Fannie's Folly: Part 1 of the Unfinished Story of Fannie Bolton and Marian Davis

By Alice Elizabeth Gregg, Adventist Currents, October 1983

Had Ellen White been prescient, she would never have employed Fannie Bolton or Marian Davis as her editors. Nor would she have written the letters to Fannie and Marian that appeared in "The Fannie Bolton Story: A Collection of Source Documents" released by the Ellen G. White Estate in 1982. But she did not know the end from the beginning; and as a result, the struggle over the dark secret they shared was to belong irrevocably to the annals of the Seventh-day Adventist church.

The barrage of words hurled from typewriter to typewriter, as can be read in that collection, barely gives a clue that much of the drama took place in the harsh and beautiful continent of Australia - land of the outback, the billabongs, the coolabah trees, and the koalas. The names of Cooranbong, Melbourne, and Adelaide, dropped occasionally in the letters, are only incidental to the conflict between the antagonists in the story.

The Story, a quasi biography of Frances Eugenia Bolton, cites her birthday as August 1, 1859. Her death certificate indicates that her birthplace was Chicago, Illinois.¹ Her father was a Methodist minister, and she had at least two brothers. Her picture on the title page of The Story shows an attractive brunette with the small, chiseled features that might please a cosmetologist.

Fannie was a June 18, 1883, graduate of the Preparatory School (high school) of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois; and she delivered one of the commencement orations, "The Flight of the Gods."² The Story indicates that she attended "Lady's Seminary" and/or "Evanston College." Whether she went beyond the preparatory school at that time has not yet been substantiated. What is known is that after her schooling she found work as a correspondent with the [Chicago] Daily Inter-Ocean, one of the predecessors of the Chicago Tribune.

She was converted to Seventh-day Adventism in 1885 by George B. Starr, a minister at the Chicago Mission. Fannie first met Ellen Gould White, Seventh-day Adventism's messenger, at the Springfield, Illinois, campmeeting in 1887 when she was reporting for the paper. She was then twenty-eight years old. Because of her background it was natural that she be asked to edit Ellen's sermons. According to Fannie's account to a friend, Ellen was pleased with the way she made the sermons over for the press, and she wished to employ her.³

Ellen had recently returned from Europe filled with ideas for writing books and articles. The Great Controversy was finished. The Desire of Ages was a dream, and the Adventist periodicals were constantly clamoring for articles. Marian Davis had been working for Ellen since 1879 and editing for her since the death of James White, her husband, in 1881. But with the numbers of requests for articles, tracts, books, and letters, Marian was staggering under the load. Ellen had to have more help, and Fannie was a likely candidate.

William C. White, Ellen's son, and Dores E. Robinson, her grandson-in-law, recalled many years later that Fannie "was recommended to her as a young woman of rare talents, of good education, and an earnest Christian." The arrangement for employment was beneficial for both Ellen and Fannie, they wrote, and Fannie "proved to be brilliant and entertaining, and, although somewhat erratic at times, was loved by the other members of the family." ⁴

When Ellen left the campmeeting circuit to return to her home in California, she arranged for Fannie to meet her and her party at the Chicago depot so that they could travel together. Ellen was "not with her party, so Elder Starr hunted around till he found her behind a screen in the restaurant very gratified in eating big white raw oysters with vinegar, pepper and salt," Fannie wrote; and on the same trip Willie White brought into the car a "thick piece of bloody beefsteak" for Sara McEnterfer, one of Ellen's valued employees, to cook on a small oil stove. These incidents were shocking to Fannie, who had "lived up to the testimonies with all faithfulness discarding meat, butter, fish, fowl and the supper meal, believing that as the 'Testimonies' say, 'no meat-eater will be translated.'"⁵

When the party arrived in California, Fannie was given specific instructions regarding her assignment. She was told at the outset that she was to work under the direction of Marian in preparing letters, or "testimonies," as they were usually referred to, and in editing articles for publication. She was told also, according to White and Robinson, that the "matters revealed to Mrs. White in vision, were not a word for word narration of events with their lessons, but that they were generally flash-light or panoramic views of various scenes in the experiences of men, sometimes in the past, and sometimes in the future, together with the lessons connected with these experiences."

