and the children of Reuben asked Moses to allow them to re
main on the east side of Jordan, which country had "found favor
in their sigftt" It goes on to tell how Moses rebuked them, saying,
"Shall your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit here?" Then Moses
promised them that if they would go armed and help subdue the
country, then "this land shall be your possession before the Lord."
In the thirteenth chapter of Joshua, "when Joshua was stricken
OUR JERUSALEM 135
in years," he gives instructions that the Gadites and the Reubenites
and half the tribe of Menasseh should receive their inheritance "be
yond the Jordan eastward even as Moses the servant of the Lord
gave them."
In the Apology of al Kindy, written at the court of al Mamun,
A.D. 830, the author speaks of Medina as being a poor town, mostly
inhabitated by Jews. He also speaks of other tribes of Jews, one of
which was deported to Syria.
Would it be too remote to conjecture that the remnants of these
tribes should have wandered to and remained in Yemen? I know
there are other theories about how Jews got there, and about their
origin, but Father believed that "Blessed be he that enlargeth Gad,"
and the Group did everything in their power to help these immi
grants. We called them Gadites from that time.
They were in dreadful need when we found them.
Some of them had died of exposure and starvation during their
long and uncomfortable trip; now malaria, typhoid, and dysentery
were doing their work. They had to be helped, and quickly. No time
was lost in getting relief started. The Group rented rooms, and the
Gadites were installed in cooler and more sanitary quarters. Medical
help was immediately brought. Mr. Steinharf s sister, an Orthodox
Jewish woman, was engaged to purchase kosher meat, which, with
vegetables and rice or cracked burghal (wheat) she made into a
nutritious soup. Bread and soup were distributed once a day to all,
with the addition of milk for the children and invalids. One of the
American Colony members was always present at distribution time,
to see that it was done equitably and well. The Gadites had a scribe
among them who was a cripple. He could not use his arms and wrote
the most beautiful Hebrew, holding a reed pen between his toes. He
wrote a prayer for Father and his associates, which was brought one
day and presented to Father as a thanksgiving offering. They said 1
that they repeated the prayer daily. I have it in my possession; it is
written on a piece of parchment. The translation was made by Mr.
Steinhart.
This amicable state of affairs continued for some time. Then the
elders, who were the heads of the families, came as a delegation to
Father. They filed upstairs to the large upper living room, looking
solemn and sad, and smelling strongly of garlic. They told Father that
certain Orthodox Jews, the very ones who had turned blind eyes and
deaf ears to their entreaties for help when they arrived in such a piti
able state, were now persecuting them under the claim that they were
violating the law by eating Christian food. Some of the older men
and women had stopped eating, and in consequence were weak and
ill. They made Father understand how vital this accusation, even if
136 OUR JERUSALEM
false, was to them, and they begged him to divide the money spent
among them, instead of giving them the food.
Everyone knows how much more economical it is to make a large
quantity of soup in one caldron than in many individual pots; how
ever, their request was granted. A bit more money was added to the
original sum, and every Friday morning the heads of the Gadite
families would appear at the American Colony and be given coins in
proportion to the number of individuals to be fed.
They explained to Father that they were trying to learn the trades
of the new country and hoped very soon not to need assistance.
They had been goldsmiths and silversmiths of a crude sort in Yemen,
but Jerusalem at that time had no appreciation or demand for that
sort of handicraft.
One by one the elders came to tell us they had found work, to
thank, us for what we had done, and to say they needed no further
help. Father was impressed with the unspoiled integrity of these
people.
The Colony continued giving help to the original group of Gadites
in decreasing amounts until only a few old people and widows re
mained. But these came regularly once a week. Their number was
swelled by newcomers and we still shared what we could with them:
portions of dry rice, lentils, tea, coffee, and sugar, or other dry
articles. After the British occupation of Palestine and the advent of
the Zionist organization, with its resources and vast machinery to
meet pressing necessities, after forty years our list of dependent
Gadites was taken over by them.
Even then, individuals continued to come to the doors of the
American Colony to ask our help.
One night in June 1948 the American Colony had been under
fire all night between the Jews west of us and the Arab legionaries
east of us. In the morning a Yemenite Jew lay dead in the road be
fore our gates. I recognized Hyam, a Yemenite from the "box
colony * near the American Colony. He was one of those who had
been receiving help from us for years.
For all this relief work the American Colony was using the money
of its members. In the meantime Mr. Merrill had succeeded in ad
versely influencing our friends at home in the United States, and our
checks in this mission of mercy were not valid. This was the origin
of our getting into debt.
In 1884, two years after their arrival, the Gadite elders were
again at our door urgently asking to see Father. They were excited
and agitated, for in Jerusalem, they said, they had caught sight of a
"rabbi** who had won their confidence back in Yemen, Arabia, and
OUR JERUSALEM 137
forcibly abducted their most ancient and precious manuscript, the
Temanite Scroll.
The "rabbi" turned out to be a man whom I shall call Mr. Moses.
He was a converted Jew. His wife, before their marriage, had been a
Lutheran deaconess. They had two daughters, and at this time they
were living in one of the villas in a garden outside the walls of Jeru
salem. I remember on one of our walks standing with my nurse and
watching the peacocks in their garden. Mr. Moses and his family
attended Christ Church and Father remarked that, when he began to
pray, "one might just as well try and make oneself comfortable,"
for he would go on and on ever so long.
Mr. Moses was an antiquarian and trafficked in antiques. He had
enough knowledge coupled with ability and coggery to deceive the
archaeological students for a long time. To relate this story in full
I must go back a number of years.
When Emperor Frederick II of Germany came to Jerusalem as
Crown Prince in 1869, the Turkish Government presented him with
a valuable bit of property inside the old city, near the Holy Sepul-
cher, known as the Muristan. It is the site of the hospitals, caravan
sary, and church of the Knights of Saint John. It was in ruins at the
time, but the stones lying about showed what the buildings had been-
The church was reconstructed later, and Kaiser William II came to
Jerusalem in 1898 for the dedication of the Church of the Redeemer.
While Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia was in Jerusalem, Mr.
Moses presented him with a number of Canaanite pottery idols,
which he claimed he had found in a cave in the mountains of Moab,
east of the Jordan.
These idols, according to one description, "were the teraphim or
household gods of the Edomites and were all of them revoltingly
coarse presentments of erotic passions." They had been on exhibi
tion in the lecture room of the London Jews Society before the
presentation was made, so that the public could have a preview of
them, and my foster brother, who was then a boarder in the London
Jews Society Boys School, was given the privilege of seeing them
with the other scholars, and he was frightened to death by the sight
He knew the Israelites were always getting into trouble because
they worshiped idols. He thought they must have been impelled by
supernatural power to do so, for no one would willingly worship
such ugly things. Poor Jacob tried to keep his eyes fastened on the
toes of his shoes, but in spite of himself he would look up and get
a glimpse of the hideous objects. However, the Crown Prince
seemed highly pleased with the gift, for Mr. Moses was decorated,
and the idols were carefully packed and dispatched to Germany.
Mr. Moses frequently disappeared from Jerusalem for long pe->
138 OUR JERUSALEM
riods, and it was understood that he made journeys into dangerous
and remote places in search of antiquities. Archaeology in those days
was not the science it is today, and research time was carried on
more or less by amateurs. From one of these trips Mr. Moses re
turned and remained only a short time in Jerusalem before proceed
ing to England. No one knew where he had been and great secrecy
was maintained about his actions and movements. Soon it was
rumored that he had offered to sell a very old Hebrew manuscript
to the British Museum. This manuscript is now in the British Mu
seum, and is called the "Temanite Scroll." It is the oldest Hebrew
manuscript in the museum, and Mr. Moses got a large sum of money
for it.
After selling the Temanite Scroll to the British Museum, Mr.
Moses returned to Jerusalem and for some time was lost to the out
side world.
His shadow occupation in Jerusalem was being the proprietor of
a shop. On his signboard were these words, "Bookseller and Anti
quarian," and underneath this was painted, "Correspondent to the
British Museum."
However, he spent most of his time in his home, at some mysteri
ous occupation, and it was during this time that our Gadite elders
recognized him and came to Father for advice.
They told Father that he had come to them in Yemen purporting
to be a rabbi, which he may have been, before his so-called con
version, and it was in that capacity that he lived among them when
he was in Yemen, joining them in prayers in their synagogue until
he had won their confidence. When he succeeded, he asked if they
had any very old manuscripts. They told him that they had, but that
they never brought them out except on a certain feast day. As that
special feast was not far distant, "Rabbi" Moses remained in Yemen,
ingratiating himself in the good graces of these simple folk. When the
Temanite Scroll was uncovered he saw, with his experienced and
practiced eye, how old and valuable it was. He offered to buy it,
but they said they would rather part with their eyes or their lives
than with their beloved manuscript. When Mr. Moses saw that en
treaties were no good, he went to the Turkish governor. One can
only imagine what transaction took place there, for a sufficient
escort of soldiers was given to "him and he went to the synagogue
and forcibly took the Temanite Scroll, leaving a nominal sum of
money.
Before their talk with Father could be translated into terms of
action, Mr. Moses left Jerusalem, and the next surprise came when
we learned he was in London, offering the British Museum a much
older manuscript than the one he had already sold to them two years
OUR JERUSALEM 139
before. This one, he claimed, had been written by Eliazar, grandson
of Aaron. He said he had found it in a cave in the mountains of
Moab, east of the Jordan. For a number of weeks the archaeological
students of Europe were agog with eager expectations and the desire
to know if this remarkable manuscript was authentic. Many of the
scientific periodicals of the day had articles about this baffling manu
script. Students from Germany and France went to London to study
it. The parchment was supple and very old, no one could gainsay
that. The characters were of the oldest Hebrew, like those of the
Moabite stone. Here was a problem: how could parchment, buried
for thousands of years in a cave in Moab, remain so supple and soft?
Yet it was old, very old, there was no doubt about that. Sentiment
swayed this way and that, and more articles were written.
In the meantime Mr. Moses was waiting in London to be paid
the 1,000,000 he was asking for the manuscript, and the British
Museum was zealously guarding the treasure. The controversy had
been going on for about six weeks, gaining publicity with time, when
a certain M. Clermont-Ganneau, who had been French Consul in
Jerusalem and had excavated the so-called Tombs of the Bangs,
appeared in London. It was during his residence in Jerusalem that
the presentation of the idols to Crown Prince Frederick had taken
place, and he had suspected their authenticity even then. His suspi
cion had been confirmed by Mr. Moses s servant, Saleem, who
always accompanied him on his expeditions to Moab. Saleem had
quarreled with his master, and in revenge had gone to M. Clermont-
Ganneau and confessed his complicity in the forgery of the idols. M.
Clermont-Ganneau had exposed Mr. Moses through a pamphlet,
but by the time he was negotiating for the sale of this precious manu
script the pamphlet had been forgotten.
However, the appearance of M. Clermont-Ganneau in London
caused Mr. Moses to quake in his shoes. M. Clermont-Ganneau
asked to see the manuscript in question, and with the knowledge he
had tucked away in his memory, he looked at it with a more than
ordinarily critical eye. He asked to examine the Temanite Scroll as
well. He noticed the tiniest black dot at certain intervals along the
second scroll. He put the two scrolls together and found what he
suspected to be the case, that the parchment of the second had been
cut oS the first. It was the wide margin which Mr. Moses had care
fully cut off, and the minute black speck at equal intervals along the
edge, which M. Clermont-Ganneau had discovered, was the continu
ation of the marginal line of the original scroll. The parchment was
truly old, but the writing was very cleverly done by Mr. Moses him
self, and not by Eliazar, the grandson of Aaron.
140 OUR JERUSALEM
Mr. Moses wasted no time when the fraud was exposed. He
crossed the Channel to Rotterdam and committed suicide.
He had been busily writing the second scroll in Jerusalem when
our Gadites recognized him as the "rabbi" who had abducted their
manuscript.
Father wrote to the authorities of the British Museum, telling
them the real story and asking for some remuneration for the Yem
enite Jews, but the Museum authorities had paid heavily for the
first scroll and had been harassed by the fraud which followed, and
evidently wanted to hear nothing more about the matter.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
IN THOSE early days, before the Group became acclimated, it
was necessary for the older people to take some rest from their
strenuous work. There are many accounts in Father s diary of picnics
in the fields, especially in the spring when wild flowers cover the
hills and valleys. There were also pilgrimages to farther places.
Horse, camel, and donkeyback were the only means of trans
portation. The only carriage road was between Jerusalem and Jaffa;
the carriage roads to Jericho and Hebron were not built until 1890.
We rode many tunes to nearby Bethlehem, the "little town" hal
lowed by the Church of the Nativity. Bethany, on the Mount of
Olives, was another of our favorite villages; the traditional tomb of
Lazarus was shown there, and the place where Martha met the Lord.
There were trips to Ramallah, and farther away, to Jericho and
Moab.
Ramallah was particularly pleasant because of our amicable rela
tionship with members of the Friends Mission station there.
There were annual visits to Mr. and Mrs. Floyd in Jaffa. Their
cottage was small, but Mr. Floyd was a contractor for tourists, and
had the equipment to make us comfortable. Tents were pitched in
the garden with camp beds set within, and thus a most enjoyable
week could be spent. The reputation for good singing by the Colony
quartet, which consisted of Mother, soprano; Mrs. Gould, alto;
Jacob, tenor; and Elias, bass, had gone before us, and crowds
gathered in the evening around the fence to listen to the singing.
Soon the audience learned which of the hymns and Negro spirituals
they liked best, and they would call for "Go Down, Moses," "Swing
Low, Sweet Chariot," "In the Secret of His Presence," and many
others, keeping the American Colony chok singing for hours.
The native people were very kind and appreciative. One of our
Moslem friends rented a house in an orchard in the village of Bin
Karim and invited a few of our Group at a time, until he had given
us all a turn. Another time we rented the vineyard belonging to our
cook in Ramallah, and the guest room or "madiafieh" of the village
142 OUR JERUSALEM
was put at our disposal. Those were happy days, when, in the early
mornings, we would step out of doors to pluck and eat delicious
grapes and purple figs, sweet and fresh with the dew still glistening
on them.
Early in 1884 our Moslem grocer asked if he might bring some
Bedouin sheiks from east of the Jordan to call on us. He traded in
grain with them. Father was especially pleased to make their ac
quaintance and the first visit by Sheik All Diab, the paramount
sheik of the large and powerful Adwan tribe, was the beginning of
a friendship which has continued through several generations of
sheiks to the present day.
The invitation for us to return the visit came through Ali Diab s
son, Sheik Fiaz. And so in November 1884 a party went to Hesban
or Heshbon, high up on the mountains of Moab. Heshbon was the
capital of King Sihon of the Amorites. It is only a bare site now, but
it was an important Levitical city of Reuban and Gad. It came again
into the possession of the Amorites before the captivity.
I remember well the visit to Heshbon, although I was only six
years old. In July I had been ill with what was considered to be
rheumatic fever. It left me weak and pale. I begged to be taken on
the exciting expedition to the Bedouin country, and as my parents
thought a change might be beneficial to me, I was allowed to go. I
rode sometimes behind Father and Rob on their horses, but nearly
all the time I was perched high on top of the load of the pack horse.
Mother told about the trip in a letter to a friend:
We started early in the morning, on horseback, without any protec
tion except our Bedouin friends who were armed to/ne teeth with swords,
pistols, knives, etc. I wish you could have seen us start out with these wild
Ishmaelites.
The ride to Jericho took the entire day. For this trip we followed
the road with which we were most familiar, from the Damascus
Gate below our house, along the city wall to the northeast corner
a picturesque bit of masbnry, although, as considered in this part
of the world, of recent date. It was built about the time America
was discovered by Columbus, which we Americans think is ancient
history, but it is not considered so in the Holy Land.
We now faced the Mount of Olives, lighted as we started such
expeditions early by the morning glow that gives everything that
mystic charm which is so particularly beautiful in Palestine, and
descended into the Valley of Jehoshaphat across the small bridge
where the Kedron Brook flows after a hard rain.
To our right, as we turned to go over the bridge, is a building
marking the spot where the Greek Orthodox Church claim that
OUR JERUSALEM 143
Stephen was stoned. The Dominican monastery and church on the
Nablus Road, already mentioned, is the more authentic site. We are
accustomed to these dual sites in Palestine, for nearly every saint
has two birthplaces and more than one burial place. These -discrep
ancies shock the tourists. Some people visit Jerusalem and the Holy
Land in the hope that doubt will be eliminated and faith fortified in
religious belief. When they come in such a spirit, the churches
guarded by Mohammedan soldiers, to keep so-called Christians from
fighting, the foul-smelling shrines pointed out by some greasy, repul
sive-looking man, or the numerous sites shown for the same occur
rence, repell them. The hot trip to Jericho and the "muddy creek"
which is the River Jordan could be disillusioning.
But there is much beauty and great interest everywhere. Greasy
and repulsive looking many may be on the outside, but earnest souls
can dwell in dirty garments. The hills and valleys and the costumes
of the people are those He saw, and one finds Jesus wherever one
may go in the Holy Land.
It was with such thoughts in our minds that we passed Gethsem-
ane at the foot of the Mount of Olives. That small garden, walled in
and kept in such immaculate condition by Franciscan monks, with
old-fashioned flowers of every kind and hue blooming the year
round in the shadow of the old olive trees with their curiously
gnarled trunis, known to be nine hundred years old, may or may
not be the real spot where heaven and earth met on the wonderful
Thursday night two thousand years ago. But we do know Geth-
semane was on the side of Olivet across the Kedron.
To those who have a deeper understanding of what these experi
ences mean, the actual spot does not matter much.
We rode over the brow of Olivet between high walls surrounding
Jewish cemeteries, where the graves have crept until they reach the
top, .for the Jews consider themselves fortunate to die in Jerusalem
and be buried on the slope of the Mount of Olives, near the Valley
of Jehoshaphat, in the hope that they will be the first on hand in the
Day of Judgment where all will meet, according to the verse in JoeL
We always turned back from the Mount of Olives for a last view
of Jerusalem. The Mosque el Aksa and the Dome of the Rock
(Mosque of Omar) stand in grandeur above the parapets of the city
wall, and below the deep descent of the Valley of Jehoshaphat all
rich in sacred memories and impressively beautiful.
