Ruth Keese & Jessie Luther, 1908

Jessie Luther | St. Anthony, May 10th, 1910

Our comfortable sense of isolation is over. An uneasy anticipation of impending change is in the air. The general upheaval will begin with the arrival of the Prospero, which is expected to bring a part of the summer contingent. We hear rumors of hordes: collegians, volunteers, nurses, medical students. There will also be an exodus. Mr. Evans will leave us and is already inspecting locks on his trunk and suitcase. His feeling savors of emancipation. Mrs. Grenfell plans to go home for a visit and return in late June with visitors for the summer. Miss Kennedy, after long and devoted service, is going home for a much-needed vacation. Mrs. Manager departs with her baby in June, and Mr. Manager will travel from place to place on the schooners to oversee business affairs at little settlements connected with the Mission. The Doctor will stay here but plans to go north on the Strathcona after Dr. Little returns in June with one of his sisters.

An interesting arrival will be Mr. Jesse Halsey, a Presbyterian minister who after an intensive course in plumbing and kindred practical crafts is to serve the Mission by superintending drainage installation. He will arrive with his bride in June to stay for a year, probably located at the Guest House. Also in June, Dr. Wakefield will reappear with his bride, and still another reappearance will be Dr. Grenfell’s cousin, Mr. Spencer, who is returning to direct agricultural development and enlist enthusiastic co-operation from the students if anyone can. He has the personality to bring results. The semi-annual kaleidoscopic shift of personnel is beginning. It will be interesting to see how the pieces fall into place and what the ultimate picture will be.”

from Jessie Luther at the Grenfell Mission, an annotated edition of a travel journal that Luther wrote from 1906 to 1910, edited by Ronald Rompkey (2001)

Jessie Luther | St. Anthony, October 23rd, 1910

During any absence of several weeks beyond the reach of definite communication, one can always count on changes—sometimes even startling events to be reported. On returning to St. Anthony, I found this to be true. There had been arrivals. Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Halsey (who were expected) had arrived and already become popular as well as valuable assets to the community. Dr. Wakefield had also arrived with his attractive bride, her lively personality and beautiful voice adding tot everyone’s pleasure as well as her interest and co-operation in local affairs.

from Jessie Luther at the Grenfell Mission, an annotated edition of a travel journal that Luther wrote from 1906 to 1910, edited by Ronald Rompkey (2001)

Jessie Luther | Providence, R.I., 1916

In Retrospect

Another important event for all of us is associated with that year [1911]. This was romance, the marriage of Dr. Little and Ruth Keese after three years of happy association. They were married by Mr. Jesse Halsey at the assistant doctor’s house, and the union of two persons so beloved by everyone was hailed with joy. The wedding was one of the simplest and most beautiful I ever witnessed, just a small gathering of friends brought together informally in the little room decorated with spruce boughs and yellow-leaved birch branches. Ruth Keese, in her familiar blue linen gown, and Dr. Little, in well known tweeds, entered the house together and after chatting with guests came forward with joined hands to stand before Mr. Halsey when he entered in his clerical gown to perform the short ceremony. In the dining room Mrs. Grenfell had prepared a beautiful table for the wedding feast, to which all members of the staff contributed. Then, after congratulations and best wishes to the newlyweds, we left them.

Each of these four summers would in detail be a story in itself, not only because of incidents but personalities closely interwoven with them. In addition to those who already made the background, there were others. Mr. Jesse Halsey, only briefly mentioned at the end of my second year, was a Presbyterian minister who came for a year of volunteer service not only to give spiritual guidance but to install plumbing, a shining example of practical Christianity who dressed in overalls for emergencies and donned his clerical down when occasion required.

from Jessie Luther at the Grenfell Mission, an annotated edition of a travel journal that Luther wrote from 1906 to 1910, edited by Ronald Rompkey (2001)

Jessie Luther | April 1952

Afterword

From time to time, a reminiscent word has come to me across land or sea, and I have met face to face some old associates nearer home. But whether they are far or near, I feel that among all who have shared the experience of life in the Mission, and especially those who labored together in the early difficult years, a bond exists that will endure. To those now living who shared this experience and to the families of those who are now a memory, I send greetings.

from Jessie Luther at the Grenfell Mission, an annotated edition of a travel journal that Luther wrote from 1906 to 1910, edited by Ronald Rompkey (2001)

Jessie Luther at the Grenfell Mission

Jessie Luther at the Grenfell Mission, an annotated edition of a travel journal that Luther wrote from 1906 to 1910, edited by Ronald Rompkey (2001)

