Chapter  7    

Dora Lulu Tovrea

Autobiographical sketch of Mrs. John Oliver - continued


We were at Williams for two years and again at Conference time I was expecting another addition to the family, so I stayed at Azusa with the Berners while Mr. Oliver attended Conference at Riverside. We had prayed much over our first appointment in California, and when Mr. Oliver wrote they would perhaps send us to Santa Paula, but that all the preachers who had served there had given him their sympathy, as one said: "The people there would not make good Pharisees", but we did not worry one bit over it when that was our appointment as we felt again we were there by providential guidance. With one child and in my condition I did not want to be in anyone's home while the parsonage was undergoing extensive repairs, so we put a bed in the ladies parlor of the church and had our breakfasts with Brother and Sister Huffman and our other two meals with Professor and Mrs. Zahn for two weeks and then moved into a nice, clean six or seven room parsonage. We had no trouble at all in the church.

It had just been built and we were most happy there. Mrs. Rawlins and one of her girls came to California to care for me when Mary was born. Dr. Aplym was the physician and Mrs. Kaufman the nurse at the birth of Arthur and Alice, all born in the same room at the parsonage. About half of church membership lived in the country and we loved to hitch up Kitty to the surrey and go and visit in the country and our buggy would often be filled with melons, fruit, vegetables and nuts, and the friendship of the Faulkner's, and later their married children, the Richardson's, Blanchard's, and others too numerous to mention was beautiful and lasting. We were with them in sorrow when some loved one was laid away and we were most happy that Mr. Oliver had the privilege of marrying so many young people. During our stay there the saloons were driven out of Santa Paula and Ventura and Mr. Oliver had a large part in their departure. Mr. Oliver and Chas. Scott started the Ventura Chautauqua and we built a nice four-room house there and had a most successful bible conference and Chautauqua for several years.

The people there at Santa Paula found out the pastor's birthday came on April 1st and each year they had a party and gave a lovely gift a bible, a piece of silverware, a watch, a typewriter, and the last year they fooled him and gave me a lovely sterling silver toilet set. They also gave us many pieces of table silverware and a purse to me when we left.

Our next appointment was South Pasadena and I had heard it was the most aristocratic church in the Conference, so with our four little children we moved but as the parsonage was all being repaired, the church had rented a furnished house (as I had said decidedly I would not go to anyone's home (the six of us). It was so clean and nice; the table laid, flowers in the house and enough provisions to eat for several days, but each day for a week the ladies brought in lovely cooked food for us. They were certainly grand. It is true they had lovely homes and we were entertained much at dinner parties, teas, etc.

Alice was very sick when we were there only a few months. She had pneumonia and her life seemed to hang in the balance. We had a nurse who attended her constantly and after much prayer and anxiety she began to get well and then when the nurse and maid both left the three children took the measles and then Alice took them. It was a hard and trying time, but Mrs. Machlebe came one week for three days and washed, ironed and baked, and so saw us through nicely.

We had a lovely time and pastorate in South Pasadena and much to our regret, after two years, they sent us to Ontario where they had church trouble, the church having burned down, and a new one had to be built. Members of the parsonage committee there were old women and nothing had been done for us. Some of the carpets were filthy and the mattresses stained and there had been sickness and no fumigation. So we took things in hand, took up the old carpets and disposed of them, bought our own mattresses, and had some papering and painting done.

We only lived in Ontario one year. We had services in an upstairs hall and our prayer meetings in an undertaking parlor. We had large crowds and the church was built, a twelve room modern parsonage was bought for us and we also built a nice little church, across the tracks, where the folks had had a Sunday school in a schoolhouse.

Our dedication of the new church was to be right after Conference and much to the surprise of church and pastor, Mr. Oliver was appointed as Superintendent of the Fresno District. A Mrs. Johnson had asked to live with us while in Ontario and be a mother in our home and help with the children and it proved quite a blessing to us. While we lived in South Pasadena, my father came to live with us and remained with us until he died nine years later. As Mr. Oliver, who followed Dr. Peck on the District, had to find out about the work he went immediately up to Fresno. The children and I moved to a small furnished cottage until Mr. Oliver could rent a house in Fresno. Some five or six weeks later Mr. Oliver rented an unfurnished house in Fresno for us and the three children and Emma Foslien (a Norwegian maid we kept four years). We got to Fresno about noon and our pastor's family (Rev. John Pitner) had dinner ready for us and when that was over the pastor took me to have the gas and lights signed for and ready to use, then he took me to a furniture store and we got enough furniture delivered that day so we could live there. We had an agreement with the store that if any of the furniture did not suit, they would exchange it for other. In a few days Mr. Oliver brought Grandpa and Wesley to Fresno, then we began looking for a house to buy close enough to our First Church where the children and I could walk. After considerable looking, in a few weeks, we bought the property at 1719 L Street for $5000 and later we put on some additional rooms and a toilet and spent another $1,000 on it. We had it all paid for before we left at the end of the six years. We became members of the First Church and the children and I seldom missed a service or Sunday school. It was four blocks away. I helped financially and otherwise in both Grace and Normal Methodist Churches.