This is nearly the same view which Christ and His disciples looked
upon when the latter were impressed with the benevolence of the
Jews and drew Christ s attention to the wonderful buildings. "Is it
possible that all these edifices which are built from unselfish offer
ings are not acceptable to God?"
144 OUR JERUSALEM
We passed through quiet and dusty Bethany. A steep, winding
descent took us down the deep valley separating the hills around
Jerusalem to the Apostle s Fountain, En-Shemesh (Spring of the
Sun) of the Old Testament, marking the boundary between Judah
and Benjamin.
This spring lies in a hollow, the hills forming a small amphi
theater, and the road makes a horseshoe around it. I remember pic
nics there in the warm hollow with the sun glaring down, and a
sharki (east) wind blowing.
This was sometimes an exciting place to be, for caravans of
Bedouins rest there on their way to and from the "medenie" (city)
where they bring their grain for sale. There are terrible blood feuds
among the Bedouins, and if persons from the respective parties meet
here, and want to water their animals at the trickling spring at the
same time, a terrific battle ensues that may end in bloodshed. We
witnessed such a battle once, as children, when we were picnicking
at the Apostle s Fountain, and the pastoral scene suddenly changed
to a bloody feud with bullets flying.
Riding on, we came to Jericho, situated on the plain a short dis
tance from the Judean hills.
Jericho was not an attractive city then.
It contained several hotels and a Russian hospice. Here thousands
of pilgrims were accommodated, especially at Epiphany, when a
service was held on the banks of the Jordan and the pilgrims, men
a^d women together, immersed themselves in the river, wearing
their shrouds.
Besides the above-mentioned buildings, with the exception of a
small Greek church, Jericho contained nothing but dirty hovels
where the inhabitants eked out an existence. They were even less
fortunate than the roving tribes who leave a place when it becomes
thoroughly dirty and pitch their tents on some clean spot, and when
spring-cleaning time comes, move again.
Not far from Jericho is Elisha s Fountain, which was cured by
Elisha with a cruse of salt.
But Jericho was blessed with a tropical climate, which we often
came to enjoy in cold winters for several weeks at a time,. Before
many years passed rich Arabs began building winter residences and
hotels there, and in 1948 the city filled with Arab refugees. These
unfortunate persons, driven from their homes, flocked to Jericho
because of its warmth during that unusually cold winter.
On this visit with our Bedouin friends we arrived in Jericho in
late afternoon after, as Mother wrote in her letter, "going downhill
afl the way.-
OUR JERUSALEM 145
She continued:
We have a friend in Jericho, who visited our home several times and
asked us to visit him in Jericho. We had a warm welcome and were ush
ered into an orange and lemon grove. There were also bananas and other
tropical fruit trees.
It was a refreshing sight after our long ride. We remained in Jericho
for the night and started early in the morning on our journey. We rode
an hour and a half and then arrived at the Jordan. There was no bridge,
and as the water was too high for us to ford the stream, we all crossed in
a ferry, horses and all. The ferry was a most quaint, primitive affair.
The scenery about the Jordan was beautiful. The weather was hot al
though late in November. We remounted on the other side and rode for
another hour and a half across the plain, then the son of the sheik rode
on before us to announce our arrival to an encampment of Bedouins
belonging to this tribe, but who were shepherds. The tent we entered was
prepared with rich rugs on the ground for us to sit upon. The encamp
ment was an interesting sight; men, women, and children flocked about
to greet us. Some of them had never seen a white or European lady be
fore. I assure you it was refreshing to be able to lie down and rest under
this tent for it was still hot. Very soon after our arrival they killed the
"fatted lamb" and "baked the cake" for us, just like in the days of Abra
ham. The "savory dish" was put before us with the "cakes" of bread
and we surrounded the dish. We ate with our fingers. Our hosts picked
out choice bits with their hands and offered them to us to eat. In the
evening a wood fire was built before the tent and all gathered round it
in a reclining attitude, facing the fire. It would be hard to describe the
wild scene. The dark faces of the men, some of them almost entirely
covered by their "kaffiyeh" or headdress arrangement, with only their
bright eyes showing, and all of them armed with pistols and knives. It
was a strange sight, and, I must confess, it was a little frightening one
I had read about but never witnessed before. I have no doubt that we
were as strange to them as they were to us. After supper they wanted
to entertain us to the best of their ability, so they arranged one of their
war dances. It was the wildest scene one could imagine. About a dozen
men stood shoulder to shoulder swaying back and forth with rhythmic
movement and singing a war song, which was weird enough. Before
them a woman danced with a drawn sword in her hand, which she bran
dished with dexterous skill. Her dress was very long and also her sleeves.
Both her dress and sleeves flew back and forth with her rapid movements.
The faster she danced the more excited the men got, until it all finished in
a grand finale of noise and dust.
We remained in this encampment until early the next morning, when
we resumed our journey. We were now in the country of Moab. The
mountains of Moab, seen so often from Jerusalem looking like iridescent
silk, were before us to climb, but in reality they were rocks and stone
with no made roads, only steep bridle paths. We had a long, hard ride
until about three in the afternoon when we reached our destination. The
tent we were ushered into was 150 feet long, woven out of goats hair
146 OUR JERUSALEM
and quite waterproof. Nora, Bertha, and I were taken into the women s
compartment and the men were taken into the sheik s compartment. A
beautiful Kalim carpet hung and divided the tent.
The wife of the great sheik met us with the gracious dignity of a queen.
She stood at the door of the tent welcoming us in a dress of dark blue
material ten feet long and sleeves eleven feet long (we measured them) .
The dress is the same length all around, and it takes an experienced
person to walk inside this bag, with the dress trailing behind her. It is let
down on state occasions, otherwise it is tucked up around her waist in
several folds. She stood there commanding her servants and handmaidens
who in response brought out mattresses covered with rich red satin. Our
shoes were taken off and we were given water so that we might wash.
Then the handmaidens hurried to bring us lemonade, sweets, and coffee.
Directly the whole encampment was astir. The fatted lamb or kid had to
be prepared, the bread baked. Butter and "laban" [clabbered milk] were
brought with the cooked meal and set in huge trays and bowls on the
ground. Rich Persian rugs were laid round for us to sit upon. After we
had partaken of the evening meal, all the retainers were served according
to their rank. Even the casual passer-by, no matter how ragged, was fed,
After the remnants of the meal and the dishes were removed, the eve
ning fire was rekindled. The sheik and the male part of his family and
retainers surrounded it. Then the court joker and singer came forward
and sang the praises of the great sheik telling about the numerous
battles he had fought and won, and recounting the many enemies he had
killed. He threw up the dust with his hand and said "so many more than
could be counted." The women sang in companies, one side answering the
other like the women who sang in I Samuel 18:7: "And the womer
answered one another as they played. Saul hath slain his thousands and
David his ten thousands."
These people live just as Abraham did. Their customs have nol
changed. They have two or more wives and each wife has her hand
maidens and servants. It is interesting to see actually with one s own eyes
how Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived. They had the "cake of raisins
and all such terms used by the ancient fathers are everyday expressions
The Bible becomes a living book.
The Bedouins are feared by all, especially by travelers. The Turki
have not been able to subdue them. No one dares to travel in thei
country and here we were being entertained by them.
The sheik with a number of his sons and retainers followed us tc
Jerusalem and spent a few days with us at the American Colony.
They sat in our sitting room or salon, as they call it here, which wa
decorated with their pistols, knives, and swords hung upon the wall.
While these wild visitors were our guests, we were as fearless of dange]
as though they were the meekest of men. We have become very warn
friends now, for if one has ever eaten salt with them, they will never tun
from that friend.
In copying Mother s letter, I realize how customs have changec
since then. The grandchildren of these Bedouin friends still visit us
OUR JERUSALEM 147
but they arrive in automobiles, and when I visited them recently in
Amman, Trans-Jordan, it was to a European and modernly fur
nished house that I was taken, although the stuffed sheep and the
laban were still "served in a lordly dish."
Lately I have had the great-grandchild of Sheik Ali Diab Adwan
in the Anna Spafford Baby Nursing Home.
Some time ago a group of Bedouins came to visit the American
Colony, and one, looking across the room at me, said, "Is that not
Murtha?" This is the nearest they can get to pronouncing my name,
Bertha. He had been one of the younger, lesser sheiks who escorted
us on the ride to the shepherds* encampment at Shunet Nimrin,
where King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan now has his summer camp,
and he had shot a beautiful little bird and brought it to me as a
present.
"I expected you to be pleased," he said. "Instead of being happy,
as our children would have been, and roasted it on hot coals and
eaten it, you cried, and put it into a beautiful handkerchief, and
buried it!"
It was a reaction that had puzzled him for nearly half a century.
Mother tells in her letter that the Bedouins were interested in see
ing the first white woman and child. As a compliment to Father, they
initiated me into the tribe and ever since have called me "Murtha
Adwan."
In all Mother s letters written at this time there are many affec
tionate references to "our son Rob." I remember so well how greatly
Rob enjoyed this trip into Moab and other journeys we were able to
make in those days, and how greatly Rob loved Palestine.
I did not know that before leaving Chicago our family doctor had
warned Father and Mother of a loss sure to come, and that my
parents, knowing this, had taken Rob out of school and brought him
with us to share the wonderful experience of life in the Holy Land.
When Mother took her four little daughters to Europe, Rob had
been left behind in "prep school." He was skating one day near the
school when the ice broke, and when found he had been in the water
a long time. After that there was always a heart murmur, and I could
hear it when I sat on his knee. He was very tall, with proportionately
broad shoulders, although he was thin. He had a winning manner
and made friends quickly everyone loved him.
In September, 1885 Rob went to help some friends near Media,
a village on the plain of Sharon, mark out and prepare for planting
trees when the rains came. It was very hot, and Rob, interested in
horticulture as he was in anything new, ignored the sun mounting to
its zenith.
His friends brought him home in a spring wagon, and he was un-
148 OUR JERUSALEM
conscious and burning with fever by the time they reached the
Damascus Gate, He was carried up the hill in a stretcher made from
a blanket. Loving hands could not bring back a ray of consciousness.
His death on September 10, 1885, was the first in our Group.
The young men of the German Templar Colony, in whose ceme
tery for some reason he was buried, were all Rob s friends, and
offered to be his pallbearers. Wearing dark suits with broad white
bands over the shoulders, they carried his coffin down the hill to the
Damascus Gate where a lumber wagon waited, for there was no
hearse in Jerusalem then, nor in all Palestine, nor was there one until
the late 1930s, The cemetery was about two miles from the Gate and
we walked along the dusty road following the wagon.
As we came through the Templar Colony, on the only tree-lined
road at that time in Jerusalem, other young German Colony men
who comprised the brass band played from the upper balcony of one
of the houses the "Dead March" from Saul by Handel They played
it beautifully, and although I was only seven, whenever I hear that
music I remember how I stood in the road, my heart aching with
sorrow, holding tightly to Aunt Maggie s hand, and in memory I feel
again the utter loneliness that came over me. Handsome, brilliant
Rob, the cousin who had been like a brother, my dear friend, my
greatest tormentor, was gone.
I was grieving, too, because Father and Mother were so sad.
They, who had borne so much sorrow, knew how to meet this
blow.
That night when I went to bed I wept bitterly, and Mother came
and talked to me. I remember some of her words. "What a wonder
ful awakening!" "Now he sees Him face to face." Her face radiated
such sublime joy that it removed the sting of death for me from that
moment, and the fear of it as well. Something happened to me then,
for Mother made heaven near and real to me, and I was comforted,
and went to sleep.
One week after Rob s death Mrs. Merriman had a stroke and
quietly passed away. The dear old lady was laid to rest beside Rob,
whom she had dearly loved. So Death came to the American Colony.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
IN 1886 A shifting in American politics changed the Consul in
Jerusalem. Grover Cleveland was now President of the United States.
His term of office proved a blessing to the American Colony, for Mr.
Selah Merrill left Jerusalem and a new Consul arrived, giving us a
few years of respite.
New Year s Day, Mother wrote:
A quiet day. The house is trimmed with mistletoe and evergreens, and
presents a festive appearance. [Mistletoe in Palestine is a parasite which
grows on olive trees and has red berries,] In the evening Mr. Arbeely, the
new American Consul, came to tea and spent the evening. All our Moham
medan friends came and were so glad to see him. They gave him a hearty
welcome.
Mr. Arbeely was a Syrian by birth, but an American by adoption.
The Turkish Government did not recognize the loss of a subject
through mere naturalization by another government. As Syria and
the Lebanon were then under Turkish rule, they considered him a
Turk and not an American. As it happened, Mr, Arbeely was soon
recalled from Washington and Mr. Henry Oilman of Detroit, Michi
gan, came to take his place.
Mr. Oilman and Father had met as young men in connection with
the Detroit Public Library which they assisted in founding. It afforded
Father much pleasure to have his old friend in the American Con
sulate. Mr. Oilman took keen interest in the people of the country
and made many friends. He was a student, and associated himself
with archaeology and social welfare. His son, Dr. Robert Oilman,
now a prominent ophthalmologist in Detroit, was then a medical
student. On a visit to his father, he associated himself with the
Ophthalmic Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, where he was al
lowed to assist.
Henry Oilman wrote a novel called Hassan: A Fellah A Ro
mance of Palestine.
Other old friends came from Chicago in this pleasant year.
150 OUR JERUSALEM
In the spring of 1886 Mrs. Buckingham and her younger daughter,
Rose (who later married Mr. Gordon Selfridge, proprietor of the
large department store in London), with an elder sister and her hus
band, Mr. and Mrs. Chandler, visited Palestine.
The party was personally conducted by our Jaffa friend Mr. Rolla
Floyd, the tourist agent. There was no good hotel in Jerusalem, so
they camped on the Mount of Olives. Such camps were magnificent,
the equipment sumptuous, and the service excellent They were con
stantly used by tourists. The tents were and still are made in Egypt.
Strong sailcloth is used on the outside and this is lined with indigo
blue every inch of which is covered with bright patchwork in ara
besque patterns. The camp consisted of a bedroom tent for each per
son or couple, and every morning a tin bathtub would be dragged
into the tent by the attendant. Hot and cold water stood beside the
tub in big containers, usually Standard Oil tins. A large tent with
double poles was used for dining and sitting room with comfortable
camp chairs.
The kitchen tent contained a stove consisting of an iron frame on
legs with places for a charcoal fire. The camp cooks were excellent,
and the waiters, well trained. In those days of leisurely travel, the
camp provided the ideal way, and they were used by Thomas Cook
and Son and all tourist contractors. These equipments were com
mandeered by the Turkish Army in 1914 and that ended camp life
on the grand style. When travel started up again after the war good
hotels had been built. Automobiles took the place of carriages and
horses and changed the tempo of travel.
I went with my parents several times to meals in the beautiful
camp of the Buckinghams and Chandlers, and we saw them often
during their visit to Jerusalem. They went on to Jericho, the River
of Jordan, and the Dead Sea. As Mother intimates in her letter about
her visit to the Bedouins, the country was unsafe and the Turkish
Government conceived a clever device to guard travelers. One of the
villages was considered the "robbers home" of eastern Palestine.
The family of the paramount sheik was officially made responsible
for the safety of the Jericho Road. All travelers paid a fee to this
family, and a member would then accompany the party. This made
the village with the sheik and his family responsible for safety and
insured no molestation. Woe betide the party that had not paid its
fee. "Racketeering" is not an American invention!
As the Buckingham party was important and also rich (such in
formation travels fast), Sheik Mustifa himself accompanied them
on this trip. He rode a beautiful Arab mare with the usual oriental
trappings on saddle and bridle. All the party were on horseback.
Sheik Mustifa soon observed that Rose was a good horsewoman and
OUR JERUSALEM 151
resolved to play a practical joke. He secretly took Rose into his con
fidence and told her to remove her feet from her stirrups. In those
days all ladies rode sidesaddle and wore flowing riding habits. Rose
was quite thrilled with the idea and acquiesced in this escapade. Sheik
Mustif a lagged behind for a bit and when they came to a level stretch
of road appropriate for his demonstration of Arabic horsemanship,
he came forward at full gallop. As he passed Rose, he grabbed her
around her waist and, placing her before him on his horse, continued
his wild race, his bright-colored kaffiyeh and abayah waving behind
in the wind as though in farewell to the rest of the party. Mrs. Buck
ingham and the Chandlers imagined Rose had been kidnaped, and
they followed in pursuit. When Sheik Mustifa felt he had continued
the joke long enough, he retraced his tracks with a radiant Rose.
It is the kind of humor an Arab delights in.
Among the many tourists whom Mr. Floyd conducted through the
Holy Land was Mark Twain. The famous author rode a horse he
named Baalbek, because he was such a "magnificent ruin." Innocents
Abroad was written after this trip. Mr. Floyd used to amuse us by
telling us anecdotes about Mark Twain. I remember one special story
which, as far as I know, has never been published. The party was
camping in Galilee, where in the spring of the year the wild flowers
are plentiful and very beautiful. Herbs and plants grow to abnormal
size but retain their luscious and tender qualities. The cook had
gathered some wild greens and made a salad which was served with
roast lamb for dinner. A member of the party asked the author why
he was like Nebuchadnezzar, and expected the answer to be because
he was eating the "grass of the field." Mark Twain promptly replied
"because I am eating with the brutes."
In spite of Father s busy life he carried on an extensive corre
spondence. He kept in touch with the homeland and his friends in
this way. Also, he kept them in touch with Jerusalem.
Miss Frances Willard in a letter to Father, dated August 2, 1888,
wrote:
It was kind of you to write me, and let me have a little insight into
your remarkable life. I pressed the flowers, and have put them in an
album, in memory of you and your society. I am sending you some
documents, that you may know a little of what we are trying to do here,
and I shall take the liberty to mention you to Mrs. when I write to
her. She will very likely be in Jerusalem within the year.
Believe me, I have at heart the same outcome that engages you so
earnestly, and though we may have different ways of looking at it, I like
to think the spirit is the same.
Ever yours, with high esteem,
{signed) FRANCES E. WILLABD
152 OUR JERUSALEM
Another friend who had visted the American Colony in Jerusalem
wrote to Father: "Please take some pains to see Americans who visit
Jerusalem. There is great interest associated with your work. I have
advised all my friends to visit your Colony." We met many Ameri
cans every tourist season, who came in the spring or early summer,
because tourist agencies combine the trip to Egypt with that to
Palestine.