"An early practitioner of occupational therapy, artist Jessie Luther challenged the dominant approach of the time of 'rest' as a general, curative treatment. A member of the Arts and Crafts Society in New England, Luther 'began her crafts career as director of the Labor Museum at Hull House, Chicago, at the invitation of the social reformer Jane Addams. In 1906, she was recruited by Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, the medical missionary, to teach weaving to women at St Anthony, a small community at the northern tip of Newfoundland.""

from "Among the Deep Sea Fishers" | July 1916

“On the Road to Labrador”
 

…We had the pleasure in New York of seeing many other loyal friends, though at the Outlook office, where so often we have found help in need, we missed our beloved friend, Dr. Hamilton W. Mabie, who was seriously ill at his home. It was a great pleasure to see again our loved friend, Dr. Lyman Abbott; among others, too, were friends who have been with us in Labrador, Mr. Glen Wright, and Mr. Will Moody, whose noble work keeps him so closely at the grindstone raising the means for the institutions at Northfield that bless the world through endless lives of pupils and visitors. It is many years since the day, in the far off London slum where I was working at hospital, that his father’s message first woke my consciousness, but I still seem to hear it and am still striving to repeat it, yet my head is now gray and my half-century completed. Why do we think men die?

Here at the Pratt Institute we were proud to find our two young men who are soon to return and help us in the North. One, “Johnny,” as we know him, is finishing his course, having been helped through his previous year by our old colleague, the Rev. Jesse Halsey, of Cincinnati. “Johnny” is to start now on his own account making our sealskins into boots—his course having been tanning—while to help the mat industry, the dyeing of the material to the needed hues is also to be under his management. Mr. McHugh, at his shop in Forty-second Street, near the library, has stocked our mats and is glad to see any friends who are interested in that branch of our work, and to supply them with any they care to order. We are still looking for a head to our industrial work, to take up, carry on, and amplify Miss Luther’s work.

W. T. Grenfell

Summer 1912

from Jessie Luther: At the Grenfell Mission

Another important event for all of us is associated with that year. This was romance, the marriage of Dr. Little and Ruth Keese (L.M.K.) after three years of happy association. They were married by Mr. Jesse Halsey at the assistant doctor’s house, and the union of two persons so beloved by everyone was hailed with joy. The wedding was one of the simplest and most beautiful I ever witnessed, just a small gathering of friends brought together informally in the little room decorated with spruce boughs and yellow-leaved birch branches. Ruth Keese, in her familiar blue linen gown, and Dr. Little, in well known tweeds, entered the house together and after chatting with guests came forward with joined hands to stand before Mr. Halsey when he entered in his clerical gown to perform the short ceremony. In the dining room, Mrs. Grenfell had prepared a beautiful table for the wedding feast, to which all members of the staff contributed. Then, after congratulations and best wishes to the newlyweds, we left them.

Another exciting event of that summer was the arrival at St. Anthony of a beautiful three-masted schooner with a party of Mrs. Grenfell’s friends aboard, bound for a trip down the Labrador coast. The ship, donated to the Mission by Mr. George B. Cluett of Troy, N.Y., and built with special reference to its requirements, had been chartered by Mr. W.R. Stirling of Chicago for a Labrador cruise, and this was her maiden voyage. At Boston, she had taken on a cargo of Mission supplies, and her stop at St. Anthony was to deliver them as well as to pay a social visit.

Mr. Stirling’s small party, which included his daughter, Miss Dorothy Stirling, Miss Harriot Houghteling and other friends of Mrs. Grenfell, spent their time on shore, and St. Anthony was gay until they sailed away after a brief visit, taking Dr. Grenfell with them as skipper for the northern voyage. One can imagine the enjoyment of such a trip under the Doctor’s guidance and the thrilling anticipation of possible hazards from icebergs or shoals along the uncharted coast.

For my own part, the hazards of a voyage on the George B. Cluett became my most notable experience of the following year, 1912. In late June, with other Mission personnel—doctors, nurses, collegians going north for a summer of volunteer service—I sailed from Boston for St. Anthony on the schooner instead of taking the conventional route by rail and steamer. The voyage was uneventful, but the last day our calm security vanished as we faced threatened disaster from fire, shoals, fog, heavy seas and finally near collision with an iceberg, a twenty-four-hour experience which, in detail, would be worth telling.

 

"plumbing and kindred practical crafts"

The Rev. Jesse Halsey, clergyman and plumber, October 1910

Jessie Luther, Journal Entry

May 10, 1910 - An interesting arrival will be Mr. Jesse Halsey, a Presbyterian minister who after an intensive course in plumbing and kindred practical crafts is to serve the Mission by superintending drainage installation. He will arrive with his bride in June to stay for a year, probably located at the Guest House.

from Jessie Luther at the Grenfell Mission by Ronald Rumpkey, 2001.