"The Continent" | February 27, 1919

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Your Savings and Their Investment

Will Address Fathers and Sons

Cincinnati—Cincinnati Presbytery, through its committee on education is arranging for a father and son dinner in the Church of the Covenant on March 7. Dr. W. O. Thompson, president of Ohio State University, is to make an address.

Keep Him Busy—Rev. Jesse Halsey, pastor of Seventh church, who saw two years of service with Dr. Grenfell, on the Labrador, and who has recently returned from a year of Y.M.C.A. service in Russia, has delivered nearly a hundred addresses since his return.

Give Auto to Pastor—Rev. A. L. Wilson, of Cincinnati Wyoming Church, who spend some months at Camp Sherman, Chillicothe, and later became engaged in “hut” work in Cincinnati, has recently been presented with a new automobile by his men members, who said they were tired of seeing him go about with “Lizzie.” The ladies of the church gave Mrs. Wilson a camping outfit.

from Grenfell, As Theologian--and More

By Jesse Halsey

He came in, leaving his snow shoes by the door, sat down by our smoking peat fire, slipped off a sealskin boot and began to manipulate its stiffness over a can that stood in the corner just the way the natives do all down the Shore; then blurted out, “Parson, is there any such entity as the Grace of God?”

This was my first contact with Grenfell, as Theologian. I had seen the surgeon operating in his new hospital; had “poured the ether” for him and once held a leg five minutes after he had amputated it, and at length heard him say:  “You can lay it down now, I’m through with it.” I’d seen him, week on end, fill the largest building on the college campus, where ordinarily “daily prayers” were sparsely attended; listened to his tales of travel with his dogs on the ice and with his hospital steamer through the ice; seen him painlessly extract money in large sums from a Boston audience, but here was a new Grenfell—the Theologian.

“Is there any such ‘entity’ as the Grace of God?” What did he mean exactly? I tried to say that grace was a quality in God, an attribute of his character; that he was gracious and merciful in his very nature and being. No, he thought “grace” must be more than just a quality, it must be an “entity.” Definition of entity? He didn’t exactly know, but a “glorious something”—and there we left it.

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" | January 1910

The Improvements at St. Anthony

1^st December 1909

Dear Mr. Editor:

The new enlargement of St. Anthony Hospital is now finished outside, and the top floor will be in use this winter. The heating apparatus for the whole building, however, cannot be completed till spring, when Mr. Halsey of the Union Seminary, New York, and of Princeton University, will see to the proper installation. The need for this enlargement is almost entirely owing to the splendid surgical work of Dr. John Mason Little of Harvard, who joined us in 1907.

--Wilfred Grenfell

from "Among the Deep Sea Fishers" | October 1933

 

Rev. Jesse Halsey, Sir Grenfell, Charles

Alumni News


Sir Wilfred’s motor boat, the PETREL, was brought down from St. Anthony on the New Northland and piloted through Lake Champlain to Charlotte. The skipper was Sir Wilfred; the first mate was the Reverend Jesse Halsey, who about 1910 spent three years on the Coast; the crew were Charles and Frederick Halsey, both born in St. Anthony.

Dog-Team Tavern | Middlebury, VT

Brief Items

A list of the Thursday evening entertainments at the Dog-Team Tavern last summer—the International Evenings—appears below. These evenings were tremendously successful, and Labrador is fully appreciate of the effort of all who helped to make them so. . .

On the last of the Thursday evenings, August 31^st, Sir Wilfred gave a lecture which he entitled “From Labrador to Lake Champlain,” and which he illustrated with moving pictures and slides.

"The sea tugged at his heart--"

(Gentlemen—I didn’t mean to preach. This was written primarily for my children. I have hoped they would catch some of my enthusiasm that Grenfell gave to me.)

The last time we talked (in Spring of 1940), we both wished that we were young enough to go to the English Channel now. Twenty years ago we went as did our ancestors three hundred years before us. We also reluctantly admitted that our boys are not so eager to go as were we, or their ancestors twelve generations ago. They do not see the treat—to Dover sands and all else besides that we covet dear. We (old fellows) wondered if the stock is running out.

For thirty years he was my hero—and still is. He spoke of life and treated it as “An Adventure.” He could steer his ship by the stars or the sun or by dead reckoning. He used to say that a poor chart was worse than none at all. Many poor charts he revised, and many a storm he has outridden (these things are a parable). He wrecked some boats and bumped the bottom of others, but he built a ship railway to repair his own and those of all others.