Mr. Henry Waller, who had been our neighbor in Lake View and
partner with Father in certain undertakings, wrote to him:
The picture you so vividly draw of the peerless, springlike sky of
Palestine resting upon the Mount of Olives, the mountains of Moab,
and the heights where Titus camped, in full view of your windows, was
very stimulating to an old man, although hard at work in the midst of
books and papers, but who often meditates upon that wondrous land of
balm and blessing for both body and soul.
I would indeed love to enjoy one long, soul-inspiring look of that land
which our blessed Lord s eyes rested upon whilst in the flesh, and upon
which his precious feet have trodden. . . . Quite a stir took place in
Chicago when Reverend in a recent sermon in Unity Church
avowed his disbelief in a God and Immortality. . . . His congregation has
asked him to resign.
It was this letter, I believe, which called forth Father s hymn.
"Thou Man Divine, * which we often sang in the American Colony:
O Jesus Christ, Thou Man Divine,
Tis sweet to follow paths of Thine
Where Thou by faith pursuing still
Discerned the Living Father s will.
Round Thee, as now a world s demands
Pressed for some tribute at Thy hands;
Some words, so bare conforming nod,
Unswerving Thou didst follow God.
Faith to Thy heart the time made known,
To lay this world s employments down,
And there at Jordan meet the word
That sealed Thee Son-of-God and Lord. . . .
This hymn of Father s proves how false Mr. Merrill s accusation
was that we did not believe in the divinity of Christ.
Our life in Palestine was busy and pleasant except for the anxiety
about funds.
Father realized that he could not look after his financial obligations
from a distance of seven or eight thousand miles. From his letters I
OUR JERUSALEM 153
am convinced that had he not been taken ill, he would have returned
to the United States, at least temporarily. He speaks longingly of his
last years in America, but he loved his work in Jerusalem. He writes:
"We came to Jerusalem to learn, and it has been a wonderful expe
rience."
Father was taken ill the summer of 1888 and a change was con
sidered beneficial to his health. There were few resorts to go to in
those days, and our finances were so low that friends who owned a
vineyard on the outskirts of Jerusalem allowed us to pitch tents there.
Although Father was not well, he enjoyed the outing. He wrote in
September to Mrs. Piazza Smith:
I am writing you under a tent in the midst of a vineyard and fig orchard
out on the top of the Hill Gareb, just outside Jerusalem. Here some of
us have been camping for a week or two. I wish you and your husband
were here to enjoy it with us. Six years ago I was walking on this same
hilltop with a friend. The hilltop was perfectly bare, not a house upon it.
Now there are more than five hundred houses, all solidly built of stone.
I like to think that the last months of Father s life were so happy.
But his fever grew worse and developed into malignant malaria,
which is akin to the dreaded blackwater fever. Father came back to
our home at the Damascus Gate from the camp on Gareb, and he
never left it alive. In writing about his death I cannot do better than
copy what I wrote about it a few years ago:
My husband and I went to Saint George s Cathedral [in Jerusalem] to
day, October 16, 1938. The old city is shut, almost besieged, perhaps for
the first time in two thousand years. The gates have been shut by Arab
rebels who are protesting against the increase of Zionist immigration.
There is great tension in the air. The Anna Spafford Baby Nursing Home
is still doing its work. Electric-light wires are cut by the rebels. So far
the Anna Spafford Nursing Home telephone is intact. These are the condi
tions under which I write.
The sermon was on John II, verse 25.
"And Jesus said [to Martha]: I am the resurrection and the life; he
that believeth in me, though he were dead yet shall he live.* "
The chaplain spoke about how some lives attain their ideal, but with
the inequality of life on this earth some people had opportunities, riches,
talents, while others had none; other people were "world-weary" and
looked forward to nothing but to be blotted out. They had struggled to
get on, to provide for their families, to be honest, to succeed in business.
They felt how far from ideal was their relation to their families, their
friends, their superiors, their subordinates, and as they grew older their
shortcomings overbalanced their accomplishments; they were only too glad
154 OUR JERUSALEM
to be "snuffed out," to become part of the ground. Yet a future life was
part of the belief, creed, or religion of people from earliest times, varying
in conception with different dates and civilizations. But the glories of the
Christian conception of a future life were a realization of all that had
been impossible here, in this life, and should be inbred in us from the
earliest moment when our life of comprehension began. "We shall see
Him face to face!"
When the preacher got so far, I thought back over my own life. I
thought how marvelously Mother had been able to instill just this view
of the future life into us as children.
When Father lay unconscious and apparently dying, I was ten
years old. Father and Mother had given up their "all" truly to come
to Jerusalem. Father was the strong and compelling spirit. On his
shoulders rested the responsibility of life. Mother was the follower;
Mother felt "he knew." He was her counsellor and best friend. To
gether they had passed through many vicissitudes, dangers, sorrow,
death, and calamity. Together they could face anything. Their love
could rise above sorrow. As long as they had each other they were
masters of every situation they had proved this. Now Mother, as
she looked down on Father s unconscious and emaciated face, real
ized that she must face the work, future sorrows, and whatever was
ahead of her alone. I stood beside her; I was conscious of her strug
gle. As she listened to the measured breathing that became more
labored as time went on, and felt the declining strength of a pulse
that was beating ever more irregularly, I could see she was being
overwhelmed with anguish. But she must be worthy of this brave man
her life s partner. Her stand, though alone now, must be so close
to heaven that she must still feel him near her.
She left the room and stood in the arbor, watching a waning moon
rise red over the Mount of Olives. All was quiet, all was still not a
leaf moved in that second spell of sirocco that sometimes comes in
October, She lifted her breaking heart to God; she quoted Scripture,
not knowing chapter or verse: "I will dance before the Lord," she
said, from the Psalms, meaning she would do that which was the
most difficult to do. In that phrase she expressed her determination
not to give in to overwhelming sorrow. It lifted her above her nat
ural inclination. It was the expression of her determination really to
believe "I am the resurrection and the life."
Nora was the only other person present. After a short absence,
comforted and strengthened, Mother returned. Just at that moment
Father opened his eyes, looked at Mother, and said; "Annie, I have
experienced a great joy; I have seen wonderful things," and he tried
to tell her, but weakness and unconsciousness overcame him, and he
could speak no more. The end was very near. She turned to me and
OUR JERUSALEM 155
the nurse. "Bertha," she said, "stay with Father to the end. I must go
away." It was only a short time, and I went to tell Mother. My sister
Grace was with her, "He knows it all now," she said. "He has seen
Him face to face. We must not sorrow like those who have not hope."
She made me feel the truth of this, for she did not outwardly sorrow;
she did not lament. I felt it was unworthy of her courage to cry. My
heart was breaking, so I crept away from sight on the rampart wall,
into one of the niches behind the house, and there I cried until my
poor little heart broke. My sobs shook me; my sense of loss was al
most too much for me. Father had been such a companion; we were
such good friends, but my admiration for my mother was greater than
all else at that moment. I felt that I must stand by her, so I dried my
tears.
The superhuman effort Mother had made was too much for her;
she had been ailing for a long time, and only Father s illness had kept
her from giving way. But as the need of her ministration for him
ceased, the strength she had long overtaxed snapped, and she went
to bed with a high fever. Nor was she able to go with ns to the grave
in the little American Cemetery on Mount Zion.
Young as I was, I remember what a comfort it was to me to see
the flag of the United States of America flying half-mast as we passed
the Consulate. Our American Consul, Mr. Henry Oilman, was walk
ing by my side and was holding my hand.
In those days Jerusalem offered little that would be accounted as
essential to a Western funeral. There was no flower shop; not a
flower could be bought anywhere. So all wreaths were woven by
friends, of flowers grown in private gardens. There was no hearse.
It was a long way from the Damascus Gate to Mount Zion. The roads
were unpaved and dusty. A long lumber wagon carried the casket
made of rough pine planks and covered with black cloth. Mother had
tried to cover up the ugly black sides with branches of the pepper
tree, and I never smell its pungent fragrance without its carrying me
back to that day. We were covered with dust as we walked behind
the cart, and we entered the cemetery with the beautiful promise over
the door: "Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life."
The nurse met me as I returned. I wanted to rush to Mother s
arms, but Mother was too ill to see Grace and me. A desolation came
over me that seemed unbearable.
For many long weeks after this Mother lay at death s door. I re
member sitting quite unnoticed, looking at the faces of those entering
and leaving the room and trying to discern a ray of hope in their
expressions. After several weeks Mother felt she was not making the
progress she hoped, and a bed was made in a large carriage and she
was taken to Jaffa. Mr. and Mrs. Rolla Floyd made her a welcome
156 OUR JERUSALEM
guest. Mrs. Gould went with her and faithfully nursed her. Later she
was invited to stay at the home of Baron and Baroness Ustinov in
Jaffa, where she could sit in their beautiful garden and regain her
strength.
Never shall I forget the ecstasy of joy when Mother returned to us,
weak but recovered.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
AFTER Father s death life became more difficult, more beset
with anxiety. Mother s long and severe illness cast a gloom over the
household. It was many months before she was able to take an active
part in the work.
Another blow hit the Colony, and so soon after Father s death and
Mother s illness that it was staggering. Captain Sylvester, who had
suffered for years from angina pectoris, had an attack which proved
fatal. He realized his serious condition, and as he was dying, asked
his wife to lay him to rest beside the best friend he had ever had.
That was next to Father in the American Cemetery. How little we
knew then what complying with that request would mean to the
American Colony later on.
Two years later, in 1890, Mr. Drake died during an epidemic of
the dreaded and then little-known influenza.
Although cramped in finances and experiencing sickness and death,
these were years free from external persecution. Our friend Mr, Oil
man was still American Consul-
It was soon after Father s death that Mr. Dwight L. Moody came
to Jerusalem to visit. He came to caE on Mother. He held me with
one arm as he sat on the divan with my sister Grace on his knee. He
was disappointed not to have seen Father, and I remember that he
was not ashamed to let the tears run down his cheeks.
He held an open-air service on the top of Gordon s Calvary. Some
one should have informed him, for he would never willingly have
offended anyone if he had realized what he was doing. The top of
the hill (Gordon s Calvary) is a Moslem cemetery. There were not
many graves there at that time, and those that existed were in a rather
neglected condition. In his enthusiasm and his utter abandon of
thoughts other than on his sermon, he stood on an old grave that he
might see his audience better. That incident so infuriated the Moslems
that they forbade any Christian to enter the cemetery without a per
mit, and as rapidly as funds were available they built the high wall
all around thfe top of the hill.
In 1889 Mr. W. E. Blackstone, who was Father s friend and asso-
158 OUR JERUSALEM
date in Chicago in the days when he and Mother were active in Mr.
Moody s work, came to visit us with his daughter Flora. They were
our guests at the American Colony, and Mother was very pleased to
see them.
Mr. Floyd conducted their party. They left February 4, going
through the country on horseback, with a full camp equipment, to
Damascus.
When Mr. Blackstone got back to his home in Oak Park, Illinois,
he was interviewed by a Chicago reporter. He was asked about his
visit to Jerusalem and about the Group who had started from Chicago
eight years before. The interviewer asked:
Q. "By what name are they known in Jerusalem?"
A. "Simply as the Americans."
Q. "How do they employ themselves?"
A. "In works of charity and devotion. They are constantly engaged
in feeding the hungry and nursing the sick. Their house is a sort of free
hotel for everyone who needs shelter. Bedouins, Arabs, Jews, and all sorts
of people drop in there and are kindly entertained. They hold gospel
meetings. The singing at these meetings is the nearest to the Music of
Heaven as any I ever heard. *
Q. "Who attends these meetings?"
A. "All sorts of people, including a great many Jews and Mohammed
ans, and they join in the singing and evince a deep respect for the
service."
In that year, 1889, Benjamin Harrison, a Republican, defeated
Grover Cleveland in the presidential elections and became President
of the United States.
With abated breath we read the news, and wondered if that would
mean a change of consuls. We had had five years respite with Mr.
Henry Oilman. We wondered whether Mr. Merrill would come back
to Jerusalem. He did. In 1891 Mr. Merrill returned as Consul and
renewed his attacks against us with greater determination.
Letters and notes tell about the remarkable manner in which we
were provided for during those years. One entry says, "No money,
no bread, but sixty loaves of beautiful white bread arrived unex
pectedly this P.M." Later we learned that a friend from Chicago who
was in Jerusalem had sent the bread. About a week later is another
entry: "Mr. Floyd sent us twenty loaves of bread and a large quarter
of mutton." Again, "Butter came from Safid" (from the Eliahus very
likely). "Monday will be Grace s birthday and we have no money to
buy any cake or sweets. Later in the afternoon the grocer sent dibbis
without being asked."
Slaman, "the egg man," as we called him, who left eggs without
OUR JERUSALEM 159
being asked, became blind through trachoma, and the American
Colony were able to help him for years until he died.
Mr. Merrill was a D.D. and I notice that during his second term
of office he was generally called Dr. Merrill, Dr. Merrill accused us
of contracting debts under false representations. He stated that "we
had not a dollar to pay them with." The origin of our indebtedness
was feeding and housing the Gadites (Yemenites), and our money
was stopped from coming to pay these debts through Dr. Merrill s
intervention. That no suit for debt was ever instigated against us
alone shows that no creditor ever seriously invoked the Consul s
services.
I am compelled to expatiate on this subject as an introduction to
the chapters that follow*
Dr. Merrill was interested in archaeology. He considered himself
an authority, and wrote books and articles on the subject.
He started excavations inside the wall of the American Cemetery
and found ancient remains. To follow an ancient wall he disturbed
the graves.
We knew nothing of this until Aunt Maggie s death.
On August 12, 1891, my aunt and Mrs. Sylvester went to call on
a friend and were leisurely walking home along the "Back Road,"
now the Street of the Prophets, when Aunt Maggie said, "I m
not feeling well," and fell to the ground. Friends carried her to the
nearby Kamanitz Hotel
The doctor s verdict was that Aunt Maggie had died instantly.
In this hot country interment must follow death by a few hours.
The funeral started from the Kamanitz Hotel the next day.
Dr. Merrill had no warning of any illness among the members of
the American Colony to prepare him for the news of a burial. When
we took Aunt Maggie to the American Cemetery, I was horrified to
see my father s coffin exposed and huge holes and trenches cutting
across the cemetery. I gave one shriek at the horrible sight and
fainted.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
DR. MERRILL S unrelenting attacks soon plunged us into another
chapter in the Colony s history, "the strange episode of the Whiting
estate."
I have never been able to relax over a detective story. I cannot
read of villainy with amusement or interest, because, as a child, I
knew what it was to fear the enmity of another human being. The
American Consul in Jerusalem wrought seemingly endless harm
against my father and mother and the American Colony, and al
though my parents tried to keep this from us, I felt it keenly, and
lived through many years of dread of this man who hated us, for a
reason I could not understand.
John C. Whiting and his family had come with us to Jerusalem
with the consent and approbation of his mother, Mrs. Mary C. Whit
ing of Springfield, Massachusetts. Her two brothers had since died,
leaving a considerable estate to Mrs. Whiting, Sr., which was managed
for her by a businessman who knew the intrinsic value of dollars and
cents. From his point of view, John Whiting was an impractical
visionary.
John Whiting died on Sunday, December 5, 1886. What a sad day
that was! As I write these lines the depression I felt then comes back
to me. We children loved dear "Brother John." He was so gentle and
kind. He never refused to make kites for us in the summer kite
season, and taught us many useful things. Bookbinding was one, but
I have sadly forgotten all he taught me about it. One thing remains,
however, how to take care of books.
Shortly after Mr. Whiting s death his mother died in America,
leaving the business manager full and absolute discretion about in
vestments and reinvestments of her estate, "In trust for the two chil
dren of her son now deceased." Until John, the younger, reached the
age of twenty-one, he was to use his discretion about the payment of
the interest, or part of it, for the maintenance and education of John
and Ruth, while Mrs. Whiting was not to receive anything unless she
returned to the United States to live.
Mrs. Whiting chose to remain in Jerusalem. The manager saw fit
to send no money at all. Not a ripple of change occurred in their
OUR JERUSALEM 161
manner of living. Ruth and John were educated with the rest of us
and shared everything.
This was contrary to the plans of Mrs. Whiting s mother, Mrs.
Regina Lingle, who was determined to bring her daughter and the
children back to the United States.
An unhappy incident gave Mrs. Lingle the opening she needed.
It was provided by Nora, the girl Mother had brought from Chicago
as nurse to Grace and me.
Nora had long since ceased to be treated as other than a member
of the household. She seemed sincere and devoted, and took her
place with the others in nursing and teaching and in all the other
activities of the Colony. Her letters to Mother when she happened
to be away and to Aunt Rachel in Chicago are full of enthusiasm
about the work and the happiness of her life. She called herself "Miss
Spafford," and although she had never been adopted, as Rob and
Jacob had, Mother let it slip by.
Nora had been one of the most vocal in refuting Dr. Merrill s
accusations.
Now, instead of confiding in Mother, she left a note:
Dear Mother, I must go, so say Good Bye to one and all I cannot
look at you nor speak nor see Grace, so go now. I am going to Kamanitz
Hotel to see if they will let me stay there for the present I cannot hear
or say any more. It is between me and God.
Mother went at once to the Kamanitz Hotel. She had no idea of
the reason for Nora s leaving. The moment she arrived Nora made
a confession that deeply disturbed Mother.
Nora was in love with a Moslem.
In these modern days one often finds hi Jerusalem a Moslem man
married to a Christian girl or a Jewess and leading a normal and
happy life, but it was unheard of then. Mother felt it was her duty to
Nora to know how matters stood, so she sent for the young man, who
came at once to the hotel.
"Nora says she loves you," Mother told him, "and I want to know
what your feelings and intentions are toward her."
He answered, looking straight at Mother, "Nora knows that I am
of noble birth and cannot marry her. She also is aware that I am an
engaged man."
He left after emphasizing that all his dealings with Nora had been
honorable.
Mother begged Nora to return to the Colony until we could raise
enough money to send her back to her mother in Chicago. But Nora
was deeply humiliated by having her carefully laid plans frustrated,
and she refused to return.