Likewise she was told about Ellen's tendency to make errors of mechanic (spelling, capitalization, punctuation) and of syntax, to be repetitious, and to fall short of organizing her material well - all of which the editors should correct, modify, or rearrange for clarity and effectiveness.⁶

Fannie enjoyed working on articles for publication, according to White and Robinson, but "she found the copying of letters of reproof to be distasteful and revolting to her. She was heard to say that she wished there were no such word as 'don't' in the English language."⁷

The first year of working with Fannie seemed a happy experience for Ellen. She wrote on February 13, 1888: "Fannie Bolton is a treasure to me. We are all harmonious, all working unitedly and in love."⁸

Fannie, however, was finding some aspects of her work appalling. Early during her employment she showed Marian some material she was working on, and to her surprise Marian asked if she had compared the chronology with Eidersheim or another standard religious writer. When Fannie told her that the Lord was a correct historian, Marian replied that Ellen was not. In recounting the story for his paper, The Gathering Call, Edward S. Ballenger later wrote that Fannie, on comparing, was "shocked and astonished to face a paragraph exactly like the one in the articles she was copying, although there was no sign in the articles of its being a quotation, and on turning a page found a whole page which in the articles was only changed enough to prevent its being an exact quotation." Ballenger went on to explain that Marian tried to reassure Fannie by saying that "the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof." But Fannie was not satisfied.⁹

In the days that followed, Fannie found that many authors' works were used without credit. Nor was credit given to Fannie or to Marian for their original work incorporated in articles going out over Ellen's name and, moreover, represented as inspired of God. Thus Fannie found herself involved in something she believed to be dishonest. Conscience-stricken and disillusioned, she brought the matter up with Ellen, in the conviction that she ought to uphold the "principle of ordinary justice and literary honesty [and be] a martyr for truth's sake."¹⁰ There were golden rules for writing that were not being followed, she told Ellen. What Ellen said at that time is not known or included in The Story, but evidently she was intractable, inasmuch as Fannie retired to the typewriter and to doing the work assigned to her.

After the 1888 General Conference meeting in Minneapolis, Ellen went to live in Battle Creek; and in December Fannie and Marian were called from California. White and Robinson recollected that "on the way to Battle Creek, Miss Bolton spent a week in Chicago. There she met many of her former acquaintances, and found many things to remind her of old time experiences and ambitions. Soon after this she made it known to her fellow-workers that she was not satisfied to spend all her life in handling the thoughts and writings of another person. She had thoughts and ideas of her own, and longed to give expression to them."¹¹

Although Fannie went on working for Ellen, the situation continued to deteriorate. At last, not yet two years after Fannie began working, White wrote to Charles H. Jones of the Pacific Health Journal on June 23, 1889, suggesting that it would be profitable for him to employ Fannie. "I believe that Sister Bolton is much better qualified for work on a journal like the Pacific Health Journal," he wrote, "for in this she would have more occasion for original work, and it would not demand the accuracy which our work on the Signs must have."¹²

Since Jones obviously, for whatever reason, did not employ her, Fannie continued working for Ellen, trying to "harmonize what seemed to [her] an inconsistency in the work with a worldly literary maxim that requires an author to acknowledge his editors and give credit to all works from which he quotes" and holding to "the position in [her] mind that Sister White should acknowledge her editors and every source from which she obtained suggestion or expression."¹³

Fannie must have kept the subject of crediting authors and editors fresh before Ellen during those months, for by the autumn of 1890 she was fired. Having found some courses that she wanted to take at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Fannie eased herself out of her job, with the exception of a few of Ellen's manuscripts that she took with her to edit. About this, Ellen wrote that Fannie "asked for some articles of mine to take with her to Ann Arbor, saying she loved the work. But I now think that she wished to use the pretext that she was employed by me in order to gain the confidence of others because I trusted her as my agent to prepare copy for my books. I see my folly now."¹⁴