The sea tugged at his heart—He’s off on another voyage. That’s what he believed. And I believe it too; he taught me. The first books he ever gave me were on immortality. He used to talk about it—quite naturally, just as he talked of other things. I listened, but I wasn’t entirely interested. But now . . . well, one gets older . . . things gain perspective . . .

Daily Princetonian, Volume 38, Number 29, 4 April 1913

WORK OF DR. WILFRED T. GRENFELL IN LABRADOR

Dr. Jesse Halsey of the Mission's Medical Staff Explains its Nature

REMARKABLE RESULTS

In Spite of Hardships, Well-Regulated and Sanitary Community Has Been Developed

Dr. Jesse Halsey, a member of the medical staff of the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen at Labrador addressed the regular midweek meeting of the Philadelphian Society last night. His subject was "The Work of Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell in Labrador." Dr. Grenfell's Heroic Work

Passing briefly over the life of Dr. Grenfell, the speaker bent every effort to make clear to all the intensely interesting, as well as heroic, work which is being done under Dr. Grenfell's inspiration among the deep sea fishermen along the barren coasts north of the St. Lawrence. His entire talk was profusely illustrated by lantern slides depicting the surroundings of these people and the mission work which is being done among them.

The purpose of this work is to help these people to help themselves and in order to accomplish this purpose it is essential that sanitary and economic conditions be improved. The average home of the fishermen is no more than a hut and during the long winter months their diet consists of the supply of dried fish which they have collected during the summer. In fact the fish are the most important factor in the life of the native. If his luck deserts him in the fishing season, the winter is one of dire necessity and this is one of the many times at which the mission lends a helping hand to the suffering Dr. Grenfell has built up a community among these people, which is well-regulated and sanitary in every way possible.

His attention has been given to the erection of hospitals, cooperative stores and orphans homes as well as saw mills, and other laborsaving institutions. The various phases of the work are combined under the religious influence exerted by the mission staff. Dr. Grenfell, as his own skipper travels along the coast each, year personally coming in touch with the needs of the fishermen.

The Spirit of the Mission

Dr. Halsey closed with an explanation that the term, mission, should be applied to this work in its larger sense. The workers in this great field are seeking in every possible way to make life easier and more livable for these rough and simple people. The whole spirit is expressed in the motto painted on the Mission hospital. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me." *

Eulogy: Sir Wilfred Grenfell

 

By Jesse Halsey

I have told you something about the Shore, something about the people, and a little about the Mission, now I want to put the emphasis where it belongs—on The Man. He it was who made the Mission, helped the people, and put the shore ‘on the map’—our Chief, THE Doctor, Sir Wilfred!

He was a tall, well set up man with a body always under an athlete’s discipline. He would go over the steamer’s rail of a summer morning as we cruised the shore, swim a few minutes ice floating around, a dozen icebergs in site, and climb back. All the boys who sailed with him were supposed to follow. It was fearful, but he enjoyed it. (I think it had something to do with his heart trouble—he said not.)

He had a furrowed face, suntanned, sea battered and open, topped by graying hair worn pompadour. This accentuated his already high forehead; sea blue eyes, clear and steady, set in deep sockets with heavy eyebrows, a good sized nose, a mouth always on the verge of a smile with a well-trimmed but fair-sized grizzled mustache; a sinewy neck well set on square shoulders. My description won’t help you much to visualize; never mind, what he did tells more about him, and the way he did it tells even more of the manner of man he was.

The son of an English Rectory (Charles Kingsley was his uncle), a low churchman, he had small use for doctrinaire religion; he despised narrowness, and convention. He never smoked—except during Lent. I remember one Good Friday he was at our house (in St. Anthony). Parson Gardiner was staying with us—he was the Church of England archdeacon who came once a year. Gardiner was utterly miserable, nervous as a cat, because he couldn’t smoke (Good Friday—that would soon be over). Grenfell was almost as bad wishing for Easter, too—that he might quit his self-imposed penance!

While young Grenfell, having finished Oxford, was interning in a London hospital under Sir Frederick Treves, he was converted in a Moody meeting. He loved to tell the story, there was no piousity about it—just real experience. I once heard him tell it to a thousand teachers; they paid him a thousand dollars and seemed well satisfied. I might repeat it here as I wrote it for an Eastern paper at the time of his death.

I have been converted, I hope you have.” I heard him say it to two thousand teachers at one time (and he was paid a thousand dollars to say it—and what followed.) He said it naturally and simply, meaning just what he said. His life came to focus at a certain time, and he was always trying to lead others to make decisions—the decision: to follow Christ.

That was Grenfell, in essence.