162 OUR JERUSALEM
From that hour Nora s attitude toward Mother and the Colony
changed. She felt certain that if Mother had not "meddled, * she
would eventually have maneuvered the young man into marrying her.
She did not tell people she had fallen in love with a Moslem. She
explained her departure from the Colony by saying she had wanted
to go to her mother in America. Presently she was saying Mother
had prevented her going, by force. Then she hit on another means of
revenge she went to Dr. Merrill and said that all his vile and numer
ous reports against the American. Colony were true.
Friends of the American Colony went to see Nora, and among
others Mr. and Mrs. Rolla Floyd made a sworn statement, dated May
21, 1893, to certify that Nora had sent for them to say she regretted
her outburst and wished to retract, that she had never seen any im
morality of the kind Dr. Merrill described in the Colony, that she
had, in fact, seen no immorality and had always been treated with
extreme kindness.
Several months later Nora left for the United States.
She had not completed her vengeful attacks against us; she went to
Mrs. Lingle and told her that Mrs. Whiting, her daughter, was being
held at the American Colony against her will.
Mrs. Lingle, on her visit to us in Jerusalem, had known Nora as a
trusted daughter of the household. Nora s change in attitude con-
finned in her mind the worst of Dr, Merrill s tales.
The result was a series of incidents that baffle comprehension.
They could not have been possible, of course, had the American
Consul not been unfriendly to the Colony, and possessed, under
Turkish rule, with extraterritorial rights and capitulations to enforce
almost unlimited power.
One afternoon we were in the "sewing room" when Mrs. Whiting
came in, quite excited, and said, "Just listen to this note that I re
ceived from Dr. Merrill."
She read aloud:
"July 18, 1895
DEAR MRS. WHITING:
There is a gentleman from America here who knows you and your
friends in Chicago, and who would very much like to see you and your
children. He cannot very well call upon you. This note will be given to
you by one of, my kavasses, who will wait and return with you from the
Damascus Gate.
Yours sincerely,
{signed) SELAH MERRILL."
Mrs. Whiting finished reading, then she saicl, "It sounds like kid
naping."
OUR JERUSALEM 163
My sister Grace had never heard the word "kidnaping," and wanted
it explained, which impressed the word and the incident on my mem
ory. I also remember that the older people rather smiled over Mrs.
Whiting s letter and could not believe it was so serious as she thought.
She wrote a short answer, stating that if any person knew and wanted
to see her, her home was the proper place for him to come.
It seemed only a few moments until a man she had known in the
United States as a family friend appeared at our door. Her notes had
not gone to the Consulate but to him, where he was waiting below at
the Damascus Gate, with a carriage and horses ready to drive her
with her children straight to Jaffa. He acknowledged frankly that this
had been his plan.
He also said he had been in the city seven days with Consul Mer
rill, contriving the best way to spirit her away from the American
Colony, and that the sole purpose of his trip was to take her back to
the United States.
Mrs. Whiting s presentiment of kidnaping had not been wrong.
She told him that she would follow the dictates of her conscience
and remain in Jerusalem.
The man stressed that a large estate was involved and that she and
her children were the heirs, but the condition was that she must live
in the United States.
When he was convinced that he could not change her mind, he
became so vehement in his abuse of the Colony that she could stand
it no longer and asked her friends not to leave her alone with him.
About six days after this the dragoman of the Consulate of the
United States came with a kavass to the Colony and served a sum
mons on Mrs. Whiting. The summons read:
U.S. Consulate, Jerusalem
August 5, 1893
Summons:
To Mary E. Whiting, residing in the Community known as the Spafford
American Colony in Jerusalem. You, Mary E. Whiting, are hereby sum
moned to appear in this Consulate at 3:00 clock this afternoon to attend
to some important business. Your children Ruth and John must accom
pany you. Gabriel Farwagy and the guard, Assad Kassas, will convey to
you this summons as they are officers appointed to accompany you
hither. Refusal on your part renders you liable to the penalties of the
law.
(signed) SELAH MERRILL
U.S. Consul
Whom could she consult? One of the first-rank consul generals in
Jerusalem was a friend of the Colony. From him she found out that
the summons was illegal. She was advised to write an explanatory
164 OUR JERUSALEM
note. Before she returned, the dragoman came back with several men
including a Turkish policeman to arrest her.
We told him that Mrs. Whiting was not at home; we asked for his
warrant. He had none, but said he had been instructed to search the
house. We mentioned the fact that there were English subjects as well
as Turkish in the house. He took no notice but searched.
Seeing this utter disregard for law and decency, we sent a warning
to Mrs. Whiting to stay at a friend s house that night.
We had heard that several of the American staff from the Beirut
College it was not then a university were in camp on the Mount
of Olives. The college was then part of the mission, and as a little
girl in Chicago my mother once went without butter, which she loved,
for an entire year to save a contribution for the Presbyterian Board
of Foreign Missions which was founding this particular mission.
Five days later the same dragoman of the United States Consulate
and the kavass reappeared and with them a stranger, who, we
learned, was one of the teachers from Beirut. The dragoman had a
warrant of arrest for Mrs. Whiting. This time he did not give it to
her. Instantly half-a-dozen other men appeared. Four were from the
American staff of the College of Beirut, sworn in as constables by
the Consul.
Mother tried to reason with them.
One of them said, "Don t listen to her; she is the next one to be
hauled out."
Mrs. Whiting and her two children were taken under the escort of
the American missionaries to the Grand New Hotel, where Dr. Mer
rill and the man from the United States were stopping, and were
locked in a bedroom. Some of the men of the Colony went along and
heard the Consul sentence Mrs. Whiting and her children to twenty-
four hours imprisonment for contempt of court, making the visitor
her jailor and one of the Beirut missionaries her guard. Mrs. Whiting
appointed Mr. Rudy her counsel.
The next day when he went to the hotel to bring her home, the
twenty-four hours having expired, Mr. Rudy was told that she had
been delivered over to the emissary for an "indefinite period" until
he was convinced that she was not being kept in the Colony by com
pulsion. Mr. Rudy asked for a copy of the charges, but Dr. Merrill
refused to give them.
Where could we look for redress? I suppose if we had had money,
the most natural act would have been to employ a lawyer. Even that
would have been of little use. In Turkish times Americans had
consular courts. Dr. Merrill would have been our judge. But we had
no money. What were we to do now? We wanted to telegraph to the
American Embassy in Constantinople and cable to Washington. I
OUR JERUSALEM 165
learned later that the cost of the two telegrams was obtained from
the sale of Brother Jacob s watch.
I have good reason to remember the Whiting affair, for I was help
ing to nurse a Moslem and her child through a bad attack of con
junctivitis. I began helping to nurse early. I wished to be part of the
work, and the need was always great. I loved nursing, and look back
on my youth with happiness, although it might seem strange com
pared with girlhood in America. We were congenial in the Colony,
and one felt safe there and secure, and we were always busy. No
matter how money difficulties might loom, we spoke very little of
such things. We were happy together and in the work we were doing.
On this occasion I had sat up all night, frequently applying com
presses to the eyes of the child and the mother. Conjunctivitis is very
painful. When morning came I was to be relieved, but no one arrived
from the Colony to take my place. I was sure something serious had
happened at the Colony, because it was so unusual not to be relieved
at the proper time when nursing. About noon I could bear it no
longer and left my patients to learn what had happened. I found
everyone in the Colony absorbed in the problem of how to help Mrs.
Whiting.
Mrs. Whiting, Ruth, and John were still being held in the Grand
New Hotel.
Dr. Merrill threatened to send out his kavass with a horsewhip
to be used on Mr. Rudy or any other member of the Colony who
came anywhere near the hotel.
All the American citizens in the Colony signed a petition request
ing Dr. Merrill to issue a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of Mrs.
Whiting and her children.
Dr. Merrill refused to receive the application.
We knew that an answer to our telegrams to Consul GeneraLHess
in Constantinople arrived, as well as one from Washington, because
we received the following telegram:
INSTRUCTIONS SENT MERRILL (SIGNED) HESS.
Mrs. Whiting, Ruth, and John were released the same afternoon.
What rejoicings there were that day at the American Colony! We all
went down to the Damascus Gate to meet them, and they made a
triumphal entry.
Mrs. Whiting said that when the man from America, who had been
their jailor, knew his mission had failed, he told her that she had not
heard the end: that he would go to the length of stigmatizing her with
living an immoral life or accuse her of being demented, but he would
still get her children away from her. Those were his farewell words
upon leaving Jerusalem.
166 OUR JERUSALEM
We filed a complaint against the treatment received at Dr. Merrill s
hands, addressing it to the Secretary of State, Walter Q. Gresham.
We accused Dr. Merrill of conducting a long-continued religious per
secution against us, maligning the Group, and circulating derogatory
insinuations that could be interpreted as damaging character. We
accused him of advising those in America who had our money in
their hands to withhold it from us, and when he succeeded, because
our rightful funds were withheld, and we got into debt, he incited
our creditors to proceed against us by legal actions at his consulate.
We further accused him of illegally summoning one of our number
with her minor children, and finally imprisoning her without charge
and refusing those imprisoned a legal hearing or interview with their
counsel or legal advisers, or the right to habeas corpus or the right to
communicate with the Consul General at Constantinople to appeal
for his decision, and refusing to allow any of us to see the consular
record and papers of the case, although allowing others to see them.
We demanded an investigation.
On December 11, 1893, Mrs. Whiting received through Dr.
Merrill a citation from the Probate Court of Hampden County,
Massachusetts, to appear at Springfield on the "first Wednesday of
February next to show cause why some other suitable person should
not be appointed guardian to the minor children Ruth and John
Whiting, and the guardian be decreed the custody of the persons of
the minors, for that she, their mother, was unfit to have such custody."
This time the children were not summoned.
Mrs. Whiting requested that the proceedings be held in Jerusalem,
where she was widely respected and loved. This was refused. She
knew by the visitor s last words what her antagonists were going to- try
to prove against her. Mrs. Whiting decided to go alone.
Dr. Merrill was furious when he learned that she was going to
America without the children. He wrote to Mrs. Whiting, "Tell Mrs.
Spafford in as stormy language as you please that if anything happens
to those children of yours she may be held responsible, as they are
in her house."
Mrs. Gould decided to go to America with Mrs. Whiting and re
lease her own money. Jacob went with them. He had never been to
the United States before. Much responsibility had fallen on his shoul
ders since the death of Father, Captain Sylvester, and Mr. Drake. It
was considered advisable by the Group that he should accompany
them.
We knew that Consul Merrill was holding money for Mrs. Gould
and Mrs. Whiting in case they wanted to return to America.
I have in my possession a curious assemblage of notes, all written
OUR JERUSALEM 167
on the same day, that indicate the petty activities of Dr. Merrill. He
was treating Mrs. Gould and Mrs. Whiting like idiots. "Certainly I
shall not give you a check for outfits," he wrote in one note. "People
do not get outfits in Jerusalem when they go directly to England and
America!"
These slips of paper, signed Selah Merrill, are all dated January
15, 1894. They are addressed to Mrs. Gould and Mrs. Whiting, who
were sitting in his outer office at the Consulate. They, in turn, wrote
their requests and sent them into his inner office. He refused to see or
speak to them.
As I remember it, they finally borrowed money for their passage to
the United States.
Just as they were about to leave we heard the amazing news that
Dr. Merrill was recalled. He, too, prepared to leave for the United
States.
It was soon apparent that the investigation we had so long hoped
for was not to be granted, at least not then. Evidently the authorities
in Washington considered the fact that the Consul being changed
was sufficient reason to stop the Colony s demand for an investigation.
A letter was addressed to President Grover Cleveland, appealing
against the apparent decision that as a successor had been appointed
to Dr. Merrill there was no need for an investigation of his conduct.
The Group was still pressing for an investigation. Our hopes that
the change in consuls would bring about an improvement were also
dashed, for Dr. Merrill s successor, Mr. Edwin Wallace, arrived in
Jerusalem to assume his office as American Consul before Mrs.
Whiting and Mrs. Gould left for the United States. Mr. Wallace did
not enter upon his duties of office for several weeks, and in the
meantime Dr. Merrill remained in office.
During this interval Mrs. Whiting was preparing testimony and
replies to the citation from the Probate Court in Springfield, Massa
chusetts. She appealed to Dr. Merrill, since he was still in office, to
take a number of depositions as to her normal character and for him-
self to nominate physicians to give testimony as to sanity.
He refused to do either.
She then appealed to Mr. Wallace, and he readily agreed to
nominate physicians and write a letter stating the facts leading up to
her case. He also promised to confirm his nomination of physicians
as soon as he took office.
When she went back, as soon as he became Consul, to have this
done, his reception of her indicated that in the meantime he had been
prejudiced against her and against the American Colony.
The whole of Jerusalem, with a few possible exceptions, would
gladly have testified for Mrs. Whiting.
168 OUR JERUSALEM
Many prominent people volunteered to bear witness for her and
the Colony from among Christians, Jews, and Mohammedans of
Jerusalem, including high government officials, high military officers,
physicians, directors of schools, and others, but neither of the Consuls
would accept any of them.
On January 18, 1894, Mrs. Whiting, Mrs. Gould, and Jacob sailed
from Jaffa, where they had gone, from Jerusalem, on the new railroad.
For years there had been talk about building a railroad between
Jerusalem and the seaport of Jaffa. A Greek civil engineer by the name
of Mr. Frangia was employed by the Turkish Government to work
out the plans. It was Mr. Frangia who laid out all the carriage roads
in Palestine at the time, the roads to Jaffa, Hebron, and Jericho. The
road to Haifa was started but not completed until many years later.
These roads were built by forced labor. In 1892 the narrow-gauge
railroad between Jerusalem and Jaffa was completed. It was the only
railroad in Palestine and about thirty-eight miles in length.
Its opening was a gala affair in Jerusalem. The European-styled
stations were beflagged, and Turkish officials, foreign consuls, church
dignitaries, and Arab notables were invited to see the first train arrive
from Jaffa. The guests were entertained at luncheon in a huge
Egyptian tent with the usual gorgeous arabesque patchwork lining,
which in itself is decoration enough for any occasion. The ever-
present military band blared oriental discords and almost unrecogniz
able European tunes. It was all very gay and the populace was duly
impressed. After this there was a daily train each way, which took
between four and five hours to travel the thirty-odd miles.
About a month after this Mother, Grace, and myself with Flora and
Gertie, older children from the Colony, were visiting the Floyds in
Jaffa. Most of the ships that stopped at Jaffa were tramp steamers,
but while we were there a large steamer called, and Mrs. Floyd thought
we young folks might like to go aboard. Grace and I had not traveled
by sea since we came from America and did not remember much
about it, so we were delighted. One of Mr. Floyd s dragomans, who
had an errand on the ship, took us aboard.
Embarking at Jaffa was an exciting experience. There was still no
port there. Steamers anchored two or three miles from shore, and large
rowboats took passengers to and fro. Jaffa boatmen were renowned
for their bravery and skill in controlling the large boats. Rowing,
they sang in unison, and when our boat reached the opening in the
forbidding circle of rocks, to which, according to legend, Andromeda
had been chained, they waited with eyes fixed on their captain, watch
ing for his signal to put all their strength into the exact second that
shot the heavy boat through the narrow rock channel and into the
opea sea.
OUR JERUSALEM 169
When we reached the steamer the dragoman went off to perform
his errand, and we were left on deck to amuse ourselves. There on
deck was Dr. Merrill. He was on his way home, recalled from
Jerusalem, and the fact that he blamed the American Colony for his
dismissal was sufficient proof to us that our charges had been heard.
He saw us, just as we recognized him, and came to us at once.
"Where are you going? To America?"
Flora answered that we had only come out to see the steamer.
Dr. Merrill said, "That wicked Mrs. Spafiord hates and curses me.
Don t you believe that they will ever get their money! They will not.
Mrs. Gould will not get a cent of it. That wicked Jew Eliahu [he meant
Jacob], what is he going to America for? He is nothing but a Turk.
Who would listen to such a wicked fool?"
He raved on, slandering Mother, the Colony, the life we lived,
accusing us all of immorality.
"Mrs. SpaSord is a liar, she is a bad, wicked woman, but who is
this?" He had turned to me. "Is this a Spaf-Spaf-Spafiord?" He could
scarcely speak, and he spat the name at me.
I spoke then. "Dr. Merrill, I ask you to stop talking. If you were a
gentleman you would not talk like that."
We all got up and moved away, but he followed us over the deck.
"I can come here and talk just as well as there!" he shouted. "You
think you will last, but I tell you, you have only a month, or five at
most, to continue. Mrs. SpaflEord has got me out of Palestine, but I am
coming back! I am coming back! Look at the beautiful weather and
calm sea. Doesn t that show God is with me? When your people left
for the United States the sea was raging and the wind howling."
Dr. Merrill was raving like a madman. We could not bear it. Grace
began to cry, and we all followed suit.
Mother wrote in a letter from Jaffa, dated February 21, 1894:
The girls returned from their excursion to the steamer with red eyes.
I asked them what the matter was and they explained that Dr. Merrill had
given them a farewell salute. What the poor girls went through was
simply shocking.
Dr. Merrill kept his promise to return. Four years later the Re
publicans were in again and Dr. Merrill was back in his post at Jeru
salem, more venomous against us than before.
It was during these trying days of anxiety that I first met the young
man who was to become my husband. Rather, we had met as children,
but did not remember each other. It was August, during the Greek
Orthodox Feast of Our Lady Mary. In those days the Greek and Arab
Orthodox Christian Community camped for a week prior to the feast
170 OUR JERUSALEM
on the slopes of Olivet, near the church over the Tomb of the Virgin,
and it was a pretty sight to watch the campfires in the evening as they
prepared their evening meal. Those were the carefree days in Palestine,,
when people had little money but could buy things with it. The eight
days of picnic and pleasure culminated in the service in the church to
which the Orthodox Patriarch and his clergy went in great pomp.
In the afternoon the Greek Patriarch held a reception, with music.
To the unaccustomed ear the sound was uncanny. First one brass
Instrument then another would screech discords, while the whole
band was droning in monotonous minor strains something that they
called "mosika." The drum gave its full share to the noise. When the
different consuls or their representatives appeared to pay their re
spects to the Patriarch, the attempt at playing the respective national
anthems was quite fantastic. The "Star-Spangled Banner" baffled the
bandmaster, so he resorted to playing "Yankee Doodle * or "Old
Black Joe.** Turkish coffee and sweetmeats were served to the guests.