Writing an apology to Ellen, Fannie said "I can not help writing to you because God has helped me so much since I last saw you. I did feel so sad about being severed from your work when I had just become so reconciled, so anxious to do it; but I cast all my perplexity on God."¹⁵

A year later, in the autumn of 1891, the General Conference asked Ellen White to go to Australia. When Sara McEnterfer unfortunately became ill with malaria, Ellen, to the surprise of others in the inner circle, invited Fannie to go with her as a replacement for Sara. Ellen acknowledged later that "Fannie pleaded hard and with tears to come with me [to Australia] to engage with me in the work of preparing articles for the papers. She declared she had met with a great change, and was not at all the person she was when she told me she desired to write herself and could not consent that her talent would be buried up in the work of preparing my articles for the papers and books. She felt she was full of the matter and had talent she must put to use in writing which she could not do connected with me."¹⁶

Once in Australia, Fannie settled into the work with her usual speed and efficiency. In a letter of October 7, 1892, she wrote that she had copied forty-two pages of the mail, had sent off seven articles for the Review and six for the Signs, and had prepared four articles more since the mail had gone.¹⁷ On May 4, 1893, she wrote that she had rushed down town the day before and mailed eleven articles to Ellen - seven or eight for the Youth's Instructor, one for the Signs, and one for the Review.¹⁸

When campmeeting time came in 1894 (January 5-28), Fannie was ready for a vacation. Campmeetings were times for refreshing and exchanging experiences and views; and Fannie, a workaholic by nature, looked forward to them. While she was there, it is likely that friends told Fannie how wonderful it must be to work for such an inspired and brilliant writer as Ellen; and Fannie would have thought it was important to put the record straight. "She talked much to friends and acquaintances in Melbourne about the difficulties attending her work, and the faulty way in which some of the manuscripts were written," recalled White and Robinson of the occasion. "Her estimate of the great improvements made by the editors was dwelt upon, and the work of Mrs. White was belittled. Again she expressed her decided conviction that the talents of the copyists and their work should receive public recognition."¹⁹

At the same time she told Merritt G. Kellogg, half-brother of John Harvey Kellogg and William K. Kellogg, that she was "writing all the time for Sister White." Furthermore, she said that most of what she wrote was "published in the Review and Herald...as having been written by Sister White under inspiration of God...I am greatly distressed over this matter, for I feel that I am acting a deceptive part. The people are being deceived about the inspiration of what I write. I feel that it is a great wrong that anything which I write should go out under Sister White's name as an article specially inspired of God. What I write should go out over my own signature[;] then credit would be given where credit belongs." ²⁰

The essence of her complaints, as Fannie would express it to Ellen later when she looked back, was: "I thought as I have always thought before, that you did not see my perplexity, or comprehend my trouble, that IT WAS YOUR WITHHOLDING OF THE TRUTH ABOUT YOUR WRITINGS in not acknowledging your editorial help, that was at the bottom of all the perplexity, and that your work was not as you say the work of God ought to be, 'AS OPEN AS SUNLIGHT'" [emphasis added].²¹

When Ellen found out that Fannie was revealing her working methods, she had a vision, according to what she told George B. Starr: "There appeared a chariot of gold and horses of silver above me, and Jesus, in royal majesty, was seated in the chariot.... Then there came the words rolling down over the clouds from the chariot from the lips of Jesus, 'Fannie Bolton is your adversary! Fanny Bolton is your adversary!' repeated three times."²² Ellen wrote Marian also that she was "warned" that Fannie was her adversary.²³

On February 6, 1894, Ellen wrote Fannie: "Now, my sister, I do not want you to be any longer connected with me in my work. I mean now, for your good, that you should never have another opportunity to do as you have done in the past."²⁴

The only reference Ellen made in that letter to the matter of her "copying" from other authors was: "SHOULD I ATTEMPT TO VINDICATE MY COURSE TO THOSE WHO DO NOT APPRECIATE THE SPIRITUAL CHARACTER OF THE WORK WHICH IS LAID UPON ME, IT WOULD ONLY EXPOSE MYSELF AND THE WORK TO MISCONCEPTION AND MISREPRESENTATION. To present the matter before other minds would be useless, for there are but few who are really so connected with God [who] see beneath the surface appearance as to understand it. This work is one that I cannot explain."²⁵

