p. 16 | Sojourning in the South by Josephine Gotzian

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 16, 1909

Sojourning in the South

By Josephine Gotzian

On the last day of June, 1908, I reached Nashville, Tenn. This was my first visit to the Southern States, and naturally I was anxious to see our various institutions and other places of interest in a field so frequently referred to by the spirit of prophecy.

In the year that I spent in the South I learned to love the people and the place. I visited our institutions in Chattanooga and Atlanta, and the Florida Sanitarium at Orlando, where Dr. Lydia E. Parmele is doing a good work. I also visited Elder G. I. Butler and Brother W. H. Hall, who are both pioneers in our work.

From Florida I went to Washington, D. C., to attend the General Conference; and as I arrived there before the meeting opened, I had an opportunity to visit the different institutions there.

I am carrying away with me very favorable impressions of the South. Its people are genial and warm hearted,—the very best people I ever met to listen while the truth is presented to them. They will take time to talk and to listen when the Westerner will not. The climate, which I had heard spoken of in such uncomplimentary terms, agreed perfectly with me. I slept outdoors most of the time, winter and summer, and found it delightful. I can not understand why so few of our people heed the Lord's call for workers in the South.

It is my special burden to see the health work developed. There should be many small sanitariums scattered throughout the South; and treatment rooms, conducted, not on an elaborate basis, but in a modest, economical way, can do an untold amount of good.

Restaurant work ought to be started in all the large cities. If begun in a small way, possibly two or three in the larger places, the workers might easily be self-supporting, and have an excellent opportunity to visit the people and scatter literature. It is not expensive equipment that is needed so much as the neat dining place, with health foods palatably prepared. Such, it seems to me, might be wonderfully blessed of God.

While in the South, I made my headquarters at the Nashville Agricultural and Normal Institute. I was in their Rural Sanitarium, a very simple institution, located on the school farm in a delightfully quiet spot. It is an innovation in the sanitarium work in these respects: the buildings are very simple, the nurses are members of the school family, and the institution is not on heavy expense when not filled with patients.

People of Nashville are learning of the advantages of this quiet retreat, and at present the sanitarium is practically filled with guests from some of the first families in the city.

Sister E. C. Gray, of California, has been arranging her affairs so as to connect with the institute as business manager. Sister Eva Piper, of Iowa, is matron of the sanitarium. From the opening of the school, Elder S. N. Haskell has planned eventually to make that his home, and he writes that he hopes soon to have a cottage on the school farm.

It was a great pleasure to me to mingle with the students. They are an earnest, devoted class of young people who have consecrated their lives to the work in the South. The institute gives them a training in self-support that prepares them to start rural industrial schools without any promise of a salary.

I visited several of the highland schools conducted by the students. I saw, also, the work of Hillcrest, the school conducted by Brethren O. R. Staines and F. Bralliar for training colored workers to do self-supporting work for their race. It does me good to see these people endeavoring to carry out the instruction of the Lord through the Testimonies.

The Testimonies say these schools will be the means of bringing many people into the truth. Two new churches have been organized, and two or three more companies are nearly ready for organization.

I have great confidence in the work of these schools as long as they follow the instruction of the Testimonies. I hope some day the way will open for me to return to the South to help carry out the instruction in what the Lord calls one of the most needy fields in the world.

JOSEPHINE GOTZIAN.