We were returning from the reception when we were overtaken by
our friends the Vesters. Frederick Vester had just returned from
Switzerland, having completed his education there as well as his com
pulsory military service to Germany. His parents were German-Swiss
missionaries in Jerusalem, and they and their daughters were good
friends of ours. We walked home together, and that sealed our fate.
For about a year we met frequently at each other s homes, and then
Mother began to get anxious about this friendship. She felt that I
should see men of my own country and get acquainted with my father s
and friends before I should think seriously of marriage.
The following August Mother found means to take Grace and me
to America.
1 was only sixteen, and Mother did the right thing in taking me
away. But my country had no temptations for me in a romantic sense.
Money, position, and family held no allurement.
Mm. Whiting, Mrs. Gould, and Jacob were already in. the United
States. Mrs. Gould s money was released. The case against Mrs.
Whiting was dropped, since the children were not with her.
When Mother decided to visit America, Mrs. Whiting asked her to
bring Ruth and John along. She thought the danger of having the
children removed from her custody was past Mr. Rudy went with us
is the children* s guardian.
In Chicago we rented a house on the west side. It was one of those
sapi-detadied, two-story-and-basement, inconvenient houses so popu
lar in those days. There was a bit of back yard, where the washing
hmg to dry and nothing grew. The view from the windows was
a long line of front doors and stoops looking just alike, with the same
wcMteotoral Ike of houses on the other side of the street This we had
OUR JERUSALEM 171
exchanged for the magnificent view from our housetop, the highest
point in the old city of Jerusalem, where we looked down on historic
buildings so close together that one could not pick out the streets;
then, looking the other way, to the hills around Jerusalem and the
mountains of Moab.
We children hated 1084 West Monroe Street. The noise of the
trolley cars distracted and annoyed us. Nothing came up to our ex
pectations. I was homesick for Frederick and Jerusalem.
In May 1895 Mrs. Lingle and her representative renewed their
suit to try to appoint a guardian and deprive Mrs. Whiting of the
custody of her children. Where and to whom should we turn for ad
vice? Mr. Rudy thought of Mr. Luther Laflin Mills, once State s
Attorney for Illinois. They had been friends in the old days. Mrs.
Whiting, Mother, Mrs. Gould, and Mr. Rudy went to see Mr. Mills
and told him the whole story. They did not dare to hope that he would
defend Mrs. Whiting, they simply went to him for advice and to ask
him to suggest someone who could. Mr. Mills listened to the long
tale of woe. He had been an admirer of Father and knew a great
deal about his work in the legal field. Then he said, "It is a religious
persecution in this land of religious freedom, and I will fight the case
free of charge."
The case, presumably against Mrs. Whiting, was virtually against
the American Colony.
The Chicago papers during the days of the trial had many articles
about the case. Most of them ridiculed the Colony; some were abusive,
and a few got facts more or less correct. Such headlines as "Mrs.
Lingle Drags Spafford Colonists into Court"; "Mrs. Regina Lingle pe
titions to have a guardian appointed for her grandchildren Ruth and
John Whiting"; "Hearing in the Probate Court This Afternoon," et
cetera.
Mrs. Lingle s chief witness was Nora. She was brought to testify
as to the immoral character of the Colony, but failed. In her cross-
examination she said that people of the Colony were good and had
done many good works in Jerusalem.
We all had to testify. Poor Mother was kept on the witness stand
for hours. An attorney for the prosecution cross-questioned her about
her religious belief. Her answers were so straightforward, so simple,
that he thought he could get her to admit some of the accusations
brought against her by her accusers.
Yes, she believed in the divinity of Christ.
"Do you receive direct communications from God?"
This question was asked in a hundred different ways. Mother never
veered from her point; she said, "As a Christian who believes in
172 OUR JERUSALEM
prayer, I believe God can lead and direct, but I claim no special or
unique power."
"You were not with your husband when he died," the attorney flung
at her. Mother said she had been with Father until a few minutes
before.
"And," the lawyer pursued, "I believe you danced when you heard
he was dead."
I remember this moment well, because I noticed the anguish that
passed over Mother s face. She looked straight at Nora as she
answered, "Not in the manner you imply." I remember, too, that at
this point Mr. Mills, our advocate, intervened.
Dr. Merrill declined to appear on the witness stand, but sent a
deposition which was read. He charged that "Mrs. Spafford had
hypnotic influence over the Colonists, and that we obtained goods
under false pretenses, claiming that we were to receive money from
America." Dr. Merrill said the Colonists all lived together in several
large houses in a manner which could arouse suspicion. He said our
manner of living without actual work was "disgraceful and criminal."
At the end of his affidavit he admitted that he had never been inside
the premises of the "so-called American Colony"; that what he wrote
he had heard people say.
Another affidavit was from Mr. Henry Oilman, who had followed
Dr. Merrill as Consul after his first term. He said that he had been a
constant visitor to the American Colony; he had studied the Colony
and knew that the life of its members was above reproach. This affi
davit mysteriously disappeared from its place among the court records
and could not be found; it was never returned, but the fact that it
was lost by the opposition was evidence in our favor. Other laudatory
testimony was given in our behalf.
Judge Kohlsaat heard the case in the Probate Court room. Much
interest was aroused; it was something new in law and ethics, because
it involved the point as to whether or not two children could be taken
away from their mother because of the mother s religious belief. The
accusers failed, however, to prove anything peculiar in her theology.
Another matter in which the court was called upon to deliver an
opinion was embodied in the petition of Mrs. Regina Lingle to have
the guardianship of her daughter s two children removed from their
mother, Mrs. Mary E. Whiting, on the ground that they were being
brought up in the American Colony in Jerusalem, where the moral
atmosphere was not of the right sort for children to live in. This also
they failed to prove.
Dr, Merrill had said in his deposition that we did not have enough
to at, that "the children had only cracked wheat, bread, and oranges."
I remember the ripple of laughter that went round the courtroom when
OUR JERUSALEM 173
Ruth, John, and I were called to the witness stand to testify. Both
Ruth and John were robust children and I weighed a hundred and
fifty pounds at seventeen, the most I have ever weighed in all my
life.
Judge Kohlsaat dismissed the petition filed by Mrs. Lingje before
Mr. Mills had time to sum up his case.
Ruth and John got no money at the time, but that was not what the
fight was over as far as Mrs. Whiting was concerned. She had the
custody of her children; she had won!
The Chicago papers announced: "Colony a Winner."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
WHILE the case was being conducted in Chicago the news
papers wrote such sensational articles attributing fantastic beliefs and
practices to the American Colony that a great deal of attention was
turned upon us.
A small group of Swedish people were living on the south side of
Chicago. They had no peculiar religious belief; they were simple, pious
fundamentalists. They owned some property on which they built
a chapel where they held their gospel meetings. There were about
thirty members in the group, including seven children. The majority
were women. To support themselves these women went out in
domestic service. They brought their earnings to their leader. His home
was considered their home, and whenever they were out of a job
or had a day off, or during their holidays, they came to* his house and
family as they would to their own.
A strong character among them was Miss Matilda Holmstrum.
"Sister Tilly," as we soon learned to call her, read the derogatory
articles about the Colony in the Chicago papers, but she had dis
cerned that the truth lay between the lines. She hoped she had found
what she and her associates had been looking for.
They were simple Swedish folk, most of them peasants. A few had
taken out American citizenship, but the majority were still Swedish
subjects. Mother and I had met a number of them serving as cooks,
waitresses, and housemaids in the homes of our friends, where they
were loved and respected by their employers for their honesty
and integrity. During the two years of our sojourn in the United States
a number of people had joined us. There was a family of farmers
from Kansas, a Polish-American couple, and others. Two sisters and
the daughter of one who had been affiliated to the first group before
they left Chicago in 1881 now wanted to go to Jerusalem with us.
They could barely pay their fare; but to Mother, with her big heart,
ibis made no difference.
When at last there was no valid reason for our remaining in the
United States any longer, all these people expressed their desire,
Bay, detenmnation, to return with us. This news came as a shock. It
OUR JERUSALEM 175
was a severe test of faith. The Group felt they had no right to refuse
any who wanted to devote their life to the work we were doing in
Jerusalem. However, Mr. Rudy, upon whose shoulders rested the
financial responsibility, advised delay until they had well counted the
cost. Our life in Jerusalem was one of self-denial. We were often with
out things to which the members of the Swedish community were ac
customed. But we found, to our amazement, that they had already put
their property up for sale and were making all arrangements to go
with us to Jerusalem.
When, finally, our party was made up it consisted of seventy-seven
souls. Twenty-five were children, among whom were several babies
in arms. Mr. Rudy consulted Henry Gaza and Son, Ltd., Universal
Tourist agents, and a small freight steamer was chartered to take us
across the Atlantic to Liverpool. There the company was trans
shipped to another freighter, which brought us to Jaffa.
The cordial welcome the enlarged group got from those left behind
in Jerusalem was a gratification and surprise to the new members.
Arabs and Jews came to the house in crowds to welcome us back and
to welcome the newcomers. I was in seventh heaven to be near
Frederick again, While I was in America, Frederick had become a
member of the American Colony.
We realized that it would be quite impossible for us to be married
under present conditions. We were for the good of the Colony as a
whole. Before arranging for ourselves, all the new members would
have to be settled into the home and new ways of employment found
to support them. The new group had not added substantially to the
finances of the Colony. The greatest economy would have to be
practiced. Frederick s training in banking and business proved useful.
The most urgent need was more living space. Our house in the old
city, although enlarged by renting additional space in the vicinity, was
still too small to hold the newcomers. The present American Colony
happened to be untenanted. It needed much repair. Since Rabbah
Effendi s death his palace had been roughly used. It was large, and on
this account difficult to lease, but it was exactly what we needed.
We rented it at once. Nearly all the rooms were enormous and sur
rounded a beautiful open court. Rabbah Effendi had lived a patriarchal
life there surrounded by his four wives and other relatives, retainers,
and servants.
From Hadj Raghib and his son, therefore, we rented the present
American Colony building in Sheik Jarah Quarter near the Kedron
Valley, sometimes called the Valley of Jehoshaphat, Renting property
in Palestine is not such an easy matter as it sounds. Innumerable
heirs who have inherited bits and pieces all have to receive their
share of the rent and sign the lease. Later, when we finally bougfct
176 OUR JERUSALEM
the property, we went through the same procedure. Every bit pur
chased increased the nuisance value of the unbought. The last two
shares, from the Mufti of Jerusalem and his brother, whose mother had
been Rabbah Effendi s fourth wife before she married the Mufti s
father, were acquired at an exorbitant price. In Turkish times all
property was divided into twenty-four shares or "carats." From the
Arabic we get the expression "twenty-four carats," denoting pure
gold.
We also retained the old house.
Our enlarged group had just got settled in the new home when a
number of Swedish farmers from Nos in the county of Dalana,
Sweden, who were affiliated to the Chicago Swedish group, wrote,
saying that they had decided to sell their farms and join their co
religionists in Jerusalem. If those joining us in Chicago had been a
test of faith, this was a far greater test. It was decided that their
former leader and Jacob should go at once to Sweden and advise
them to remain where they were. These dear people were so
enthusiastic about the idea of going to the Holy Land, however, that
they would accept no advice to the contrary. Some of them were old,
a few were ill. These were the most enthusiastic of all to come to
Palestine. No advice, no warning deterred them from their resolute
determination. Lest something should interfere with their cherished
plan, they sold their farms with such haste that they did not get the
best price.
There were thirty-eight in all, counting seventeen children, one a
babe in arms.
Their friends and neighbors thought them crazy to undertake such
a journey into what was to them "the unknown." They were sure
they would be left stranded after their money was used up. When no
persuasion to the contrary availed, Jacob went to Goteborg to arrange
for their passage. These simple country people brought their hand
looms, knitting machines, and many farm implements with them.
They sailed July 23, 1896, singing "We re Marching to Zion," and
arrived in Jaffa in August at the height of a Palestinian summer. The
sunlight was dazzling, the dust choking, the heat exceptional, but here
was abundant fruit, which was scarce in their land. Jacob kindly but
not wisely ordered every fruit then in season for their first lunch at the
Jaffa Hotel, and they ate abundantly. They learned that they had to
eat fruit with discretion.
The courage of these people was remarkable. They came to a strange
country of strange customs. There was nothing to remind them of
home. They must often have been lonely and homesick, but they
never made us conscious of it. They lived in stone houses with stone
floors. I don t suppose they had ever seen such structures.
OUR JERUSALEM 177
Few of them could speak a word of English. Our morning Bible
readings were translated into Swedish. Jacob, with his oriental aptitude
for learning languages, soon picked up enough Swedish to converse
freely with them.
They were accustomed to bake bread once a year, the hard, thin
cakes of rye bread with a hole in the middle through which ropes were
strung and then suspended from the ceiling. From this store they had
helped themselves as the need arose. In the Colony we baked wheat
bread every day. We thought our bread was delicious, but to them it
was distasteful. They loathed the smell of it. Did they complain? Not
a bit. I only heard this fact and realized what they must have gone
through years later, when they had learned to like our bread as much
as we did, and could talk and laugh about their past experiences. The
old people among this group studied English diligently, the young went
to the Colony school, and soon we were able to stumble along to
gether in broken English and broken Swedish. We learned to sing
many of their lovely Swedish hymns, and we became a bilingual
association.
There were several acres of vineyard north of the house running
down to the Kedron Valley. Our Swedish farmers started on this to
create a farm.
The looms and knitting machine were set up, and cloth woven for
tablecloths. Weaving in all sorts of cotton and linen thread was tried,
and the patterns were lovely. For many years we never bought table
linen. It was all woven at the Colony. They wove material for
furniture coverings that was beautiful. They even wove tweed for
suits for our men out of native white-and-black lambs wool. The
mayor of Jerusalem, Hassain Effendi el Husseini, wore a suit made
from this material for many years. Its durability was everlasting. My
sister Grace carded, spun, and wove herself enough material for a
suit.
Other industries were started, and little by little, with diligence,
the Colony emerged from poverty.
There were a few drones. There always are in such a community. It
would be strange indeed if all the people who joined the Colony in
this impulsive and non-selective manner had turned out to be what
they represented themselves as being. One old Chicago couple were
particularly troublesome.
In about a year they decided to leave the Colony. They com
plained to the Consul that they had contributed considerable funds. In
fact the amount received from them after six months amounted to
only one hundred and eighty dollars.
There were several other cases of misfits and malcontents, but
these are typical.
178 OUR JERUSALEM
The addition of so many new members without a corresponding
addition to the financial situation was serious. Mother wrote:
Our family is very large. Many times larger than it ever was before,
and consequently my cares are much greater. We number about one
hundred and thirty, and forty of this number are children.
The Mohammedans and Jews are most kind to us. When we arrived
back from the United States one of them gave us a horse, another
killed a cow and sent us the whole of it. Others sent us bags of rice and
charcoal. Another gave us olives from twenty-seven trees. These olives
we have pickled and put up for the winter. Where we can, we return
their kindness. We nurse their sick and teach their children. There are
many ways in which we can help them.
It might seem that the life in the Colony was dour, overburdened
by problems, and blighted by persecution. But that was not so. The
incidents I have chronicled happened many of them were tragic
but the atmosphere of the Colony was happy, the aura reverential and
devout. Need was the incentive that put every bit of accumulated
knowledge to work and every talent to use. To carding, spinning, and
weaving we added a knitting machine, which made woolen and cotton
underwear, socks, stockings, sweaters, and jerseys.
The flock of goats, which was our first venture, was dispensed with,
and cows were installed.
In the early days, when we got our own flock of goats, our milk
man s old shepherd Hassain took our flock to pasture. Hassain came
from the village of Mukhmas, north of Jerusalem, the scene of one of
the thrilling episodes in Old Testament history. Its strategical posi
tion commanded the north side of the Pass of Mukhmas which was
the headquarters of the Philistines and center of their raids against
the Israelites in their attempts to subdue the rising under Saul.
Jonathan and his armor-bearer held the pass alone, took the Philistines
by surprise, and won a decisive victory.
Hassain claimed to remember the invasion of Palestine by Ibrahim
Pasha of Egypt. If that was true, and there was no way of checking
the validity of his statement, he must have been very near his
centenary. From years of leading sheep and goats to pasture he had
acquired a robust physique. From playing the shepherd s pipe his
fingers were bent and rigid in a flute-player s position.
Now we exchanged the flock for a herd, and Hassain had no more
work, so he was cared for by the Colony for more than fifteen years,
until his death.
We started a bakery and supplied Jerusalem with pies and cakes.
Jams and preserves were another branch. The American Colony con
fectionery became famous. The shoemaking, tailoring, and dressmak
ing departments were kept busy. The school, which was greatly en-
OUR JERUSALEM 179
larged by the children of the new-members^and swelled by the children
of Jerusalem residents, was under the able management of Mr. John
E. Dinsmore, who was principal of a seminary in Maine before he
came to Jerusalem.
The old vineyard to the north of the Colony buildings became a
productive farm.
Mrs. Gould in a letter gave some "home news":
About the farm the olive trees have been pruned. What with Ismain s
and Hussain s ground, which we have rented, we shall probably have
sufficient olives, not only to eat but to make oil, which will help us greatly
with our expenses, as well as the barley and wheat crops and potatoes, all
of which are doing well.
Our Swedish and American farmers had tilled these bits of ground
so well that there was evidence of excellent crops. Some Orthodox
Jews came to inspect the wheat and offered us a higher than usual
price for it to make matzoth (unleavened bread) for their Feast of
the Passover on condition that we harvested it under their super
vision. We agreed.
We had no machinery; it was harvested by hand. One stipulation
they made was that we should not begin ^vork until the sun had risen
and dried any moisture from dew fallen during the night. After
breakfast we all went out to work in the field, our Jewish over
seers keeping watch. As our custom was when working, washing
dishes, or over the washtub, or at any other task, we sang hymns. So
now we started in the harvest field. Singing helped the work, which
went with a swing. But we were not allowed to sing by these Orthodox
Jews. Peradventure a bit of moisture might fall from our mouths and
cause fermentation. It would no longer be unleavened.
So we gathered the sheaves silently.
