God Bless the Missionaries and Colporteurs

Related Link: God Bless the Missionaries and the Colporteurs - Video (Not up yet; will circle back around shortly.)

The only thing separating Mary from John is the kitchen table. “You will not join that church!” John lunges to his right. Mary edges away, eyeing the butcher knife in his hand.

“Rotten religion.” His voice slurs as he lunges again. Tomorrow he won't remember this incident, but that doesn't help her much today. He lunges one more time, and loses his footing. As he falls, Mary fleas out the kitchen door, yanks it shut behind her, and makes a beeline for the barn.

John and Mary McGuffin were my mother's mother's parents. John's drunken rage on this particular day stemmed from Mary's decision to join the Seventh-day Adventist church. At one point he also got her best dress out of the closet, dragged it out to the yard, and set it on fire. I guess he thought if she didn't have the dress, she couldn't go to church.

I've heard this story from several branches of the family, and while I can't confirm exact details, I can confirm that Mary did join the church. There were no 12-step programs back then, so it's reasonable to believe that Mary reacted to John's drinking by seeking solace in the arms of a church community where nobody drank alcohol.

Mary raised her younger children in the church, and in doing so, she ensured a lasting legacy. When you join the church, you become a member of a tribe. You have your own dialect, your own rules, your own unique shared history. Even if you leave the church, you never really leave the tribe. And the tribe will reinforce your life values through weekly church services, daily church school, church scout groups, church periodicals. It will teach you to help the sick, the poor, the elderly, to take care of your own health. And it will keep doing this from generation to generation.

Here’s a photo of Mary from 1876. She's 23. She married John when she was 18. I don’t know how long it took her to figure out that life with him might be dangerous, but at some point her father helped her leave.

Mary Esther McMillan (McGuffin, Houser) 1876, age 23

Eventually she took a homestead in South Dakota. This mid-life photo doesn't have a date written on it anywhere.

Mary Esther McMillan (McGuffin, Houser) - Date Unknown 

Here’s a photo from later in life, with son Ewen and grandson Jack. Jack was born in 1914, so this is probably around 1922?

Mary Esther McMillan (McGuffin, Houser) with son Ewen and grandson Jack, est 1922

When I was a kid, we would often end our prayers with "God bless the missionaries and the colporteurs." A colporteur is a person who sells religious books door to door, and this is what Mary did for many years. She did it to supplement her income, but she also did it because every book she sold introduced the Lord’s word to another person.


The Adventist church has an online archive of old periodicals, and when I search them, I can track her progress.

In 1912, she says she is making an average of one dollar per hour.

With permission from adventistarchives.org. Northern Union Reaper, March 5, 1912

In 1916,  she still loves the work, and Lord willing she will continue it. You can see here that she worked 28 hours last week and made 52 dollars.

With permission from adventistarchives.org. Nortnern Union Reaper, July 25, 1916

In 1920, she is 60 years old and still strong and healthy. This is a small excerpt from a larger article.

With permission from adventistarchives.org. Northern Union Reaper, April 6, 1920

Eventually she remarried to a man named David Houser. Here is her obituary in 1932. She was a faithful believer in the advent hope for 45 years.

With permission from adventistarchives.com, North Pacific Union Gleaner, Nov 29, 1932

Did future generations find Mary’s religion to be a blessing or a curse? I think it depends on who you ask. The church was a great comfort to some, and a source of unrelenting guild for others. And I remember times when I was young where social interactions with nonbelievers felt awkward, because we were used to interacting mostly with other church members, in a little Adventist bubble. But we did have a shared vision and a clear purpose, and many family members are still part of this church, six and seven generations after Mary and John. That is a lasting legacy.

The other day I watched a TEDx video called "Building a 7-Generation World." In this video, Susan Bosak encourages us to view our life stories in the context of the three generations that come before us, and the three generations that come after us, making a "me" story a "we" story.

As I look back at my great grandmother's life, I wonder what I can do to touch the future the way she did. I’m not going to join a radical new religion, but I hope to tell my great grandchildren about hers. I would like for them to live lives of service and purpose.

If I could choose just one thing that really stands out about Great Grandma Mary, it was the way she just stuck to things. She chose her spiritual path and stuck to it. She chose to sell books, and she went to door after door, year after year. She believed in that advent hope for 45 years.

For my friends and family with Adventist roots, you can find all sorts of interesting things at adventistarchives.org. Click on "Historical Archives" and then select "Magazines and Journals".

If your family came from a different tribe, go hunting. Other church organizations must have historical records as well. Find those legacies. Carry them forward. Transform your life experience from a "me" story to a "we" story.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

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Treasure Chest - Video

Related Link: Treasure Chest - Written Word

This is a YouTube Video version of the Treasure Chest story

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Treasure Chest - Written Word

Related Link: Treasure Chest - Video

When I was a preschooler, my mother kept a box in her closet. It looked like a miniature pirate's chest. She let me reach in there and pull things out — old photos, Grandma's scrapbook, a very old game of pick up sticks. Mom called this her treasure chest. I asked her why.