Since she could not explain the copying - because to do so would disclose it - Ellen wrote ad hominem on Fannie's character, about which she could say much: "You are not a safe and capable worker. Your mind is subject to changes; first it is elated, then depressed. The impression made by this frequent change is startling. Self-control is not brought into your life. You choose a life of change, crowded with different interests and occupations, therefore you cannot possibly put your life, as you suppose you have done, into this work; you are most wonderfully deceived in thinking you do this.... All you engage in tastes so strongly of the dish that it is not acceptable to God."²⁶

On the same day Ellen wrote to her son Willie: "Her love of ambition, her love of praise, and her idea of her own ability and talent was the open door Satan had entered to not only ruin her soul, but to imperil the work given me of God.... I am in a very grave perplexity and when I see how Satan works to take the very ones who ought to be intelligent and sharp as steel to understand their position before God, and their privileges and honor to have a part in the work, become disloyal, surmising, and whispering evil and putting the same into other minds, it is time decisive measures are taken that will correct the disaffection before it shall spread farther."²⁷

Ellen spared no rhetoric in her invective during this period. She wrote to O.A. Olsen, the General Conference president: "Her ardent love for praise and ambition was very similar to that presented to me in regard to the workings of Satan in the heavenly courts to bring disaffection among the angels."²⁸

To Marian, she wrote: "She becomes at times as verily possessed be demons as were human beings in the days of Christ. And when these paroxysms are upon her, many think she is inspired of God. She is fluent, her words come thick and fast, and she is under the control of demons."²⁹

"If she were converted," she wrote to George A. Irwin, soon to become the General Conference president, "she would have a clear understanding of the influence of her past misrepresentations of the work she has done for me, and would confess some of her misstatements regarding it, which have been used by the enemy to unsettle and undermine the faith of many, in the testimonies of the Spirit of God."³⁰

To Willie, Ellen likened Fannie to Aaron and Miriam: "Aaron had been mouth-piece for Moses, and Miriam was a teacher of the women. But now come whisperings between the brother and sister in murmurings and jealousies against Moses, and they were guilty of disloyalty, not only to their Leader appointed of God but God Himself.... Those who give place to Satan's suggestions in their desperate efforts in panting for recognition of talents they flatter themselves that they possess, will be so blinded by the enemy that they will not discern sacred things in distinction from the common." In the same letter to Willie, she said that Fannie was like Eve: "Again the warning came, 'Fannie is your adversary, and is misleading minds by entertaining the suggestions of Satan as did Eve in Eden.'"³¹

To Fannie on the same day she wrote, in the third person singular, about Fannie's likeness to Saul: "My prayer is that God will convert the poor child [Fannie], that she may understand the leadings of His Holy Spirit. The character of Saul is a marked one. There was strength and weakness combined. Gifts of talent were bestowed upon him, and had he consecrated these gifts wholly to God, he would not have dishonored himself by his own transgression." ³²

Impaling Fannie thus on her sharp pen, Ellen was able to divert attention from the copying problem to Fannie's character. Nowhere in the record does Ellen say to Fannie, "Let's give credit where credit is due. Let's do the right thing." The red herring assault on Fannie's personality was the perfect tactic.

Fannie was remorseful, to say the least, having just lost her job, and she wrote to Ellen: "I can see just how Satan has come and has always found something in me whereby he could work to harass and distress those with whom I was associated. Self has never died fully and therefore a door was left for the entrance of the enemy. The bottom of all my trouble has been self, and that is Satanic.... In doing the work, I have looked at what was perplexing, and handling it day after day, have lost the real sense of its sacredness, and began to look upon it from a literary standpoint alone. I don't know that it is quite just to put it in that way either; for I have had a sense of what it was to me, and to all, above that of a mere literary matter.... My faith in the testimonies is stronger today than ever, and I feel that I want to put my whole influence on the side of upbuilding the faith of God's people in this great and sacred work."³³

Ellen wrote back to Fannie the next day, on February 10, 1894: "I received and read your letter, and assure you that my heart is deeply touched by its contents. I accept your confession. As far as yourself and your connection with me personally is concerned, I have and do freely forgive you."³⁴ Fannie was rehired on the spot.