We were accustomed to rising early and working hard. The rising
bell rang at 6:30 A.M. in the American Colony, and breakfast was
served at seven. All who could manage it helped with the dishes, and
we sang as we worked. Dishwashing time offered the place and op
portunity to practice new hymns and songs. At eight another bell rang,
and we gathered in the large upper living room for morning prayers.
By nine or a little after we were all dispersed to our different
departments and work.
We had a healthy social life as well. All the consular corps in
Jerusalem, with the exception of our own, were our friends, as well
as the Arab and Jewish communities. We attended teas and recep
tions and gave them in return. Mother wrote:
This afternoon Bertha and the young people are giving a party on the
housetop, or rather the roof of our dining rooms. About thirty ladies and
180 OUR JERUSALEM
gentlemen are invited. They will have music and drills for the entertain
ment. People like to come to our house.
The young people of the Colony had a literary club, an art club,
choir, and band. People outside the Colony joined all our activities.
Sunday afternoon there was a service at 3 P.M. followed by a social
hour. The choir sang, the band played, tea and coffee and coffee bread
were served. As many as thirty or forty people would visit the Colony
on Sunday afternoon. In the tourist season whole parties would come
to visit the Colony. The hymn singing, which followed as daylight
waned and the lamps were lighted, was popular. Often a number of
guests remained for supper. There were not many attractions in Jeru
salem in those days before World War I. The American Colony filled
the place of a Y.M.C.A.
In another letter Mrs. Gould told of Christmas and "the usual
beautiful gifts from our Mohammedan friends."
Many of these gifts were payments in kind for the education of
their children and for nursing their sick; others were simply Christmas
presents.
Ahmed Effendi sent a sheep; Sheik Mohammed a basket of rice, the
same came from the Mayor of Jerusalem, two turkeys from Hussain, two
ducks and two geese and four baskets of oranges from Faidi Effendi al
Alami. From others (I can t remember the names) we got four trays of
"buklaway * (Arabic sweetmeat), one tray of geribi (like Scotch short
bread) , one tray of "mamoul" and another of "Karabidj Halab" (whips of
Aleppo a delicious sweetmeat). Suliman sent a large tray of candy
for the tree. A beautiful large tree came from Mr. Baldensperger, and
many other gifts which I cannot remember. Many of the effendis came
on Christmas Eve, also the Floyds, the Lyons, and many other guests. The
tree was lighted. The children went through several new drills and exer
cises, greatly to the delight of all. They had learned a new fan drill, the
instructions for which Miss Laishley had sent out from England. It was
very pretty, and the children did well. Christmas morning the children
who had all hung their stockings on the backs of their chairs before going
to bed found them full of gifts. The old folks found theirs at their plates.
Miss Laishley remembered all the old and many of the younger members,
and was in turn remembered by many of us, more than she thought she
ought to be, but not more than was our pleasure to do; and so passed a
happy and pleasant day.
In March 1897 Ismail Bey Husseini, the newly appointed Director
of Public Instruction, came to Mother with the request that the
American Colony take charge of the only Moslem girls school in
Jerusalem. It was rare for an Arab to be appointed to a senior
position under the Turkish regime. Ismail Bey had been one of Father s
pupils and wanted to do something to improve the education of the
OUR JERUSALEM 181
Moslem girls. I was anxious to undertake the work, but as I had only
just passed my nineteenth birthday, Mother considered me too young
and inexperienced to shoulder so great a responsibility. Miss Brooke,
who had been head of a girls school before joining the Colony, was
getting on in years and too old to cope with the difficulties of organiz
ing a school. So it was decided that we should take it jointly. In Miss
Brooke, wisdom, knowledge, and discretion were represented; in my
youth there was courage, enthusiasm, and complete lack of comprehen
sion of the difficulties which such a position involved.
Ismail Bey took Miss Brooke and me to inspect the schoolhouse.
It was an ancient building forming part of the northern boundary of
the large compound surrounding the Dome of the Rock. The walls
were four to five feet thick on the ground floor. The building was sup
posed to date from Saladin s time. It was an old madraseh for Moslem
theological students. After extensive repairs were completed, Miss
Brooke and I remained in charge of the school for one year, after
which I continued as principal for six more years, until I married
Frederick Vester.
One day during this period I returned from the Moslem Girls
School to our old home on the city wall, which was being used as a
school for the children of the Colony. I was asked to show a gentle
man the view of the old city from the roof. It was considered the
best view to be had from any place inside the walls. We talked
for a while about the view and history. When he left, he said his name
was Rider Haggard.
Also while I was directress of the Moslem Girls School I first met
Miss Gertrude Bell, traveler, alpine climber, archaeologist, author,
and diplomat. She spoke correct and classical Arabic. After attending
an Arab luncheon at which Miss Bell and I were the only women
present, she asked to see the ladies of the house. So different is the
classical Arabic from the colloquial that these women could not
understand what she said. It fell to me to translate from classical
to the Arabic of the ordinary folk.
Miss Bell played an important part in placing King Feisal, son of
King Husein of Arabia, on the throne in Damascus and later in Iraq.
It was she, I believe, who drew the attention of the War Office to
the young archaeologist, T. E. Lawrence, who later became the
famous "Lawrence of Arabia." Miss Bell and I remained friends
until her death in Baghdad in 1926. A pleasant coincidence is that
my eldest son, Horatio, married Miss Gertrude Bell s niece, Valen
tine, daughter of the late Admiral Sir Herbert and Lady Richmond.
And still the American Colony, no matter what it accomplished or
tried to do, remained anathema with the American Consulate. Deroga-
182 OUR JERUSALEM
tory articles continued to appear in American newspapers, and others,
equally strong in opinion, praising the Colony, were printed.
Any disgruntled or dissatisfied person with a complaint against
the American Colony found willing listeners at the American Con
sulate during the tenure of office of the two Consuls, Messrs. Merrill
and Wallace.
In September 1897 a pamphlet which became known as "The Alley,
Paper" was printed for distribution in Jerusalem. Its title was
Spaffordism. A Conclusive Expose of the Spaffordite Fraud in Jeru
salem. The pamphlet went on at great length to accuse the community
of every vile practice in the category of sin.
It was signed by sixteen American citizens. An edition adapted for
non-Americans was signed by eleven people of other nationalities. We
were puzzled. A number of the signers of this shocking pamphlet
were, we believed, our friends. When they were faced by us with
their contradictory behavior, they convinced us that they had never
seen the original of the manuscript.
Then an abusive article appeared in the Chicago Journal of De
cember 20, 1897. It was signed by Mr. Edwin Wallace.
The tradition of the Colony to take whatever came, good or bad,
as a steppingstone to mount higher, was attempted if not always
attained. Mr. Wallace s article made us realize finally that there was
no redress, no possible adjustment to our relationship with the
American Consulate.
We prepared to fight for vindication.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
IN OCTOBER 1898 Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, who had for
many years flirted with Sultan Abdul-Hamid over the Baghdad Rail
way and the Drang nach Osten, used the opening of the reconstructed
Crusader Church on the property known as the Muristan, given by
the Turks to his grandfather, as an excuse to visit both Turkey and
Palestine.
The Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, which stands almost in
the shadow of the Holy Sepulcher, was reconstructed as far as possible
from the old stones lying in the rains. On this spot was the Palestine
headquarters of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, and here the
Knights Hospitalers had their hospice for pilgrims, hospitals, and
"madhouse" clinics.
Strangely enough the imperial party traveled on Cook s tickets,
and Mr. Bernard Heilpern, a converted Jew, who was the manager
of Thomas Cook and Son s office in Palestine, was in charge. Punch,
with its usual humor, dubbed the imperial visitors "Cook s Crusaders."
The imperial visit was a great occasion for Palestine. The Ameri
can Colony had bought an old camera, and in this small way started
the Photographic Department which later became famous for its
large selection of photographs and stereopticon slides. Frederick,
with Elijah Meyers Brother Elijah, a converted Jewish-Indian who
had a partial knowledge of photography followed the Kaiser and
his entourage on the entire Palestine trip.
The landing was made at a jetty newly constructed for the oc
casion at the foot of Mount Carmel and adjoining the Templar
German Colony in Haifa.
The entire route of the imperial party was decorated, beflagged,
and illuminated at night. In Jerusalem they encamped in the grounds
where later the German Propstei and school were built, on the Street
of the Prophets. There were no buildings there at that time. The
Sultan sent magnificent tents to be used for receptions. Pre-fabri-
cated asbestos sleeping quarters were sent from Germany and erected
in the grounds.
184 OUR JERUSALEM
I was asked by the Turkish authorities in charge of the arrangements
to select from any house belonging to a Turkish subject in Jerusalem
furniture and carpets which would be appropriate to furnish the
royal tents.
A few weeks before the imperial visitors were due to arrive, the
Ministry of Education in Constantinople had sent an order that the
Moslem Girls School in Jerusalem (of which I was principal) should
present some of their handiwork to the Kaiserin. The only possibility at
such short notice was the Turkish coat of arms in tapestry, which had
been ordered and was under construction by the girls of the school. This
was appropriately framed and enclosed in a beautiful olivewood box.
One of the schoolgirls was to present it, and the Kaiserin graciously
appointed the day and hour.
I had not anticipated the difficulty I encountered when I tried to
select the little girl to perform this duty. None of the parents would
allow their daughter to present the gift. They feared the evil ^ye.
The evU eye is the eye of envy; there would be many envious eyes,
they felt, and ill luck might follow.
As a last resort Ismail Bey, who for an entirely different reason had
not proposed his daughter, said, "I don t believe in the evil eye, so
send Rowada with the gift."
His daughter Rowada was a beautiful child about eight years old.
The Kaiserin presented her with a diamond pin in the shape of
the German eagle and a box of bonbons and spoke to her in English.
I have mentioned that the houses were illuminated at night during
the royal visit. As there was no electricity in Palestine at the time,
small lanterns with lighted candles inside were hung on hooks. In the
late afternoon of that day Ismail Bey s manservant was lighting and
hanging the lanterns on the roof. Rowada went up to watch, still
wearing the thin white muslin dress that she had worn for her visit
to the Kaiserin. Her dress caught fire.
I happened to be talking to Sitt Fatme, Ismail Bey s wife when we
heard screams. We flew upstairs to find Rowada enveloped in flames.
I threw her down and rolled her in a small but priceless rug. It put
out the fire, but the mischief was done. She was burned all over her
body. Doctors could do little except relieve her suffering. I sat up all
night with her. The Kaiser sent his personal doctor, but there was
nothing anyone could do. Toward dawn she died.
When Mother came to condole with Ismail Bey and his wife, he
said to her, "Don t ever again say there is no evil eye. I know now
that there is."
The carriage road to the Mount of Olives was made for the
Kaiser s visit. It passed the American Colony. At the junction of
the two roads, that leading to the Mount of Olives going east and
OUR JERUSALEM 185
the other northwest to Nablus, there was a sharp hairpin bend. On
the first trip of the imperial visitors to the Mount of Olives the whole
party stopped at the hairpin bend for some time.
I remember we were all out looking over the wall of our garden
to watch the important visitors pass by, and we were intrigued with
their stop. We asked the Cook s representative who accompanied
the imperial company on all their trips what it meant.
Mr. Heilpern told us that the Kaiser had been explaining to his
Turkish hosts that the bend was far too sharp and narrow to allow
cannon to pass that way.
We gave our informant incredulous smiles, but we lived to see
German and Austrian howitzers and cannon roll down that widened
bend on their way to fight the British.
A private service was arranged for the imperial pair on top of the
Mount of Olives one Sunday afternoon during their visit. I was en
gaged to Frederick at the time and we had gone for a walk to the top
of Olivet. As we sat beneath the Cyprus trees, we noticed agitation,
and suddenly Turkish police were everywhere. A carpet was spread
on the cistern top in the Russian Compound; some chairs and a small
prayer desk were arranged there. .
Almost immediately the imperial pair, accompanied by a small
entourage, took their places on the chairs.
A German officer, seeing Frederick and me, came over and asked
if we would like to join them. We certainly would! We sat directly
behind the Kaiser and Kaiserin and heard them sing.
The Kaiserin expressed a wish to own property on the Mount of
Olives. His Excellency Von Mirbach, who was Oberhomeister Ihren
Major der Kaiserin, took note of this desire, and it was he who
organized the appeal to all Germans living in the Fatherland and
"im Ausland," after a considerable sum had been given by a rich
German lady for the purpose, and the property was bought on which
the Kaiserin Augusta Victoria Stiftung was later built. The title
deeds, made out in the Kaiserin s name, were given to the imperial
pair on the silver anniversary of their wedding day. The Kaiser and
Kaiserin never saw this building. They are represented as Crusaders
in statuettes in the large open court and painted in Byzantine style
on the ceiling of the church holding the architect s model on their
knees. Until the war of 191416 the Stiftung was used as a sani
tarium and the Kaiserswert deaconesses were in charge.
Several of the deaconesses working in the Stiftung contracted
malaria, and one wondered how they could get malaria on the top of
the dry Mount of Olives. There were no swamps on the top of this
high mountain. But there were cisterns. Here mosquitoes hatched
and thrived, but as yet no one had connected one with the other. The
186 OUR JERUSALEM
Kaiserin, through Freiherr Von Mirbach, organized the commission
under the direction of the great malaria expert, Professor Dr. Moh-
lens, to investigate this problem. He took drops of blood from a
large number of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Dr. Mohlens made an
interesting statement in his report. He said that the only place in
Jerusalem which he found 100 per cent free of malarial parasites
was the American Colony. Thinking more of the pest of flies, we
had brought the American custom to Jerusalem of screening our
windows and doors, which had saved our community more than we
had realized.
There were frequent cholera scares, but in December 1912 chol
era broke out in Palestine and spread rapidly. The fact that there
was no universal water supply proved for once a blessing in disguise.
Individual subterranean cisterns, in which rain was collected from
the roofs of the houses during the winter months, were our only
source of supply. The Turkish Government put a cordon of soldiers
around Jerusalem to prevent contamination and keep it isolated.
The Jerusalem-Jaffa railroad stopped running. We heard rumors
of the spreading of the dreaded disease through Jaffa, Gaza, Lydda,
Beersheba, Jericho, and many other villages. People were dying in
large numbers with very little medical assistance. No serious pre
cautions, as we understand them now, were taken against its spread.
There was a Swedish-American, I will call him Mr. Olson, who
with his wife, two daughters and a son, had come to Jerusalem with
the Chicago group. He had become dissatisfied with the life of the
Colony and had left it with his son, but he couldn t persuade his
wife and two daughters to leave and go away with him. We heard
that he was working on a farm in Jericho, also, that he was drinking
heavily and behaving badly.
On the first of December, at about 3 A.M., Jacob and Frederick,
who were sleeping in a room near the front door, heard a carriage
come up the private road and stop at the Colony gate. Soon they
heard knocking. When they opened the front door, there stood two
Jews, who informed them that Mr. Olson had started with them from
Jericho. On the road he was taken ill and had died. The corpse was
in the carriage in the driveway. Jericho, being one of the places in
fected by cholera, they feared that Mr. Olson had died of that malady.
I was roused to make a cup of hot tea for the two Jews, but we re
fused to take any responsibility for the body. He was an American
citizen,! therefore we sent the men to Consul Merrill.
A little later Jacob and Frederick heard the carriage return stealth
ily. They were up in a trice, but only just in time to prevent the Jews
from dropping the dead body over the garden wall.
The men said these had been their instruction^ from Consul
OUR JERUSALEM 187
Merrill. How these men got through the cordon at Gethsemane can
only be surmised. Thither they were taken again by the police.
Two of our men went to Dr. Merrill. It was still early morning,
and he would not receive them. He sent out a note which said that
we were the proper people to look after the burial. Our men replied
that Mr. Olson was no longer a member of the Colony and that we
had no responsibility in the matter. They said, however, as a Chris
tian duty, to help the two men on whose hands the corpse was, that
the Colony would be willing to bury the body on condition that Dr.
Merrill supply the death certificate and authorize us to bury him in
the new American Cemetery. We were compelled to safeguard the
Colony in this way because of a threat which Consul Merrill had
made, that if he only got the chance he would quarantine the Colony.
This was not the first time that our Consul had refused to receive
a delegation from the American Colony, so another note was passed
between the parties. Our men wrote that in view of Dr. Merrill s
refusal to put the Colony in a position which would make it possible
for them to bury Mr. Olson, who had died under suspicious circum
stances, we would notify the municipal authorities to take the proper
action.
Dr. Merrill refused to read or even to receive the last note. The
municipal authorities notified Consul Merrill to take charge of the
body. Dr. Merrill referred the officials to us. We raised no further
question. We buried Mr. Olson in our recently purchased private
cemetery.
A friend wrote us:
Your account of the cunning trap which Mr. Merrill set for you in the
case of the dead body left at your door . . . reads, in some of its details,
like a story out of the Arabian Nights.
Sometimes the two Consuls, in their zeal to gather derogatory
testimony against the Colony, fell into ditches of their own digging.
Mr. Wallace s statements to travelers about us were so gratuitous
and uncalled for that they aroused suspicion, and a number of people
visited the Colony who would not otherwise have done so, to find
out the truth for themselves. Many wrote back wonderful letters,
others were in time to raise powerful voices in our behalf. One such
visitor was Judge H. Crosby of New York, who was one of the
judges of the mixed tribunal in Egypt. Judge Crosby came to the
Colony and asked many questions about our household, our princi
ples, our mode of life, and was deeply impressed with our work.
When he said good-by, he asked one more question.
He wanted to know if we owed anything toward the rent of our
house.
188 OUR JERUSALEM
When Judge Crosby got to London, he telegraphed to his banker
in New York to send us a check for the amount. He became a stanch
friend of the Colony.
Early in 1900 Miss, later Dr. Selma Lagerlof, Sweden s famous
authoress, visited Jerusalem.
She stopped at the Grand New Hotel, which was inside the Jaffa
Gate and was patronized by Thomas Cook and Son. Dr. Merrill also
lived there.
He knocked at her bedroom door one day and warned her against
visiting the American Colony, which, he said, included a number of
Swedes. He told her that it was not a proper place for ladies to visit.
He deplored the fact that it bore the name of America and said he
was doing all he could to break it up. He told her that Mrs. Spafford
would not allow anyone to see the Swedes alone, that she exercised
hypnotic influence over them.