We made many lovely friends there. Mr. Oliver was away much of the time and practically every Sunday and it was none too easy for me. I was President of the P.T.A. near us and later organized other groups and also several church groups, ladies aid, and missionary. In our third year there Dad supervised the buying of Camp Sierra, a government tract of land, which had an old hotel and one or two other buildings. It has a very wonderful spring of pure cold water and many streams near. The first year we had started our Epworth League Institute and had set up a camp. Many went up to Huntington Lake in the afternoon and we had a campfire and were having services when some one came and said a car had gone over the grade. The leaders asked only a few to go and the rest remain at the fire. Soon they came back carrying Elsie Barnett of Hanford, who was a district officer and a student at USC, a much loved and competent girl, seriously injured. What a terrible night we spent trying to get a doctor but the telephone messages had to be relayed by the operator and was very unsatisfactory. I had to stay with the children, as they were so upset. Mr. Oliver stayed and had some retired doctor examine Elsie and at midnight he came to the cabin and they thought perhaps the injuries were not so serious. A few minutes later a knock came and they said Elsie was dead. I dressed and went to the hotel and then we tried for an undertaker and we put her body in a pine box the men made, packed in excelsior, and Mr. E. Smith put the back or top of the machine down and they put the box across and started to Fresno before 6:00 a.m., before the young folks were around. Less than half an hour later an ambulance, doctor and nurse arrived.

The young folks of the District raised money for a memorial dining hall the next summer. The Board asked me to run it, which I did for three weeks, feeding from 25 to 80 each meal. The band men were allowed $1.00 per day on board and the Epworth Leaguers washed dishes for meals, so I had quite a job of bookkeeping to do, but we were fortunate in securing a fine cook and helper, but I could not tell at all whether I was making money for the Association or losing it until after the Institute the cook bought out the groceries, supplies, etc., and ran a cooked food place, but I had cleared over $100 for the Association.

The year after we left Fresno they asked me to go up to the camp from Santa Ana and help start the cafeteria and get it going; which I did, paying my own expenses.

We built two houses while there, and others built also, and the children and I would spend the summers there. I cared for a Sunday school, literature and music group and when there was no speaker available I would conduct regular church services, giving a bible reading in place of a sermon.

At our annual Conference in Long Beach in 1915 they elected my husband as a delegate to our General Conference, which was to meet the month of May 1916, at Saratoga Springs, New York. It was quite an honor to be a delegate and we greatly appreciated the honor given my husband. As we had some six months in which to prepare to go and my husband said unless I could go too, he would not go. So finally we planned to leave the two boys with Dr. and Mrs. Cowgill, then in charge of First Church, Fresno, and the two girls with Rev. and Mrs. Harrison at Sultana, paying $5.00 per week to help care for the boys and $6.00 per week for the girls. They were so splendidly cared for and, during the two months we were away, none of them cried for us. My father was living with us and not so very well, so the Methodist Hospital in Los Angeles cared for him. Mr. A. M. Drew, of Fresno, went with us as a lay delegate. As Dad was allowed a berth and $2.00 per day on the train, we found an extra $1.00 per day fed us both nicely. We went down through Texas to New Orleans, it was then Easter Sunday, and on through the Carolinas, and met my Aunt Kate and Uncle Pressly at the depot in Charlotte, N. C., where they lived. We spent two days in Washington, D. C., and went out to Arlington Cemetery and to the old homes of George and Martha Washington, and visited their mausoleum where they are both buried. We attended a session of the Legislature, saw the Congressional Library and the National museum where Teddy Roosevelt had the specimens he had secured while in Africa. We went to the top of Washington Monument. I was not very well and fainted away while at the top floor, an experience I never experienced before or since. We attended a reception given to honor the "Laymen's Missionary Convention Meeting," in Washington in the East Room of the White House, and shook hands with President Woodrow Wilson, whom we always admired and respected. We only stayed a day in New York and took a tallyho trip (buggy ride) through the Ghetto. All the visits we made were so enjoyed, as it was all new to us. Then we went on to Saratoga Springs, quite a health resort on account of the mineral springs, and where there was a race track and the sports of New York had long had it for a resort and there had been much gambling and vice there and many, because of losing their all, committed suicide.