It started in a Moody meeting, his “Adventure,” as he called it. While a medical student, he went to that meeting, not to hear Moody, but to see a celebrated cricket player who was there. Mr. Moody side-tracked a long-winded prayer by saying to Mr. Sankey, “Let’s sing while the brother concludes his prayer.” Grenfell and his friends who were about to leave were arrested by that remark and remained—to pray.

He was converted, not from an evil life to one of righteousness, but, as he said, “from one of dallying to one of direction.” I found my compass that night.”

Internship over, Grenfell went out to the fishing fleet in the North Sea as a medical missionary. (Those sturdy fellows that are this minute hauling their catches from under the very noses of German submarines.)

Then, seeking the most needy place in the British Empire, he went to Labrador and worked as a doctor from the deck of a schooner. The next year, he built a tiny dispensary on the northern tip of Newfoundland. In summer, by boat, some sail, some steam, some diesel—a long succession of them laying their weary bones on the rocks; in winter (long and cold—Admiral Peary told me the meanest he knew), by dog team and sledge (komaticks, they say “down there”), in season, out of season, going, going, going—a modern St. Luke.

Dr. Grenfell had a good technical skill in his profession—an indispensable sine qua non to a doctor, but that equipment would have been relatively useless without that focusing decision, “conversion.” Which was more important, the education or the decision? Both were indispensable for his job. That was the thesis of his lecture—and of his life.

Tuberculosis was rampant on The Shore. Prophylaxis was just becoming a great word in medicine in those days. To cure was his mission as a doctor—and to prevent disease. Food, more of it in quantity and variety, was needed to fight the ravages of tuberculosis. Food was frightfully expensive, the people always in debt and the prices dictated by a strong combine of traders in the capital city.

So we see the missionary entering a trade war in order to fight, not traders, but disease. His Christ-impulse set him forward, his technical skill demanding. He spent his private fortune in his co-operatives, but he broke the truck system on the Shore and brought down the price of flour and made other things possible besides break and tea, and tea and bread, for fishermen’s tables.

Liquor debauched the sailors. In a long hard fight, in which the missionary became magistrate, he at last made The Shore as dry as an empty jug.

There have been industrial missions in many places, and preaching missions, and medical missions, and other kinds of missions, but Grenfell’s Labrador Mission combined them all, as probably no other single mission has ever done. And all this to “help people to help themselves.” “What would Christ do with this situation if He were here?” That was his criterion.

He had fights on his hands. Christ was a good fighter, so Grenfell thought. Fights with politicians and merchants. The people themselves often opposed him (as in the reindeer experiment, and that they might supplant the husky dog which made other livestock impossible.)

Once, I listed forty odd activities that the Chief had initiated. Some come back to me now: the hospitals (of course), orphanages, loom-rooms, lumber mill, sash and door factory, pottery, ship railway, “co-op stores, schools, agriculture (in a country where every month, save a possible August, has frosts), tanning of seal skin, and so forth, many times over. All these and many others—some successful, some abortive—all devised by a Christian missionary as his honest endeavor to follow Christ to Labrador!

Sir Wilfred (my ancestors fought under one of his ancestors in the Straits of Dover against the Armada, some twelve generations ago), was a brave knight, slaying the dragons of disease, and poverty, and ignorance where he met them. He was a humble follower of The Way, a faithful disciple and at times a flaming apostle. He loved adventure and would risk almost anything. Life to him was itself an adventure—an Adventure with Christ. As I have heard him say to crowds at Harvard and to individuals (student and fisherman alike) on the deck of his little vessel. He believed it and lived it. He has now gone on to another Adventure—with Christ.

-- from an article in Presbyterian Life | October 1940, reprinted in Among the Deep Sea Fishers, 1941

from "Down North"

Jesse Halsey on the Labrador "Esquimau" | c1932

I started to tell about the country and I wandered to here.

There are esquimau in Labrador. For two hundred years, the Moravian missionaries have lived among them; they are educated and Christian and support themselves from the fur and the fish, and from the fur the missions also derive their support. Strangely, the Moravians never had a full-fledged doctor on their staff. There are immigrant Indians in the interior, but most of the “Liveyeres” are descendents of English, Welsh, and Scotch fishermen who began to come there in the time of Queen Elizabeth and either stayed of choice or were wrecked on the shore. Many of their descendants show traces of Indian and Esquimau in their features and color. (Anyone who goes through a Labrador springtime with its glistering snow-reflected-sunshine will burn an Indian brick red—and some of us, I think have never quire washed it off or reabsorbed it.)

