ADVENTIST HISTORY
The Strange Story of Walter Harper and His Wives BY AMALIA GOULBOURNE
In many Adventist spaces, Ellen G. White’s books are referred to as the Spirit of Prophecy, which can suggest that her writings serve as an all-encompassing rulebook with simple answers and clear-cut commentary; however, many who use her writings as a rulebook oſten miss the hope of her complicated, real- world advice and instead cling to the shame of not meeting her more idealistic claims. Studying White’s letters written to everyday people provides a glimpse into how she looked at the complicated messiness of everyday life from a realistic and nuanced perspective. It demonstrates to Adventists today that their own messy stories are worthy of hope. One of the most fascinating examples has to do with the
love life of a Seventh-day Adventist colporteur named Walter Harper. In the spirit of a wise counselor, White wrote advice, encouragement, and rebuke to Harper and to the women who crossed his romantic path.
Walter’s First Marriage Te story begins in January 1888 with a journal entry from Ellen White aſter she’d stopped by to see Walter Harper and his first wife, Laura, in St. Helena, California (Manuscript 22, 1888). White was so worried about the couple’s disintegrating marriage that she wrote in earnest seven days later to Brother and Sister Knight, requesting that they speak to Laura and convince her not to divorce her husband. According to the Ellen G. White Estate in Testimonies on
Sexual Behavior, Adultery, and Divorce, Laura wanted to divorce Walter because he—as a youth, following a literal translation of Matthew 19:12—had been castrated. (It is unknown whether he performed the operation himself or found a willing physician.) Walter declared that Laura had known this before she married him, but as word of his condition spread within the church in Oakland where they were working, some meddling members convinced her that she needed to leave him. In five different letters, White tried to convince Laura to stay
with Walter. She argued that divorce was warranted in cases of abuse, but not of foolishness. She explained that sexual abuse,
12 AD VENTIS T T OD A Y
One of the most fascinating examples of Ellen White’s letters of advice concerned the love life of an Adventist colporteur named Walter Harper.
where a woman’s body is neither considered nor respected, is grounds for divorce. Walter, although senselessly castrated, was not that sort of monster. White described genuine abuse to Laura in these words: “Tere
are such terrible revelations made to me from men and women, bound by marriage ties, of the defilement of the marriage bed, the abuse of the marriage privileges, that the woman yields her body to administer to beastly passions that are destroying physical, moral, and religious health. Te untold misery that women suffer through the uncontrolled passions of sensual minds and hearts, debase both the husband and wife beneath the level of the brute creation, and yet all is done under the garb of Christianity (Letter 6, 1888). Despite these efforts, Laura did not follow White’s counsel to
remain married. In the last letter Laura received on the subject, White asked her to do one final interview with her father and husband, and she also pleaded with Laura to stay in relationship with Christ no matter what she decided (Letter 51, 1889).
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