Miss Lagerlof felt that if this was the case she was in duty bound
to deliver her compatriots from such an evil bondage.
She came to the Colony accompanied by a friend who was travel
ing with her. I remember their visit well. They asked for Mother,
and I went to the living room with her.
Miss Lagerlof sat on the edge of her chair as though she were
afraid of contamination. Mother received her cordially, as she did
everyone.
When she heard that Miss Lagerlof was Swedish she said, <f You
have many compatriots here, and they will be delighted to see you."
And Mother sent me to call all the Swedish members.
After that first visit Miss Lagerlof came many times to the Colony.
She talked to the Swedish members collectively and alone; she saw
us at our work, and attended our services and our social gatherings.
She had many talks with Mother. One day, I remember, she said
to Mother in fun, with a bright smile on her intelligent face, "Mrs.
Spafford, you are the best-looking woman I ever saw to be so
wicked."
There was no Swedish Consul in Jerusalem at the time, but when
Miss Lagerlof reached Constantinople she swore to an affidavit at
the Swedish and Norwegian Consulate General and sent it to us, in
which she told of the slanderous attacks against the American
Colony and what she had found to be true.
Dr. Lagerlof wrote the novel about a colony called "Jerusalem"
for which she received the Nobel prize. Mother is the heroine of her
book and is called Mrs. Gordon.
At the Universal Christian Conference on Life and Work which
met in Stockholm in 1925 Dr. Lagerlof gave an address which was
OUR JERUSALEM 189
about Mother and the American Colony. She told about Mother s
experience at the time of the shipwreck. I quote:
Then in her extremity she thought no longer of her husband and
children. She thought about lifting her soul to God. Is it so easy to die?
she thought. Then she heard a mighty voice . . . that filled her ears with
the thundering reply: "It is true that it is easy to die. That which is difficult
is to live." "That which is required in order that it may become easy to
live on earth is unity, unity, unity." . . . This incident and this message
came into my mind when I first heard about the Universal Christian
Conference on Life and Work. I fancied that after the great collision
the terrible shipwreck that had befallen Christianity [1914-18] many of
its best members had felt themselves cast out into a bottomless deep, with
the dear one lost, with aversion to life, ready to accept the threatening
annihilation as a release. But out of the abyss of agony voices from an
other world have reached these despairing ones. They, too, have heard,
amid the wild tumult and bloodshed, the cry of unity, unity, unity; and
it is for this reason that they have now gathered here from the four
corners of the world to create the peace and harmony that people have
yearned after for thousands of years, which surely should make life
easier to live. This is the first thought that came to me upon hearing
about the conference.
May I relate further about the shipwrecked woman s life and work?
The problem that she had to solve was the same as that of this Conference,
although on a different scale. And I may well admit that when I medi
tated upon her life, my heart trembled. I seemed to see a message written
by the very finger of God a message of guidance, of awakening, of
trust which should be read by just this gathering. But let me say first
that the young American woman, Anna Spafford, received the message
that had come that terrible night as the true Word of God. She did not tell
herself that it was illusion and self-deception, but interpreted it as a
sacred command, which it was her task to convert into reality. Several
years went by, however, before she made a serious attempt. Two daugh
ters grew up in the home, but the sense of loss continued. At least she
realized that help and consolation would not be hers until she had dedi
cated her life to the establishment of unity in the disunited world.
But unity what is unity? How can it be realized? How can one live
in unity with one s fellow men as they now are selfish, self-righteous,
false, dissipated, sinful? Let us go forth to meet the great difficulty. . . .
Anna Spafford adopted the usual expedient. She herself, her husband and
twenty of their friends, founded a community whose members pledged
themselves to live in unity with each other and to serve and help all
humanity. . . . While they thus sought to emulate the first confessors
of Christianity, whose lives in Jerusalem were continually in their
thoughts, news came to them that disease and famine were devastating
the Holy City. The message that had been given to Anna Spafford seemed
to them the very essence of Christianity. . . . Their occupation was to
190 OUR JERUSALEM
search out the sick in the narrow lanes of the Holy City, to feed the
hungry, and to help and care for the orphaned. They lived a simple life,
taking their meals together and performing earnest devotions. They con
cerned themselves but little with preaching the principles that had led
them to this place. . . .
Let us stop here for a moment. Does it not seem strange that this com
munity, which desired to spread unity throughout the world, should have
chosen to proclaim its beliefs through good works? It demanded no
uniformity of dogmas. It desired, like this Conference, to bring about
Christian unanimity in work and modes of living.
It also came to pass that a few, through seeing the peace, harmony,
and quiet happiness that prevailed in the little circle, became convinced
that theirs was the right course and requested that they might attach
themselves to the American Colony. The largest addition to the American
Colony came, however, not from Palestine, but, strangely enough, from
Sweden. A group of peasants in the parish of Nos in Dalarna had organ
ized a similar religious cult. Through countrymen who had emigrated to
Chicago they came to hear of the Americans who had settled in Jerusalem.
. . . Those peasants were seized with a desire to unite themselves with the
Colony. . . .
The Colony in Jerusalem was composed chiefly of the same nations
who have gathered for this Conference. To the Colony came small groups
of people from far west and from far north in order to work for unity
in association with a few Orientals. There, Anglo-Saxon energy met with
oriental mysticism and northern sincerity.
But let us go further. From the beginning the Colony had assumed
a distinct position among the many Christian communities in Jerusalem.
Its members had always felt it a duty to display a Christian character
toward the oriental surroundings, and to hold fast to the idea of
. unity. ...
The Colonists, who were cultured, loyal, peaceful people, had always
enjoyed the greatest esteem among the natives of the city, and this was
not only among the poor. Such aristocratic Arabic and Jewish families as
there were in the city visited the Colonists and were their true friends.
But to many of the Christian communities in Jerusalem and the Orient
the Colony became from the first a rock of offense. They could not
understand what this layman s organization, which exerted a missionary
activity and made itself friends among the opponents of Christianity,
had to do in Jerusalem. The Colonists were accused of leading despicable
lives, and attempts were made to harm them and make it impossible for
tlxem to live in the Orient.
Is there anyone present who doubts that the Conference will meet
with the same fate? Is it not certain that the best among the non-
Christians will greet such a Conference as this with joy and follow it
with good wishes? And is it not equally certain that its worst adversaries
Will arise out of Christianity itself, that from this quarter will come the
voices that misinterpret its motives and seek to frustrate its resolution?
I need hardly say it ...
OUR JERUSALEM 191
Despite hers and other powerful voices lifted in our behalf, six
years passed between Dr. Lagerlof s visit and the end of our feud
with the American Consulate. During that time a great deal hap
pened.
John Whiting was nearing his majority, and it was considered wise
to send him to the United States to make another appeal for part, if
not all, of his inheritance. Jacob accompanied him to America.
Mr. Luther Laflin Mills, who had successfully fought the Whiting
case in 1895, represented John, and a settlement was reached out of
court. Mr. Mills succeeded in getting $100 a month for the Whiting
children and $5000 for John to invest in business.
In Jerusalem, the Colony had recently purchased the store which
my future father-in-law, Ferdinand Vester, had maintained for many
years for the sale of the olivewood articles made in his workshops. I
have mentioned in an earlier chapter that this work was started by a
Swiss-German mission. When that organization ceased to function in
Palestine, Mr. Vester took over the work himself. He was now old
and feeble and wished to relinquish the responsibility. Frederick
had been a member of the American Colony for ten years and felt
this was a good opportunity for the Colony s expansion. One of the
British members of the Colony had recently been left a legacy and
she offered this sum to the Colony to invest in the shop. Mr. Vester
made a reasonable offer in view of the fact that his son would be
come manager and part owner. John s money was jointly invested
in the shop under the name of Vester and Co., American Colony
Stores.
Frederick and I were planning our marriage at this time. I hoped
that the date could be the twenty-fifth of September, which was my
parents wedding day. But my foster brother was in the United
States, and we wanted Jacob to be present. As soon as Jacob got
Mr. Mills working on John Whiting s case, he left America for
Palestine. Once we knew he had touched Egypt, we issued the invita
tions to our wedding on March 1, 1904. A storm came up and we
feared Jacob would not be able to land. But he did, and all was well.
For the civil ceremony my birth certificate was necessary, but I
had none. The only procurable paper of any sort to show that I was
born an American citizen was Father s registration in the American
Consulate in 1881, when he registered his two minor children at the
same time. A statement of this from the Consul of the United States
was necessary. Dr. Merrill refused to give this to me.
Frederick and I consulted the German Consul General. Dr. Mer
rill s treatment of the members of the Colony was well known. Con
sul General Schmidt said to me: "Tell your mother to write a letter
192 OUR JERUSALEM
to Dr. Merrill asking him for a copy of Mr. Spafford s registration.
He won t dare refuse when the request is in writing," and, giving a
whimsical smile, he added, "invite him to the wedding."
The civil ceremony took place in the German Consulate in the
morning of the first of March. After it was over the Consul General
and Mrs. Schmidt invited us to their private apartment and drank
our health in champagne. In the afternoon we were married by
Probst Bussman in the large drawing room of the American Colony.
(On August 11 9 1909, he married my sister Grace and John Whiting
in the same place.) We invited only a few friends to the religious
ceremony, so that there would be room for all the members of the
Colony to attend. Later in the afternoon a large reception was given
to several hundred people. We had no honeymoon but went at once
to our new-old home in the old city, which was the first abode of the
Colony and the home Father knew and loved.
And so began thirty-four years of happy married life for Frederick
and me.
The man I married was reserved, with no slap-on-the-back famil
iarity, but he was a loyal friend to rich and poor, high and low. He
could not compromise with evil or with error.
His temper was even and he was tolerant. It was quite impossible
for Frederick to sustain a grudge. He soon forgot what the trouble
had been about and would meet late enemies cordially. It was easy
to work with him and a joy to live with him.
The city was full of tourists that spring of 1904. Rain was abun
dant and crops were good. Very soon the shop was enlarged and
doing well. The financial condition of the American Colony grew
steadily brighter. But, although it was prospering, Dr. Merrill was
still using his office to harass us.
Early in April of that year the Sunday-school Convention, led by
our friend Mr. E. K. Warren, met in Jerusalem. We took in as many
of the delegates as we could accommodate in both the old house on
the wall of the old city and the new Colony house at Sheik Jerah. A
huge marquee was pitched for the meetings.
When the meeting of the Sunday-school Convention started, Mr.
Warren insisted that Mother and several members of the Colony
should sit on the platform with the leaders of the Convention. When
Dr. Merrill saw this he refused to sit on the same platform. Mr.
Hartshorn and Mr. Warren challenged him and let him understand
that the Colony people were going to remain and he could do as he
liked. Very angry, but for the first time foiled, he decided he had
better appear.
In a speech made at one of the meetings Dr. Merrill told how he
had been to the villages and persuaded them "to keep their beggars
OUR JERUSALEM 193
and pickpockets at home" so as not to annoy the delegates. Some of
the Turkish Government officials who were present were insulted
and contradicted the Consul.
Before the meetings ended Mr. and Mrs. Warren invited Frederick
and me at their expense to return on the ship Grosser Kurfurst with
them and visit Egypt and Italy, returning from Naples via Athens,
Constantinople, Smyrna, Beirut, and Damascus. This was their wed
ding present to us, and a magnificent one! No one knew but Freder
ick and me that we had given up our plan for a honeymoon, which
was to spend a few days in Jericho, that being all we could afford at
the time, in order to give an Arab woman the means of buying a
sewing machine. This was a case of "casting our bread upon the
water," for we certainly found it "after many days" more than
doubled. I had not been away from Palestine since I returned from
the United States in 1895, and we enjoyed every minute of the won
derful trip.
The meeting in Jerusalem of the Sunday-school Convention was a
landmark in the history of the Colony. It was the first time Dr. Mer
rill had been openly and publicly challenged and his threats ignored.
There was great excitement in Jerusalem that May of 1904. Under
the direction of an Englishman by the name of Kenward, a Greek
engineer bored a well and struck water at a depth of one hundred
and fifty feet on the Bethlehem plain or Upper Baka a. Water meant
so much to this bleak and arid mountain plateau that the people of
Jerusalem were very excited.
Ismail Bey brought us a bottle containing some of the water. It
was clear and sweet.
Jacob wrote:
Great numbers of people have been out there. The Pasha, the consuls, l
the Patriarch, and they gave the thanksgiving sacrifice to the workmen,
"zarb" (a whole sheep roasted in a primitive oven). It seems that Mr.
Kenward had gone to England for improved machinery and that it was
hoped an abundant water supply would be the result.
However, nothing more happened at that time, and the whole
excitement died down in disappointment.
Further efforts were made to supply Jerusalem s 40,000 inhab
itants with running water. It was the burning problem at the time. A
writer, signing himself "The Religious Rambler," wrote:
The mania for improvement is taking fast hold of Jerusalem. At present
it has only cistern water to drink and the American Colony is considering
the project of supplying the city with a water system.
194 OUR JERUSALEM
Jacob had a friend, Mr. S. P. Meyers, an influential and wealthy
cloth manufacturer, in Bradford, England. He appealed to him for
help. A Bradford paper wrote under the title "Jerusalem and Its
Water Supply":
A charming example of municipal enterprise as understood by Turkish
municipal authorities is exhibited in a correspondence which has been
taking place between Mr. S. P. Meyers of Bradford and the mayor of Jeru
salem. Although the casual visitor might not think so from superficial
inquiry, Jerusalem possesses both a mayor and a town consul, but the main
functions which in our occidental views attach to these bodies sanitation
and the provision of the necessaries of life are not matters which have
hitherto troubled them much. Of late, however, there has been much dis
cussion upon the project of establishing a city water supply.
"This [Mr. Meyers ] report," the article continues, "was for
warded to the mayor of Jerusalem, and that it has been received with
not a little gratitude is evident from letters of thanks." But that was
all that came of the careful estimates, plans, and vast correspond
ence. The earmarked money was otherwise needed in Constantino
ple. What could a progressive Arab mayor do?
Jacob was grateful to Mr. Meyers for taking no end of trouble
over procuring such exhaustive information about the proposed
water supply for thirsty Jerusalem and felt chagrined that after all
his labor nothing came of it.
Knowing that Mr. Meyers was a collector of quaint and unique ob
jects, Jacob procured several grains of wheat on which a Jewish
scribe had written the Ten Commandments in Hebrew. These were
packed carefully and sent by registered post.
They reached their destination safely but ahead of the letter which
gave Mr. Meyers a description of the unusual grains.
Much to Jacob s consternation he received a letter from Mr.
Meyers thanking him. He said, "Seeing how well packed they were,
I realized that they must be seeds of unusual plants, so I gave them
to my gardener with instructions that they should be planted at once."
Jacob commented that if they would propagate the Ten Com
mandments, it was worth-while.
Later, Under another Turkish governor, Solomon s Aqueduct was
repaired, and the water to the quantity of 40,000 gallons per day
was brought from Solomon s Pools and the Sealed Fountain, near by
to twp standpipes where people could fill their jars and tin pails with
water. The supply was insufficient and inconvenient. It was not until
1926 that the drought caused by the meager rainfall (twelve inches)
in the foregoing rainy season crystallized the much-thought-of and
talked-about plan for a water supply for Jerusalem. At a cost of
OUR JERUSALEM 195
63,000 the Government of Palestine contracted with the firm of
Sir John Jackson, Ltd., of London, to bring water to Jerusalem from
Ein Farrah, the copious spring northeast of Jerusalem. Work was
commenced on January 2, 1926, and the High Commissioner for
Palestine, the late Field Marshal Lord Plumer, opened the completed
work on July 17 of the same year.
Some years later this supply proved inadequate for the growing
city, and a larger source was tapped at Ras-el-Ain, near the coast,
and was pumped 2,700 feet to Jerusalem.
One of the first actions in the Jewish-Arab struggle for the pos
session of Palestine was the cutting off of this water supply, causing
great suffering in the newer part of Jerusalem. Old Jerusalem simply
went back to its cisterns.
It was estimated that Jerusalem contained rain-water storage cis
terns to the capacity of 360,000,000 gallons about enough for a
city the size of London for two days!
The same "Religious Rambler" wrote about the American Col
ony:
The range of activities of this community is amusing as well as amazing,
extending from the baking of a mince pie to the discovery, digging, and
delivery of an ancient sarcophagus. Their latest bit of enterprise is the
beginning of a telephone system over the city of Jerusalem. For the first
time in all its long history the Holy City hears the tinkle of the telephone
bell and it s a Bell telephone at that! The new courthouse at Jerusalem
has been connected with the old serai, and the system is to be extended
until first all official points and then business houses and residences will
be supplied with telephones.
I remember what a novelty it was! The first telephone to be in
stalled as an experiment was one connecting the American Colony
with our store. After this proved a success, the Turkish Government
allowed us to install telephones in other places.
We had some amusing experiences with those uninitiated in its
use. One day some of our Bedouin friends, who since 1884 had been
regular visitors at the Colony, were asked to talk over the telephone
to one of our men at the store. Their comments were something like
this: "This travels faster than a rifle shot it s like pinching a dog s
tail in Jerusalem and he barks in Jericho. This is even more wonder
ful than the telegraph, which takes three hours to get to Jericho, and
then it is written in Turkish and you have to run around and find
someone to translate it. This is like lightning."
Today a Bedouin telegraph or telephone operator is not unusual,
but I recall how recently he acquired this knowledge.
Another of the innovations suggested by the American Colony
196 OUR JERUSALEM
was a steam roller to improve road making. It came from Chicago.
We were often consulted in such matters, because in the course
of our life under the Turkish regime three Arab mayors had been
our pupils.
I have spoken several times of Mr. Hess. He was the German
Vice-Consul. Mrs. Hess was considered the best-dressed woman in
Jerusalem. They were Alexandrian Germans.
Soon after our first baby was born my father-in-law celebrated
the fiftieth anniversary of his arrival in Jerusalem. Tables were
placed in his garden under the large almond trees and his many
friends were entertained at a large garden party. There were
speeches; there never was a German party without speeches.
Frederick and I, with Mother, were a bit late in arriving. All the
tables were filled, but we found seats rather far away from Mr. Hess,
who was making a speech. He was greatly excited, pounding his
fists on the table, and shouting. We were too far off to hear what he
was saying, and we didn t care anyway, but I remember how amused
I was by Mother s saying;
Whatever does Mr. Hess find so exciting in the fact that Mr.