We brought a boy and girl to the States with us when we came home. They went to school on Long Island and came with us to Cincinnati. The girl studied to be a nurse and the last we heard was head nurse at Dartmouth College infirmary. The boy went back home after high school. Their name was Evans. “Heavens” some of their people said. Their father was our chief herder for the reindeer. Alice, the girl, had come to live with us in St. Anthony. One day, Mrs. Halsey had found her reading Browning—intelligently. It seems their great-grandfather had been wrecked in the Straits of Belle Isle sometime in the early nineteenth century. He was a Welchman [sic], own “home” (boat) and had had an education. He stayed on the shore, married and became, ultimately, the patriarch of a community made up largely of his numerous progeny. He had taught his children the things he knew, imported books, and this girl Alice had been more or less his pet in his old age, and he had given her a fine appreciation of English Literature.

This case is an exception, undoubtedly, but I always found in the night school that we conducted in our cottage that a fair number were quick to catch on and that most of the boys (especially the Esquimau halfbreeds) were born mechanics.

There was Wilson Jacques, for instance. Half Indian, I would guess. Will Hillis (a Cincinnati man) gave me the money to bring Wilson to Pratt Institute. It was my job to get him ready to enter. This was that first short summer that I spent on the shore; myself still a student. Well, after fifteen or sixteen hours of hard work plumbing, when Wilson would work with me and out work me, we started in to pole up math for entrance exams to Pratt. He had had common fractions, in one night he mastered decimals and in six weeks had cleaned up advanced arithmetic and advanced algebra and plane geometry and a little trigonometry (I forget which kind) and about that time my own knowledge was getting pretty thin; I was glad when September 20^th came. That winter he was doing Calculus and what-not at Pratt—but without my help. He had ability.

Again, take my friend, Joe Souley. He couldn’t read or write. But he was one of the wisest men I ever knew. He could quote Solomon and Ben Franklin with equal ease. He knew his Bible—and could stump me. He had sailed the seven seas and could describe Singapore or the Sachel Islands with accuracy (I suppose it was accurate because London and the few placed I knew about tallied with his description). I, a swelled-headed sophisticate with some graduate study, etc. learned a very salutary lesson—that wisdom and knowledge are quite different things, that information, and perspective and human interest and a host of other things, are not necessarily acquired in schools; and that illiteracy is not a synonym for ignorance. That was a salutary lesson for a young preacher, at least.

Don't Spit

Weaving Mats "Don't Spit": Young woman at the loom, Grenfell Mission, St. Anthony, [ca. 1906]

from Coastal Women - Arts and Crafts Gallery 

Interior view of the loom room, Industrial Department, Grenfell Mission, St. Anthony. The motto "Don’t spit" was used extensively by Grenfell staff as part of their tuberculosis prevention campaign and was incorporated into some crafts, including mats. The Rooms Provincial Archives, VA 118-51-2, International Grenfell Association photograph collection.

Expense Report | Grenfell Association 1911

Recipt for Bananas | George B. Cluett | 1911

"In the Early Days" | Labrador

Author illustration and inscription from front flyleaf of "Forty Years for Labrador" by Wilfred Grenfell, 1935

Obituary | Sir Wilfred Grenfell | October 1940

Cincinnati Times Star | Oct 1940

Sir Grenfell in Cincinnati | April 1940

Sir Wilfred Grenfell, Charles Jr., and Reverend Jesse Halsey with Grenfell's dog Jack | Cincinnati | April 1940

"The Candy Lady"

By Reverend Jesse Halsey

(published in Among the Deep Sea Fishers,Volume 12, Issue4, January 1915, winner of a $25 Satterlee Prize)

 

One rainy day in mid-October, when the rush of early month accounting was over, when the office had been put to rights, and sundry postponed correspondence dispatched, Miss Greatheart set herself to such a task as all liberal spirited, but small pursed, people are occasionally, when some appeal is pressed home to their hearts.

The Children’s Home at Dr. Greyship’s northern Mission must be supplied at Christmas. Heavy demands on the never overfull treasury, for necessities of provisions, medicine and hospital equipment, had left it so depleted that the coming of Dr. Greyship in the winter seemed the only solution of the bookkeeper’s problem. The policy of making further demands on the small borrowed balance at the treasurer’s demand, seemed highly unwise. Flour must be sent—but toys could be dispensed with. Paregoric and diverse other members of the family Pharmacopeia they must have; but candy, well candy was not an item that appeared in the budget. It was impossible.