Whether this was startling to Ellen's cadre is not known. They knew that Fannie was good help, and Ellen needed her help. Willie's letter to Edson, his brother, on October 25, 1895, confirmed that: "She [Fannie] has remarkable talent and handles mother's matters very intelligently and rapidly, turning off more than twice as much work in a given time as any other editor mother has ever employed."³⁵

But not all was well with Fannie. She was in the process of forming a near-adulterous relationship with a married man. Ellen had hired a youngish man by the name of W.F. Caldwell in 1893 to help Fannie with the typing. He had been separated from his wide and two children for three years. Caldwell took to the cloistered life and showed "a fondness for the society of young girls and [was] full of gaiety, conducting himself like a boy," as Ellen later wrote pejoratively to I.N. Williams, president of Caldwell's home conference.³⁶ Although Caldwell's wife later divorced him, this had not been done before Fannie and he had formed "the attachment and love and had been pledged to one another, Fannie to Caldwell, and Caldwell to Fannie." Ellen reported to John Harvey Kellogg.³⁷

As meliorist, Ellen pointed out to Fannie the less-than-heroic character of Caldwell: "The Lord has a controversy with Brother Caldwell. His love of self, his love of self-gratification, and his determination to have his own way, have made him unreasonable, overbearing, dictatorial. His practice of over-eating has taxed his digestive organs, distended his stomach, and taxed his nature to endure a burden that has reacted upon the brain, and his memory is weakened."³⁸

Fannie denied at first that there was any affection between them. "She stood before me in my tent," Ellen wrote to her friends the Tenneys, "and declared that there was nothing to the reports. For one year after this, she was good for nothing to me, only a dead, heavy load." Fannie finally admitted that she loved Caldwell with all her heart and the "three times has this cup of bliss [engagement] been presented to me, and then been snatched away."³⁹

Although Ellen was able to nip the romance in the bud, she continued over a period of two years to write to various people about the unseemly liaison: "It is not the work connected with me that has prostrated her [Fannie's] nervous system," Ellen wrote to Willard A. Colcord. "It is practicing a course of secrecy and deception and wrong-doing. It is not the requirements made upon her, but it is kindling a fire and walking in the sparks of her own kindling in connection with her wonderful desire for another woman's husband; lovesick sentimentalism."⁴⁰

Rummaging in the past, Ellen brought out Fannie's dead second romance to couple with this third incident. In Ann Arbor Fannie had met a Californian named Blakley (first name not given) and had fallen in love with him.⁴¹ When she went to Australia, Ellen told Colcord, "she expected he [Blakley] would write her, renewing his attentions to her, but no letter was received, and she almost blasphemed God because of His providence." ⁴² Ellen wrote to John Harvey Kellogg also about the Blakley matter, saying that Fannie "acted at times as if possessed of an evil spirit, and she set in to make us all miserable... [and] was sometimes impudent and accusing."⁴³

When campmeeting time rolled around in 1895 (October 17 to November 11), Fannie was there to meet her Waterloo. Again she told her secret. Ellen wrote that she stood "like a sheep bleating about the fold."⁴⁴ The bleating and the romantic entanglement were too much for Ellen. Kellogg wrote Ballenger of Fannie's report that she and Marian Davis had to go over the material copied from the books of other writers "and transpose sentences and change paragraphs and otherwise endeavor to hide the piracy," and as a result of Fannie's objections, Ellen not only dismissed her but slapped her face.⁴⁵

Finally, on November 12, 1895, Ellen wrote to Marian: "I have given nothing into Fannie's hands, and never expect to give her another chance to seek to betray me and turn traitor. I have had enough of 'talent' and 'ability' to last me a lifetime." Again on November 29 she wrote to Marian, "I have served my time with Fannie Bolton."⁴⁶