"Because, sweetheart, my mother died when I was 14. These were her things, and they helped me feel close to her when I was sad.” 

I thought that chest was almost magical, and I wished I could meet Grandma Grace. It didn't seem fair that some of my friends had grandmothers nearby to rock them and kiss them and make them yummy cookies.

As I got older I forgot all about the treasure chest. We adopted a baby boy, and I was busy helping him learn to play baseball and important things like that. Then in 1971 we lost my little brother to an accident. I was 12, just two years younger than Mom was when Grandma Grace died. I remember being really lonely. I tried to stay busy with school, but then came Christmas vacation - long days in that quiet house. 

One day I found that old box on my bed with a note in Mom's handwriting: "Nancy's Treasure Chest." I reached in and pulled out Grandma's scrapbook. The front cover was missing. The whole thing was faded and hard to read. A blurry photo fell out of the back of the book. It's hard to make out, but this is my Grandma, Grace Sophia McGuffin, with her twin brother Edgar and their mother, there in the snow with the horses. 

Mary, Edgar, and Grace McGuffin around 1910-15, Line, SD

Back behind them you can see the faint outline of a sod house. I looked through the box for more photos. Here's a better photo of that sod house. Doesn't Uncle Edgar look dapper? 

Mary and Edgar McGuffin, early 1900s.

And here’s a better photo of the twins. They were born in Michigan in 1891. Grace attended Battle Creek college and taught school in South Dakota until she married my grandfather, Elmer Olson, in 1915. They started a family and moved to Portland, Oregon, where Gramps worked as a carpenter. They attended the Sunnyside Seventh-day Adventist Church. Two of their children died in infancy -- one a few days after birth, and the other from pneumonia at 14 months. My aunt told me that Grace first found out she had breast cancer in 1931. After surgery, it seemed to be gone, but then in 1934 it came back, taking her life in January of 1935. She left behind six children ages three through sixteen.

I started reading the scrapbook. The first page is filled with poetry. Here's the first stanza of a poem by Robert Whitaker. He was a Baptist minister in the Pacific Northwest. I remember being enchanted with her handwriting.

After that there were several pages of grammar rules. I wonder if she wrote these as a student, or if she used them when she was teaching school. Based on all the things my mother and aunt told me, Grace didn't stop teaching when her employment ended. She just changed from a classroom of pupils to a house full of children, so I wouldn't be surprised if Mom got an ear full of these grammar lessons.

The book has page after page of newspaper clippings. Here's a handy tip. "Did you know that gum may be removed from cloth if the spot is saturated with gasoline?" 

After the tips were recipes. I took the book to the kitchen. "Hey Mom, can we make this apple pie recipe from Grandma's book?" We ended up making the pie and some peanut butter cookies. And it felt like Grandma was in the kitchen with us as we sliced and stirred. I hadn’t had that much fun in weeks!

We did not try to make this recipe. This is for fake meat. It calls for a pound of peanuts and five pounds of flour. 

Then I found a list of books. "Hey Dad, will you take me to the library to check out these books that Grandma recommends?" 

We got Little Women and Little Men, and as I was reading them, it felt like Grandma was sitting next to me, like I could lean right up against her while I read. Way up at the top of this list it says "1918." That's when the Spanish Flu was killing people all over the world. It's my family's pandemic reading list for the 20th century.

Here are some riddles. Why is it illegal for a man to possess a short walking stick? Because it can never be long to him. Har Har. I tried that one on Gramps, and I thought I could hear Grandma Grace whisper in my ear, "See there? He almost smiled!"  

Thanks to my mother, I’ve been using this scrapbook to get acquainted and re-acquainted with Grandma ever since. And I've learned a lot too, as I looked up the authors of her poems, read the books on her list, rolled my eyes at her riddles, played some of the sheet music, and scanned through her household tips.

You people who run out to the store and pay money for Sudoko, here's how Grandma did it.

And finally, I came across a page of my mother's handwriting. How old do you suppose she was here?

If you inherit a scrapbook, I have a few suggestions. If it's fragile, make a good copy. Then go through it slowly, so you don't hit information overload. Ask some questions. Do you see trends? What subjects did the creator find the most fascinating? When was the book made? What was going on in history then?

What is Grace Sophia McGuffin's legacy? From her book, I would say she was fond of pickles, and potatoes, and really bad puns. She liked to collect ideas, write things down, read great books, and use good grammar. Her children and extended family tell me that she was kind and had a gentle sense of humor. She sewed all their clothes. They liked the potatoes she made for dinner after church. They liked her to butter their toast all the way to the edges. They liked it when she set up a little salon in the dining room and cut their hair.   

If I were to choose one thing about her, one thing that really stands out, it's the fact that her teaching career was over in 1915, but her lessons still live on. Years after her death, she had a tremendous impact on my life, thanks in part to the contents of that Treasure Chest.

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