By careful scheming enough toys had gone on the, as usual, belated schooner and every child would be supplied—every child in the orphanage with a slender surplus for the near-by hamlets. But the candy had been omitted that year in the schooner shipment, and now the time had come for the last shipment of the winter to go North by the Black Cross boat of Saturday. Was there no one who would do it?, she asked herself. Old Mr. Barnabas had sent a thousand dollar’s worth of flour in face of the starvation winter after a poor fishing season, and she had no heart to ask him for candy--bread was so much more important.

There was something in the air that day with its chill dampness and its early presagement of winter that made the little restaurant ‘round the corner seem almost homelike, for it was at least warm, and the office building with this sudden demand of the early “cold snap” on it summer corroded heating plant, gave scare comfort to its inmates.

It was Friday, the day when during the fall the restaurant featured pumpkin pies. Possibly they were better than usual, possibly the happy presence of the lady manager of the “Looking Glass” candy store on the Avenue, who had been displaying the first samples of Christmas candy, made Miss Greatheart’s mind turn to the missing box in that consignment of Northern freight. At any rate on her way back she was tempted to turn in with her table friend and see the pre-holiday display of sample lots. So many varieties! So many packages in varying shapes, designs, and sizes but nothing better than “American Mixed” and nothing more “Christmassy” than a big red brick from Santa’s chimney. “The price?” “Sixteen cents in pail lots, brick boxes, a dollar a hundred.” “Sixteen cents!” and “Looking Glass” brand had stood first in the recent pure food show! In rapid calculation she figured the cost “only six or seven dollars” and placed an order of three pails for immediate delivery at the Black Cross docks. She would pay for it herself!

Lighting the gas to help out the radiators on her return to the office, she sat down with a sense of satisfaction to answer the new mail. The orphanage children would have their candy. A self made telephone directory of the directors and special friends of the Mission lay before her and as she turned to it for an address the thought flashed through her mind—“Why not give them a chance on the candy, too—there is still time.”

Letter from Emma E. White, November 1911

Thirty calls—most of them in the downtown office district, were made. Line busy. “Party out” and all the rest fell to her share that afternoon but with gentle persistence she kept at it. Only one refusal, and four were out of town, so that by five  o’clock twenty-five had pledged their help in varying amounts from five to twenty dollars.

The “Looking Glass” shop closed at five thirty. By ‘phone they informed her that it would be impossible to fill such an order that night. “But it must be done.” The Black Cross boat sailed the following morning at ten. At length the interest of the city sales manager was solicited and he pledged his best efforts to bring in from the Jersey factory the unusual amount of seven hundred pounds of American Mixed. Six girls in the Avenue shop, when they heard the project of “candy for every child along the shore” enthusiastically volunteered to stay and help the manager and Miss Greatheart get the boxes ready, and to tie the numerous other packages that with her surplus Miss Greatheart was able to buy.

Late that night by special drayman (who reached home from the over-river docks at four next morning and who sent no bill when he found the nature of his freight) the huge packing cases, extra strong and heavily ironed, were deposited on the wharf of the Black Cross Line.

Freight for Saturdays sailing is supposed to be “cleared” through the Custom House on Friday, but at the opening hour Saturday morning Miss Greatheart confronted the shipping clerk, and explaining her errand, readily got the clearance papers and at nine thirty saw the cases swing down into the hold of the big steamer.

Late in November, the mail boat, which has familiarized the natives with the name of one of Shakespeare’s minor characters, was due with us, in the North Country. It was the last trip when she would be able to break the ice up through the harbor to our little log wharf, and everyone in the district who had anything to send for (or anything to send with) had ordered his last provision shipment for the winter, forwarded on that boat. We had been having several days of “dirty weather,” with cold unusually severe for that time of year. Our first snow flurries always come in September but it is unusual for ate November to find us completely snowed in. The harbor had been frozen over for ten days, and some of the old salts feared that the steamer could never force her way up to the wharf, which meant much extra work for our men as everything would be landed on the ice a mile down toward the harbor’s mouth.

About midnight on the first of December, our steamer sounded her deep whistle and long before the echoes of that twice repeated long blast had died away through the hills, lights were blinking out through the windows all ‘round the harbor. Long before her slow ice-breaking journey was completed the whole harbor had congregated to welcome her. Men and women and boys, girls even—everyone save the aged and ailing—were there, for was not this the last boat before Christmas, the last one at any rate that we could be sure of, and possibly the last one of the season, so the old men said, for winter had “set in wonderful arly.” The moon just past the full threw a ghastly light over our whited landscape, for even the red roofs of the trim mission buildings were no longer lent their relief to the winter monotony. Even olf Fishin’ Head whose black rock stands out through many winters untouched had been coated with an early “glitter” and reflected back the colorless sameness of the snow covered harbor.