This was to have been the end of Fannie's term of service. Off and on, for a period of seven and a half years, Fannie had worked for Ellen. Now, the once "Christlike," "brilliant," "entertaining," "talented," "educated," and "productive" Fannie had degenerated, according to Ellen's recriminations, into a "poor, shallow soul," a "flashing meteor," a "practicer of deception," a "lovesick sentimentalist," a "pretentious actor," a "poor, deluded, misshapen character," and a "farce," and said she had become "trying," "provoking," "one-sided," "impulsive," "fickle," "unbalanced," depressed," "vacillating," and "unself-controlled."⁴⁷

Incredible as it may seem, Fannie was invited to work for Ellen a fourth time. As Fannie quoted Ellen's words back to her later, Ellen said that she had been told by an "unseen presence on March 20, 1895," that Fannie was to be taken back into the work: "If she [Fannie] separates now from you,' said the spirit, 'Satan's net is prepared for her feet. She is not in a condition to be left to herself now to be consumed of herself. She feels regret and remorse. I am her Redeemer, I will restore her if she will not exalt and honor and glorify herself. If she goes from you now, there is a chain of circumstances which will bring her into difficulties which will be her ruin.'"⁴⁸

In 1900 Ellen wrote to Irwin giving the reason for asking Fannie back a fourth time: "I now see why I was directed to give Fannie another trial. There are those who misunderstood me because of Fannie's misrepresentations. These were watching to see what course I would take in regard to her. They would have represented that I had abused poor Fannie Bolton. In following the directions to take her back, I took away all occasion for criticism from those who were ready to condemn me."⁴⁹

But Fannie was broken in body and in spirit. The years of overwork and stress had taken their toll of her less than robust physical and emotional health, leaving Fannie in no condition to work, and she decided to return to America. Her ship sailed on May 10, 1896.

The conflict might have died there, but Fannie talked again and again, wavering between loyalty to her literary maxims and to Ellen and her work. In 1897 Ellen was still smarting from the reports when she wrote to Fannie in April: "I will cut off the influence of your tongue in every way I can,"⁵⁰ and to the Tenneys in July: "Her imagination is very strong, and she makes such exaggerated statements that her words are not trustworthy."⁵¹

Fannie had given the reason for her conflict in 1894. "I felt that you were the servant of God," she wrote to Ellen, "and that I should be with you, there would be more hope of my salvation, than if I remained in any other branch of work. I thought that were I editing your writings, I should be found in the time of judgment giving meat in due season."⁵²

Finally, in 1901, to the great relief of Ellen's supporters, Fannie wrote what they considered to be her true confession: "I thank God that He has kept Sister White from following my supposed superior wisdom and righteousness, and has kept her from acknowledging editors or authors; but has given to the people the unadulterated expression of God's mind. Had she done as I wished her to do, the gift would have been degraded to a common authorship, its importance lost, its authority undermined, and its blessing lost to the world."⁵³

The last letter Ellen wrote to or about Fannie, according to The Story, was the one to Irwin in 1900. She was nearing age seventy-three, and Fannie was in her forty-first year. Perhaps Willie took over the controversy at that time. He wrote to Stephen N. Haskell: "It is no doubt a relief to you to write a few lines in each letter about Sister Bolton [to Ellen], but unless there is some obvious good to be accomplished, something definite to be done in response to what you write, it would be much pleasanter for Mother and greatly for the advancement of her work if such unpleasant things were not mentioned. The loss of two or three night's sleep over such a matter may deprive Mother of the strength which might have been used in bringing out some very important general matter for the instruction of the churches."⁵⁴

In 1911, when Fannie was fifty-two years of age, her emotional health broke, and she was admitted to the Kalamazoo State Hospital. She was released after thirteen months (February 20, 1911, to March 18, 1912). Less than two years before she died, she was admitted again for three months (October 9, 1924, to January 21, 1925). To Fannie's detractors, this was an indication that divine retribution was being meted out in the here and now, and positive proof that she had been unbalanced all along.