Vester has been in Jerusalem for fifty years to make such a noise
about?"
Sometimes, but not frequently, the Hesses came to call at the
American Colony. Whenever they did, they brought their young son
with them. He was a terrific nuisance. He meddled with everything
and was very inquisitive, and there was no peace when he was about.
We always delegated one of our members, Brother Elijah, to keep
Rudolph in charge so we could get through tea undisturbed. Brother
Elijah was a converted Jew from India and the abjectly poor mem
ber of a famous family of fabulous wealth. Our Brother Elijah would
take the boy to the stables and show him our cows, pigs, and horses.
He had his hands full trying to entertain the nervous, mischievous
boy who was to become the sinister Rudolph Hess mysterious
visitor to England and notorious prisoner of World War II.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SOME years ago I was visiting Phillips Academy, in Andover,
Massachusetts, where my sons were at school. It was late autumn
and the coloring glorious. We went for a walk under the trees and I
remarked that in the United States I missed the link of history; in
Palestine every hill, tree, valley, and well has its ancient story.
At that moment we noticed a boulder with a bronze inscription.
"Here is history!" we exclaimed, and followed a path around a
pond to investigate.
On this spot, the plaque informed us, in 1810, the first students
of Andover "walked and talked" and resolved that the First Ameri
can Society of Foreign Missions should be started.
I thought back to the long years of heartbreak when the very
mention of this mission lay like the shadow of a cross over the
American Colony in Jerusalem.
I remember at the same time all that the Presbyterian Board of
Foreign Missions had accomplished in the Far East. The large
proportion of doctors, dentists, and chemists in the eastern Mediter
ranean countries received their education at one of the colleges or
universities that the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions estab
lished and conducted, including the Robert College of Istanbul and
the American University of Beirut, besides those in Greece and
Turkey. The standard of life has been raised through their influence.
Leading citizens in many walks of life received their education and
have the Presbyterian Board to thank for their successful careers.
It is therefore with a sad heart that I write this chapter. But it is
part of the history of the American Colony and the "war of the
graveyard" that was to last fifteen years. It cut deeply into Mother s
life, and into all our lives.
I have told in another chapter that in 1891 our American Consul
was responsible for the first of the graveyard troubles. I was only
eleven years old when I saw the trenches cut across the American
Cemetery and my father s grave exposed. Dr. Merrill, who consid-
198 OUR JERUSALEM
ered himself an authority on archaeology, had excavated the ceme
tery without regard to the graves.
Seven years later our troubles began again. To explain them I
must go back in history.
The first Presbyterian missionaries in Jerusalem had purchased
the site of the American Cemetery "on the summit of Zion, outside
the city wall," and I have in my possession a translation of the deed
of sale, dated Rabch 1251 of the Hegira, and May 1838 in the year
of our Lord.
Prior to the purchase of the cemetery several Americans who died
in Jerusalem were secretly buried at the foot of the Mount of Olives.
This must have taken place during the epidemic of plague, about
1838, when Jerusalem was shut within its walls and no one was al
lowed to enter or leave the city.
In 1841 a powerful foreign element had been brought into Pales
tine through the Anglo-Prussian Bishopric, which exercised great
influence through the enterprises conducted in the diocese. Christ
Church, erected by the London Jews* Society, served as the seat of
the bishop. It had been erected inside the walls opposite the Citadel
and near the Jaffa Gate. Consent to build this church had been diffi
cult to obtain from the Moslem Turkish Government. It was made an
integral part of the British Consulate and this facilitated permission
being granted for its erection. The so-called British Cemetery on
Mount Zion was held jointly by the English and the Germans. A
hospital for the Jews under the auspices of the English Mission with
Dr. McGowan in charge had been opened in the Old City, and later
a Prussian hospital was established under the supervision of Kaiser-
swert deaconesses. Schools, orphanages, and other institutions giving
instruction in agriculture and many kinds of industry were started
by both English and German missionaries; my father-in-law, Ferdi
nand Vester, was one of these. There was a controversy between the
different missionary societies, and it was deemed expedient that the
American missionaries should leave Palestine and concentrate their
labors in the Lebanon and Syria.
When the activities of the Presbyterian Mission were removed
from Palestine, the walled cemetery on Mount Zion, where a number
of their members had been laid to rest, was left in charge of the
American Consulate, with, the understanding, as we were told, that
any American dying in Jerusalem should have a place of burial. The
key was kept at the American Consulate.
In the course of time ten members of the American Colony were
traied there, and there were other interments as well.
The site of ancient Jerusalem is full of ruins covered over and hid
den by the debris and dust of cei^turies. Mount Zion was important
OUR JERUSALEM 199
in the early history of Jerusalem as well as in Byzantine and medieval
times. The site of the Presbyterian Cemetery on Mount Zion, as Mr.
Robinson describes it, was "adjacent to the northwestern enclosure
connected with the Mosque and Tomb of David." Tradition has it
that this was the "upper room," where Jesus and His disciples ate
the Passover and instituted the Lord s Supper.
Before the time of Constantine, Christians had worshiped in an
old house-church on Mount Zion called variously the Church of the
Apostles, the Church of Zion, or the Mother of Churches. It was
traditionally on the site of the house of John Mark, where the
Apostles met, and where such events as the Last Supper and the
descent of the Holy Spirit were supposed to have taken place. Here
some time about the middle of the fourth century (after Helena s
death) a new church was erected. To it attached other traditions: the
house of Saint John where Saint Mary was believed to have died,
and the Tomb of David.
It was in ruins at the time of the Crusaders and rebuilt by them
about 1130 as the Church of Zion or of Saint Mary. Once again it
was laid waste. In 1335 the Franciscans, who, after the collapse of
the Crusades and the departure of the Latins, had secured a foothold
in Palestine, secured a portion of the site where tradition had located
the place of the Last Supper. It was a fragment of the Crusading
Church, with some pillars still standing. Here they erected a shrine
called the Coenaculum, or place of the Supper. However, as it was
also identified as the site of the Tomb of David, it was coveted by
the Moslems, who had great respect for King David, and in 1523 the
Moslems took it from them, making it the mosque of the Tomb of
David. Then the Franciscans in 1551 established themselves in the
old Georgian monastery now called Saint Salvatore.
The Tomb of David occupied only a small part of the old Crusad
ing Church, the rest of the site having crumbled to the ground and
been covered with the dust of ages. Here, where the American Pres
byterian missionaries acquired ground for their cemetery, Dr. Merrill
had suspected the existence of the old church under the ground and
dug for it.
In 1897, the year before the German Emperor William II visited
Jerusalem, we began to hear rumors that the American Cemetery
was to be sold. But we did not learn until the following year, when
the German Emperor came, the reason for the secrecy involved.
The Emperor had arranged for a site to be given him by his friend
Sultan Abdul-Hamid. The Franciscan Fathers, who had been ex
pelled from almost this very spot in 1561, had long been trying to
secure the site of the Dormition de la Sainte Vierge on Mount Zion,
of which the American Cemetery was a corner. They offered the
200 OUR JERUSALEM
Presbyterian Board a large sum of money for the tiny cemetery on
the condition that it was cleared of graves and it was a tempting
offer, especially as missions are always in need of funds.
Emperor William s father. Emperor Frederick, then Crown
Prince, had visited Palestine in 1869 and was presented by the
Sublime Porte with the ancient site of the Muristan on which the
Lutheran Church of the Redeemer was built. The consecration of
this church was one excuse for the Kaiser s trip to Palestine in 1898.
As the Muristan had been given to the Lutherans, it was un
questioned that the Dormition de la Sainte Vierge would be given to
his Catholic subjects. Although the Franciscans bought the American
Cemetery, the site of the Dormition was given to the Benedictines,
who built the modern church, which later was to serve the Israelis
as a stronghold.
When we heard of the probability that the American Cemetery
might be sold we had no objections. The cemetery was not benefiting
the Presbyterian Board and they had every right to sell it. We had no
legal claim to the privilege of burying our dead there except that
given us by the American Consul at each burial.
We therefore selected a suitable site and started negotiations to
purchase a small plot of ground to be used as a private burial place.
Our petition to the Turkish authorities had to go through the Ameri
can Consulate. Under Turkish law, a cemetery becomes a Pious
Foundation, which cannot easily be sold. Because of these restric
tions, there is a certain amount of "red tape" to be gotten through.
In view of our petition for purchase of a cemetery, which took
its legitimate course through the American Consulate, Mr. Rudy
received a letter from Mr. Wallace dated February 10, 1897, in
which he acknowledged the receipt of Mr. Rudy s request and said in
reply, "Permit me to state that I fear you will have great difficulty in
procuring permission to use the ground you propose purchasing as
a cemetery. An application for such purchase must be made through
the Legation at Constantinople." Then Mr. Wallace asked Mr. Rudy
to call at the Consulate, which he did.
During the interview Mr. Wallace said that the matter of the sale
of the American Cemetery was under consideration by the Presby
terian Board, but it would be some time before they would decide to
make the sale.
Mr. Wallace asked Mr. Rudy whether the American Colony,
m case of such a sale, would be willing to undertake the transfer of
their dead.
Mr. Rudy replied that we would certainly be willing, but as we did
not have a place of burial yet, he asked that timely notice should be
given.
OUR JERUSALEM 201
Mr. Rudy at this time was preparing to leave for the United States
as our personal representative to Washington. Matters had steadily
grown worse between the American Colony and the American Con
sulate. Several requests for an investigation into the actions of the
two Consuls had been made, and each time they had been evaded.
This time we were obdurate.
Since so much of our life at this time was subjected to protracted
persecution in which enemies of our Group sought to discredit the
leaders and individuals of the American Colony, I think it best that
we be perfectly frank in explaining the basis of the trouble that was
distorted by evil minds into charges of moral laxity. At the same
time it must be remembered that the actual animus was over theo
logical questions which in a day of fanatical dogmatism aroused the
intensest passions against any who were in any way diiferent.
Some time after my parents came to Jerusalem, Father told
Mother in private that he wanted to live Matthew 19:12, "and there
are eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom
of heaven s sake." Nothing about this resolution was mentioned at
the time to any of the other members of the Group. When, finally,
Mother spoke of it to Mrs. Whiting, she found that the Whitings had
made much the same choice.
It was a solemn undertaking, a personal dedication which did not
concern any except those who chose to live it. Celibacy was never
meant to become a governing canon of the Group.
Somehow this had leaked out. It was misinterpreted and degraded
by our opponents.
After Father died Dr. Merrill became less cautious in his attacks
and accused us of forbidding marriage. There were no young people
in the Colony at the time to get married, so we had no means of
disputing this new charge. Mother went to Dr. Merrill to try to ex
plain, saying that she believed if he knew it was false, he, being a
Christian gentleman, would cease to repeat such statements. "Why
don t you get married?" he demanded rudely.
Mother s reply was that she still felt close to Father.
Dr. Merrill s next accusation was that we were spiritualists who
claimed communication with the dead!
The article by Mr. Wallace and the insinuations of the Alley
paper had clearly pointed the way to an investigation. We made up
our minds to put a legal stop to the continual slanders by the two
Consuls against the American Colony.
We knew we could expect no possible redress from instituting a
court procedure in Jerusalem against our persecutors, for in Turkish
times American citizens held their own consular courts, and our
archenemy would have been our judge.
200 OUR JERUSALEM
Presbyterian Board a large sum of money for the tiny cemetery on
the condition that it was cleared of graves and it was a tempting
offer, especially as missions are always in need of funds.
Emperor William s father, Emperor Frederick, then Crown
Prince, had visited Palestine in 1869 and was presented by the
Sublime Porte with the ancient site of the Muristan on which the
Lutheran Church of the Redeemer was built. The consecration of
this church was one excuse for the Kaiser s trip to Palestine in 1898.
As the Muristan had been given to the Lutherans, it was un
questioned that the Dormition de la Sainte Vierge would be given to
his Catholic subjects. Although the Franciscans bought the American
Cemetery, the site of the Dormition was given to the Benedictines,
who built the modem church, which later was to serve the Israelis
as a stronghold.
When we heard of the probability that the American Cemetery
might be sold we had no objections. The cemetery was not benefiting
the Presbyterian Board and they had every rigftt to sell it. We had no
legal claim to the privilege of burying our dead there except that
l^ven us by the American Consul at each burial.
We therefore selected a suitable site and started negotiations to
purchase a small plot of ground to be used as a private burial place.
Our petition to the Turkish authorities had to go through the Ameri
can Consulate. Under Turkish law, a cemetery becomes a Pious
Foundation, which cannot easily be sold. Because of these restric
tions, there is a certain amount of "red tape" to be gotten through.
In view of our petition for purchase of a cemetery, which took
its legitimate course through the American Consulate, Mr. Rudy
received a letter from Mr. Wallace dated February 10, 1897, in
which he acknowledged the receipt of Mr. Rudy s request and said in
reply, "Permit me to state that I fear you will have great difficulty in
procuring permission to use the ground you propose purchasing as
a cemetery. An application for such purchase must be made through
the Legation at Constantinople." Then Mr. Wallace asked Mr. Rudy
to call at the Consulate, which he did.
During the interview Mr. Wallace said that the matter of the sale
of the American Cemetery was under consideration by the Presby
terian Board, but it would be some time before they would decide to
make the sale.
Mr. Wallace asked Mr. Rudy whether the American Colony,
m case of such a sale, would be willing to undertake the transfer of
their dead.
Mr. Rudy replied that we would certainly be willing, but as we did
not have a place of burial yet, he asked that timely notice should be
given.
OUR JERUSALEM 203
efuses to restore these remains to me or to give me any real information
n the matter, disregarding my personal appeals to him and those com-
nunicated to him officially by John Dickson, Esq., H.B.M. s Consul
or Jerusalem . . .
She also requested the return of the body of Mr. Drake, whose
ather in England joined in the demand for his son s body.
The British Consul s efforts in our behalf were answered by a letter
rom Mr. Wallace, stating the American Consulate
lad nothing whatsoever to do in the matter of transferring the bodies from
he American Cemetery to then: temporary resting place in the English
Cemetery. . . .
In response to Lord Salisbury the British Consul took action and
jecured the number of the box containing the remains of Captain
Jylvester. After this the tone of the correspondence changed. Bishop
Blyth, Bishop of Jerusalem, wrote instructions to the superintendent
rf the English Cemetery to write Mrs. Sylvester offering "to take up
ie body of her husband and give it over to herself or her representa
tive if she could identify the coffin (or box, as they call it)."
When at last permission was granted to open the pit, Mrs. Sylvester
felt that because so much intrigue and quibbling had been practiced,
she wanted to be present, no matter how harrowing the experience
might be.
With Mrs. Sylvester that day in the English Cemetery were Mr.
Hensman the cemetery superintendent, the British Consul s drago
man, and also a kavass from the Consulate, Dr. Savignoni, and
several members of the American Colony. She had a plan of the
American Cemetery with the graves.
Captain Sylvester s was number thirteen.
Until the pit was opened and the condition uncovered no member
of the Colony had any idea of the true facts. We had been told by
the workmen who assisted at the removal that the bodies had been
ruthlessly dismembered in order to cram them into the boxes. We
could not credit such a story.
The truth lay bared in the pit. Fifteen boxes represented the
twenty-five graves of the American Cemetery. They were stacked
helter-skelter, some on their sides, some on end. The boxes were not
coffins, but packing cases, the largest ones about thirty inches long,
sixteen inches wide, sixteen inches deep. The majority of the boxes
were smaller, about thirteen inches by ten and nine.
There was no box thirteen.
Nor was there any way of telling the American Colony dead from
the other American dead. One box was marked three and four, indi
cating that it might contain the contents of two graves.
204 OUR JERUSALEM
Another had burst open, disclosing limbs severed into parts, con
firming the testimony of the fellaheen workman which we had refused
to believe.
This box held the remains of more than one body, and among
them Mrs. Gould and Jacob made a harrowing discovery, its identity
proven beyond doubt by the fact that Father had lost his front teeth
in an accident when he was a boy.
Nothing could be done. The boxes were replaced in the pit and
covered up. A complete report was sent to Mr. Rudy in Washington
and he redoubled his attempts to extract from the State Department
an answer to our request for an investigation into the cemetery affair
as well as into our earlier and oft-repeated complaints against the
two Consuls.
After another long delay a cable came from Mr. Rudy: "Investi
gation granted. 7
Consul General Dickenson came from Constantinople to Jerusalem
to conduct it.
It was a bit of good luck that both Dr. Merrill and Mr. Wallace
were in Jerusalem at the time.
Before bringing the cemetery matter before Mr. Dickenson, all
signers of the notorious Alley paper were brought to prove what they
had signed. One after another they said that they had not seen the
whole pamphlet. Not one could substantiate any of the statements
against the morals of the American Colony.
Instead, witness after witness, all respected members of Jerusalem
society, came forward in our behalf.
This was the first part of the investigation. After its completion
Mr. Dickenson told us that one would think it would be a pleasure
to visit Jerusalem, but the atmosphere, he said, "was overburdened
with crucifixion."
The next part of the investigation dealt with the cemetery.
On opening, Mr. Dickenson recorded: "Inasmuch as this plot is
not a cemetery." We could not allow that to pass. We expostulated
and said that it had been used as such for more than sixty years. We
produced official documents to prove that as a cemetery under Turk
ish law no taxes had been paid on it.
A photograph of the stone slab which had stood over the cemetery
gate was shown I have it still. It showed the break caused by its
removal at the time of the sale through the carved words in Arabic
and English: "American Cemetery Jesus Christ is the Resurrection
and the Life/*
To the Presbyterian Board the case seemed to hang on the question
as to wither this plot of ground on Mount Zion was a cemetery or
OUR JERUSALEM 205
not. If it was not a cemetery, it could be sold privately. The moral
issue, which was to us the most important, was obscured.
I have just reread all the testimony of this investigation and I am
impressed with the futility of the whole affair as far as the cemetery
matter was concerned.
I remember the last day very well. I was to be the first witness. We
went to the Consulate full of hope and were met by Mr. Wallace,
who told us that Consul General Dickenson had left that morning for
Constantinople.
So this was the end!
What had been done, we knew, could never be undone. Our dead
could never be restored. Victory, if it ever came, would simply be a
vindication.
It was not un 