But everyone was happy for everyone expected some package, large or small, to be disgorged from the cavernous hold of the steamer. All night the oft-repeated order of the mate, “Lower away,” and the chug of the steam which sounded through the crisp air. Men with lanterns here and there were jostling through the ever-increasing accumulation of boxes and bales on the wharf’s end, peering at address marking, to laboriously spell out a name. Many an old skipper worked with a boy at his side who had “larnin” enough to read. Mission had were loading komatiks and drawing them away to the store with the crunch of the runners on the snow, all working with a rough boisterousness characteristic of the people—even in times of depression and especially snow for was it not nearly Christmas!

At last, with the wharf groaning with boxes, barrels, bales and puncheons the steamer sounded her warning note of departure. The sling is thrown down into the hold for the last time and out at length swing two great cases, iron bound and sturdy, bearing the mark of the “Looking Glass.”

By noon, dogs and komatiks with oft-repeated trips had nearly cleared away the wharf and Uncle Jim declared there was room for nothing more.

The barn loft was filled, every available space was taken save one corner of the workshop where our two boxes were finally deposited, her to remain until there is time to “clear away.” Some days later when things had been made “ship shape,” by Joe and his helpers the cases were brought into the store and opened. “SWEETS!” is the general cry when the broken cover discloses the contents, and such a quantity—“A wonderful sight on it.” No wonder the boxes were heavy---“seven hunder’ pounds of it!” At last the mystery of the big boxes is solved.

News is soon carried to Dr. Littlejohn at the hospital and the order is to have it brought “right up,” and when all had been unpacked and stacked up in one end of the dispensary, it had the appearance of country grocer’s storeroom.

By nightfall everyone on the staff, and everyone in the in the harbor had heard the news and there was much speculation among the harbor folk as to how the mission people could eat with such a quantity of sweets.

As soon as hospital duties permitted all the members of the little mission colony were called in to help fill the boxes for distribution, for Miss Greatheart had not forgotten those read bricks, white edged to simulate mortar, to act as containers for the goodies.

In fact, we never knew until Christmas Day how much those cases did contain, for there were several boxes of varying sizes marked “Doctor In Charge—Private” which when opened on Christmas Day proved to be boxes of the best “Looking Glass” chocolates for each member of the staff, and to one house where there were little children there came a five pound box of little colored candies that furnished decorated cakes and cookies for every party for a year or more.

Two evenings were spent in filling and tying these boxes and when they were piled tier on tier in a corner of the room, old George Jouley, my helper in chimney building, said, “it looked like the skipper war goin’ to bi’l’ a fire hearth in the ‘ospital!”

The ready memory of the Doctor furnished lists of the number of children in every family down along shore—and up shore, too, so that bundles were sized according to the number of children in each hamlet. Toys had been boxes by Uncle Duke for the youngsters of each community and these with the candy made up a pack that no Santa need be ashamed to carry. “No Santa”—is there more than one? Most assuredly, at least in this country of the North, for every doctor who travels during the winter, when his professional day’s work is done, delights to impersonate “Father Christmas” and distribute the gifts that have been sent on ahead by the last mail boat or which he has brought with him. The parson does the same on his journeys, other members of the staff go purposely to the nearer villages so that before March every little place far and near has had its Christmas tree.

But such a Christmas as that was. Dolls had been seen before—occasionally at least but—candy! When had Jim Saxon, or little ‘Lish Bumper, or Effie Gray had a whole box of candy all their own? And candy gone the brick box is preserved in some homes to this day, as a reminder of its sweet contents and—oh yes! the favors—little cats and dogs and elephants and what not, cast in lead and gilded—(the sort of thing you have so often contemptuously refused when you took your change from a purchase at the Looking Glass store)—these tucked away under the last layer in the box and found only after the candy had disappeared, these are still prized “down along” the shore in dozens of homes and worn as watch charms (where watches exist) or are hoarded with the few treasures that the kiddies possess, as memorials of the “Candy Christmas.”

All winterlong, we wondered who our generous benefactor was. Dr. Brumell had gone home to England via New York and it was “just like him to do it.” Some friends had visited us the previous summer and “Very likely they did it”—but no one guessed the right one.