Fannie was heard from off and on during the years following her employment with Ellen. As late as 1914 she wrote: "I was with Mrs. White for seven and a half years like a soul on a rock, because of all kinds of inconsistencies, injustices and chicaneries." ⁵⁵

Three songs for which she had composed the music, one with words, were published in Christ in Song.⁵⁶ In her possession when she died, according to Hattie L. Porter, "were a lot of poems, some finished, and some not. She had thought to get them out in book form, but was too near the end of life to finish the work. Some of these poems were worthy of a place in our papers, and some showed her physical powers had weakened, and her mentality could not operate. These she knew were incomplete, and she called them 'Junk.'"⁵⁷

There was an Adventist man, Hattie wrote, who had wanted to marry Fannie; "but she could not see light in such a course with her health gone, but he visited her often, paid for her room and board and care, and funeral expenses, together with the sustentation check sent."⁵⁸ (Whether the man was Blakley or Caldwell or someone else is not known.)

Fannie died in 1926 at Battle Creek, according to the Review, on June 28. She was not yet sixty-seven years of age. Her friend Hattie wrote the obituary for the Review: "The peaceful expression on her face told us she felt ready to meet her Master." One of Fannie's own compositions was sung - "Not I but Christ." She was buried at Eureka, Michigan.⁵⁹

Ironically, her death certificate gives her occupation as "letter writer," the part of her work for Ellen that she disliked the very most.

See also

• Part 2 - Marian the Bookmaker
• Fannie Bolton's Testimony

Citations

1. The Calhoun Country, Michigan, death certificate (213-3126) filed 1 July 1926 for Frances E. Bolton, 36 Manchester Street, Battle Creek, notes that the informant for the "personal and historical particulars" was Josephine Huffman, of 68 Oaklawn Street.

2. Fannie's attendance years, graduation date, and the commencement oration title were provided 12 May 1983 by Northwestern University Library archivist, Patrick M. Quinn, who noted in passing that June 1983 was the hundredth anniversary of her graduation. The registrar's office at the University of Michigan certified in a letter of 26 May 1983 that Fannie was a full-time student in the liberal arts school there at Ann Arbor for the term September 1890 to June 1891, eight years after leaving Northwestern.

3. Ellen G. White Estate, comp., The Fannie Bolton Story: A Collection of Source Documents (Washington, D.C.: General Conference of SDA, 1982), Fannie Bolton to Mrs. E.C. Slawson, 30 December 1914; p. 108. (This compilation is hereafter referred to as The Story. Mrs. White is referred to as EGW. Unless another source is stated, the quotations in this Part 1 article are from The Story. The numbers shown for letters written by EGW refer to the file numbers at the White Estate. The page numbers are those in The Story collection.)

4. William C. White and Dores E. Robinson, The Work of Mrs. E.G. White's Editors (St. Helena, CA: Elmshaven Office, 30 August 1933), p. 3. (Hereafter referred to as The Work; Mr. White hereafter referred to as White or Willie.)

5. Bolton to Slawson, 30 December 1914; pp. 108-9.

6. White and Robinson, The Work, p. 3.

7. Ibid., p. 4.

8. EGW to Stephen N. Haskell and Mr. And Mrs. William Ings, 13 February 1888 (Letter 25); p. 1.

9. Edward S. Ballenger, ed., The Gathering Call, February 1932, pp. 16-22. Quoted in The Story, pp. 113-16.

10. Fannie Bolton, "A Confession Concerning the Testimony of Jesus," ca. April 1901; p. 102.

11. White and Robinson, The Work, p. 5.

12. White to Charles H. Jones, 23 June 1889; p. 2.

13. Bolton, "A Confession," ca. April 1901; p. 102.

14. EGW to Marian Davis, 29 October 1895 (Letter 102); p. 44.

15. Bolton to EGW, 30 April 1891; pp. 2-3.

16. EGW to White, 6 February 1894 (Letter 88); pp. 28-29.

17. Bolton to EGW, May Lacey, and Emily Campbell, 7 October 1892; p. 8.

18. Bolton to EGW, 4 May 1893; p. 12.

19. White and Robinson, The Work, p. 12.

20. Merritt G. Kellogg statement [March 1908], The Story, p. 107.

21. Bolton to EGW, 5 July 1897; p. 81.

22. George B. Starr, "The Watchcare of Jesus over the Writings Connected with the Testimony of Jesus," 2 June 1915, The Story, p. 110.