Little Billy Bunker who had been staying at [our house] during the Christmas season, and who had had a liberal share of the candy consignment, asked who sent the candy and not being satisfied with that “true and inclusive answer ‘Father Christmas,’” said that ‘it must have been the Candy Lady,’ and this was the only solution of the mystery that any of us had until the next summer, so that all the winter through we spoke of the “Candy Lady’s” gift and even now the children in some of those little homes are whispering their pre-Christmas wishes and hoping that hey may have another Christmas like that one which Candy Lady sent.

On my trip the next year “to the States” and only in a circumstantial way, when clearing a shipment at the custom house with the same clerk who had put through the heavy boxes of the previous winter, did I learn who the true donor was, and this story is here set down in my poor way, at this Christmastide, in appreciation of the characteristic thoughtfulness of our late secretary Miss Greatheart.

*Emma E. White was described by Jessie Luther as "secretary and devoted friend of the mission"; Luther's biographer, Ronald Rompkey, notes: "Emma E. White (d. 1944), assistant librarian at the Congregational Library from 1888 until her retirement in 1934, had formed a committee with the Rev. C.C. Carpenter to support Grenfell and urged him to come to Boston and raise money. Miss White, as "secretary," conducted Grenfell's business there after hours. It remained his "office" until 1915 when Grenfell opened a separate one at 20 Beacon Street.

"Jesse revolted violently."

McCormick Speaking | April 1952 | Vol. V,  No. 7

JESSE HALSEY

*Having reached the age of retirement, Jesse Halsey, Professor of Pastoral Theology and Liturgics, will terminate his active service to the Seminary with the present academic year. His life-long friend, Rev. Henry Sloane Coffin, D.D., has prepared this statement in which faculty, students, and friends will heartily concur.

Jesse Halsey comes of the Puritan stock which settled on Long Island in 1640. His family’s property has never been bought or sold, but is held under the original grant. In that stable Presbyterian community he was reared and he bears its stamp in his steadfastness to conviction, his shrewdness, his kindly humor, and his level head. He was brought up in its First Presbyterian Church where a conservative faith was taught and firmly believed. He took his B. A. at Princeton University and then entered Princeton Seminary. It was a period when that institution was under the intellectual dominance of Dr. Benjamin Warfield, was rigidly dogmatic and controverted all more recent movements in scientific and historical thinking. Jesse revolted violently.

He left the Seminary and enlisted under the genial and devoted Dr. Grenfell in the mission on the Labrador. There he recovered mental equilibrium and inward calm. Returning he enrolled at Union Seminary in New York and found himself at home in its open-minded devotion to truth and inclusive sympathies. Ever since he has been a liberal in outlook.

After a brief pastorate in a small town he was called to the Seventh Church of Cincinnati. It was a time of theological controversy, and the Cincinnati Presbytery was ruled by a group of die-hards. Halsey and two or three kindred spirits tactfully set themselves to alter that situation and they succeeded. Jesse has always been an outgoing friend who won his people’s confidence and gained the respect and affection of those who worked at his side. He soon became a foremost citizen of Cincinnati and a leading churchman held in esteem by Christians of all communities. He read widely and kept his preaching interesting. He took great pains with public worship and acquired skill in his preparations for common prayer. His good taste and his rich personal life with God are evident in the prayers with which he has enriched the Church.

McCormick wisely elected him in full maturity to the chair from which he has counseled students in their early ministry and taught pastoral theology and the conduct of pubic worship. His ideals are evident in the renovated and restored chapel where his own hands did much of the manual labor. He is a skilled workman in carpentry and painting, as well as in printing—a Bezalel in the artistic arrangement  of the house of worship.

Everyone finds him approachable. He is genuinely interested in people—people of all sorts—and becomes their inspiring friend. His wisdom, his faith, his patience, his loyalty render him a notable adviser. He understands human relations—their frailties and their vast possibilities. He has courage in situations where few, even among Christian leaders, are willing to speak out. And always he had the “sweet reasonableness” which avoids needless clashes. His students known how much they owe him and acknowledge it with warm affection. His fellow-churchmen admire and love him for his stalwart fidelity to conviction, his willingness to shoulder heavy responsibilities, and the bigness of heart which takes on their loads and carries them with untiring perseverance. In his retirement the Seminary parts with a most useful member of its faculty, but his students and fellow-churchmen will continue to possess in him a life-long friend in God.

--Henry Sloane Coffin

Dr. J.M. Little | 1920-21

THE HARVARD GRADUATES'MAGAZINE 

VOLUME XXIX. 1920-1921 

News from the Classes.  

J. M. Little, M.D. '01, has been reappointed 
assistant chief surgeon of the Boston 
& Albany R.R., a medical office just 
created. Dr. Little spent more than 
ten years organizing medical work in 
Labrador with Dr. Grenfell. He is a 
director of the International Grenfell 
Association, representing the New Eng- 
land Grenfell Association of Boston. 
About three years ago he resumed gen- 
eral practice in Boston and has since 
served on the staff of the Massachusetts 
General Hospital. He is one of the as- 
sistant medical directors of the New 
England Life Insurance Co.

FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 1913 | The Daily Princetonian

WORK OF DR. WILFRED T. GRENFELL IN LABRADOR
Dr. Jesse Halsey of the Mission's Medical Staff Explains its Nature

REMARKABLE RESULTS
In Spite of Hardships, Well-Regulated and Sanitary Community Has Been Developed

Dr. Jesse Halsey, a member of the medical staff of the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen at Labrador addressed the regular midweek meeting of the Philadelphian Society last night. His subject was "The Work of Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell in Labrador."

Dr. Grenfell's Heroic Work
Passing briefly over the life of Dr. Grenfell, the speaker bent every effort to make clear to all the intensely interesting, as well as heroic, work which is being done under Dr. Grenfell's inspiration among the deep sea fishermen along the barren coasts north of the St. Lawrence. His entire talk was profusely illustrated by lantern slides depicting the surroundings of these people and the mission work which is being done among them. The purpose of this work is to help these people to help themselves and in order to accomplish this purpose it is essential that sanitary and economic conditions be improved. The average home of the fishermen is no more than a hut and during the long winter months their diet consists of the supply of dried fish which they have collected during the summer. In fact the fish are the most important factor in the life of the native. If his luck deserts him in the fishing season, the winter is one of dire necessity and this is one of the many times at which the mission lends a helping hand to the suffering.

Dr. Grenfell has built up a community among these people, which is well-regulated and sanitary in every way possible. His attention has been given to the erection of hospitals, cooperative stores and orphans homes as well as saw mills, and other laborsaving institutions. The various phases of the work are combined under the religious influence exerted by the mission staff. Dr. Grenfell, as his own skipper travels along the coast each year personally coming in touch with the needs of the fishehmen.

The Spirit of the Mission
Dr. Halsey closed with an explanation that the term, mission, should be applied to this work in its larger sense. The workers in this great field are seeking in every possible way to make life easier and more livable for these rough and simple people. The whole spirit is expressed in the motto painted on the Mission hospital. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

Dr. John Mason Little

Dr. John Mason Little | Biography

by Ronald Rompkey

LITTLE, JOHN MASON, surgeon and hospital administrator; b. 9 June 1875 in Boston, son of John Mason Little and Helen Beal; m. 24 Sept. 1911 Ruth Esther Keese in St Anthony, Nfld, and they had five sons and one daughter; d. 23 March 1926 in Brookline, Mass.

......

      Little’s early career seems to have been marked by self-indulgence. In 1907 he attempted to “cure” himself by volunteering to serve with the medical mission founded by Dr Wilfred Thomason Grenfell at St Anthony, Nfld. Grenfell required a sound hospital administrator and a surgeon to carry out a full range of procedures, especially those associated with tuberculosis, the most devastating affliction in the colony. A keen outdoorsman as well as a bon viveur, Little revelled in the physical demands of the job, patrolling the Northern Peninsula by dog team in winter and sailing along the Labrador coast in summer. In short order, he gained recognition as one of the most competent surgeons in Newfoundland and transformed a pioneer hospital into a centre for advanced work. He wrote his mother with some self-satisfaction in June 1908, “I have not a doubt whatsoever that should I want to stay here I could have the whole surgical practice of Newfoundland in a not very long time.” Later that year, fearing that he would be lured to a more lucrative practice, Grenfell broke his fundamental rules of voluntary involvement and primary commitment to mission work and offered Little (a Unitarian) an annual salary of $1,000, which he accepted on the understanding that he would not have to participate in the mission’s religious activities.

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      By 1917 Little was ready to re-enter the medical community in Boston, where his father was prepared to back him. In addition to his differences with Grenfell, he had not been well for two years. The physical demands of his work had become increasingly difficult, and he had a growing family to consider. He tendered his resignation in June 1917 and left in October with his wife, an American who had taught at St Anthony, and their four children. He was subsequently appointed surgeon to outpatients at Massachusetts General, visiting surgeon to the Long Island Hospital, and instructor in surgical technique at the Harvard Medical School. He later became medical examiner of the New England Mutual Life Insurance Company and chief surgeon of the Boston and Albany Railroad.