23. EGW to Marian Davis, 29 October 1895 (Letter 102); p. 42.

24. EGW to Bolton, 6 February 1894 (Letter 7); pp. 20-21.

25. Ibid., p. 27.

26. Ibid., p. 21.

27. EGW to White, 6 February 1894 (Letter 88); pp. 29, 32.

28. EGW to Ole A. Olsen, 5 February 1894 (Letter 59); pp. 19-20.

29. EGW to Davis, 29 October 1895 (Letter 102); p. 44.

30. EGW to George A. Irwin, 23 April 1900 (Letter 61; revision of 61-a; pp. 92-4); p. 95.

31. EGW to White, 6 February 1894 (Letter 88); pp. 31, 29.

32. EGW to Bolton, 6 February 1894 (Letter 7); pp. 20, 27-28.

33. Bolton to EGW, 9 February 1894; pp. 32-33.

34. EGW to Bolton, 10 February 1894 (Letter 6); p. 34.

35. William C. White to J. Edson White, 25 October 1895; p. 41.

36. EGW to I.N. Williams, 12 April 1896 (Letter 104); p. 70.

37. EGW to John Harvey Kellogg, 20 December 1895 (Letter 106); p. 60.

38. EGW to Bolton, 26 November 1895 (Letter 115); pp. 52-53.

39. EGW to Mr. And Mrs. George C. Tenney, 1 July 1897 (Letter 114); pp. 79-80.

40. EGW to Willard A. Colcord, 7 January 1896 (Letter 21); p. 62.

41. EGW to Kellogg, 20 December 1895 (Letter 106); p. 60.

42. EGW to Colcord, 7 January 1896 (Letter 21); p. 62.

43. EGW to Kellogg, 20 December 1895 (Letter 106); p. 60.

44. EGW Manuscript 12-d 19[20?] March 1896; p. 64.

45. John Harvey Kellogg to Edward S. Ballenger, 9 January 1936. Quoted in The Story, p. 120. Full paragraph:

Fannie Bolton was with her at that time. A year or two later she returned to Battle Creek. She left Mrs. White who incorporated in one of her books something she had herself written and without giving credit. She said Mrs. White was in the habit of doing this, copying from various other books, so that she and Mary Ann Davis had to go over the material and transpose sentences and change paragraphs and in otherwise endeavor to hide the piracy. She spoke to Mrs. White about it and objected to having her own manuscript used without credit. Mrs. White was very angry and slapped her face. She mentioned the circumstance to one of the preachers and was forthwith dismissed from Mrs. White's employ and came back to America.

46. EGW to Davis, 12 November 1895 (Letter 103); 29 November 1895 (Letter 22-a); p. 49 and pp. 53-54.

47. The Story, passim.

48. Bolton to EGW, 5 July 1897, quoting from EGW Manuscript 12-c (1 April 1896; 20 March dateline [see p. 65]); p. 85.

49. EGW to Irwin, 23 April 1900 (Letter 61; revision of 61-a, pp. 92-94); pp. 95-96.

50. EGW to Bolton, 11 April 1897 (Letter 25); p. 74.

51. EGW to Tenney, 5 July 1897 (Letter 115); p. 80.

52. Bolton to EGW, 9 February 1894; pp. 32-33.

53. Bolton, "A Confession," ca. April 1901; p. 106.

54. White to Stephen N. Haskell, 13 July 1900; p. 101.

55. Bolton to Slawson, 30 December 1914; pp. 108-9.

56. The hymnal Christ in Song (first published by the Review and Herald in 1908) contained three songs copyrighted by Fannie: No. 197, "Come Out in the Sunshine," words and tune; No. 209, "The Dove of Peace," tune only (words by S. H. Bolton, perhaps her father?); No. 230, "Not I, but Christ" (words adapted from Galatians 2:20).

57. Hattie L. Porter to William A. Spicer, 25 July 1933; p. 117.

58. Ibid., p. 118.

59. Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 103:41 (5 August 1926), p. 22.