However, now all was lovely. Mr. Drew had rented for five ministers a nice twelve room nicely furnished house that held five bed rooms. We paid $100 for the month and the lady cared for the house for us. After two days of trying to get our meals at eating places where there were great crowds, we decided to eat at our house and I was glad to cook. The party was John Oliver and wife; Rev. Ryland and wife (she was there only two weeks); Rev. Ray Moore; Rev. Alfred Inwood and A. M. Drew. I always liked to cook so didn't mind at all to do the cooking and we hired the dishes washed and the table reset. I did all the buying and planning. When all was over it had cost us 55 cents a day, which included our rent, gas, light, fuel, etc., and we were well cared for.

Coming home we, Dad and I, went to Buffalo on different trains as he could get much reduction on preacher's rates on another line than the one on which I had my round trip ticket. I got there in the evening and was to stay at the Y.W.C.A. and Dad was to get in during the night. He slept next door to the Y.W.C.A., which was a branch, and when he asked where the Y.W.C.A. was they told him it was a mile down town, and when he got there he did not find me. Then someone suggested I might be at the branch Y. across the street from the depot. I was pretty nervous when he finally arrived. We visited Niagara Falls, going across the bridge and so had a good view from both sides. We visited Chicago and stayed over night at the Edgewood Old Peoples Home, where a dear friend, Mrs. Hartley, had lived, but had died shortly before the Conference. The Superintendent, who was a dear friend of Mrs. Hartley, had met us at the Conference and insisted on us visiting there. Then we went to Pearl City, Illinois, and visited the Doug Mitchells, who had known Dad when he first cane from England. We went to the little church where dad was converted. Then we visited my cousins, the Mitchell's and Bullinger's, who lived near the Little Arkansas River some five miles from Wichita, Kansas. We visited the old farm where I had spent my childhood, but the beautiful orchard and trees were gone and the house was used for a cattle barn. We visited the graves of my dear mother and sister Emma at the Dunkard cemetery near Kechi. We also visited Mary Meyers, a very dear friend we had learned to love at Jerome, Arizona, where her son was in business. We were glad to come home then and be united with our dear children after an absence of two months.

When Mr. Oliver's six years as a District Superintendent were over, we were assigned to Santa Ana as pastor and wife. Before leaving Fresno, the First Church gave us a supper as a farewell, and a lovely inlaid mahogany round tray. At the Conference my husband was presented with a purse, some $75, I believe.

We had my father in a private doctor's home in the north part of Los Angeles during our last summer at Fresno, as we spent the summer up at Sierra Camp. He was very poorly and when we saw him on our way to Santa Ana he began speaking of packing up his things to go with us. We knew he was in a serious condition and could never go to Santa Ana, but we consoled him by saying he would have to wait a while we got settled.

The dreadful flu epidemic was very bad and before we had any services the churches, schools, etc., were all closed. Dad had many funerals, most in the yard or at the grave, for every precaution was used so as not to spread the disease.

In the fall, Mary first took the flu and Arthur and I were soon down. We had a nurse and had our three beds all in one large room where there was a stove. During this time the rest of the family had to wear masks if they came by our door and Alice, who was pretty young, would cry at the bottom of the stairs because she was so much alone.

We had my father at the Methodist Hospital and he had dropsy. I had visited him most every day until I got sick and when we were all recovering, my father died. I had thought I should take his body to Kansas to be buried beside mother but being December it was impossible. My brothers Ed, Will and Charlie (We had not met together for 20 years.) all came and by this time the children and I were quite well and the services were held at the undertakers and the burial was in lovely Evergreen Cemetery. The deed to the lot is with our papers.

During the four year pastorate in Santa Ana we made many lovely friends. I taught the Philathea Sunday School class and had the largest girl in my class I ever saw. She weighed over 700 pounds. Her name was Anna Laura Jones. She died several years ago. We bought a nice little duplex at Balboa Island and furnished it. We had several weekend group meetings there and rented it enough to help pay taxes. We later sold it. Doris Wells was one in my Sunday school class and when she finished U.S.C. she went as a missionary to India, and has been happy during the years and has done excellent service. We took our vacation (Mr. Oliver, myself, Mary, Alice and Ethel Coffman.) up the coast and saw Doris off for India.

From Santa Ana we went to Whittier and during our five year pastorate here, our four children graduated from High School. Arthur was married, Mary and Alice attended Whittier College and we made so many dear and lasting friends that we were happy to have our home here and to retire here from active service. After ay father died, my brother Ed gave me $5,000 worth of shares in the E. A. Tovrea Meat Company and for several years I received $600 a year income from these, and so helped the girls in college. When I finally sold the shares back to the company, with the $5,000 I received, we paid off the $2,500 mortgage on this Whittier property and the $1,000 owing on the Pacific Palisades house and so have had no debt since then. Thank the Lord.

While in Whittier I taught the college age class of girls, some 35, and what a delight. Later Dad married so many of them. For a year and a half I was superintendent of the High School Department and Dad said he thought that through the years that was perhaps the best service I gave. From Whittier we went to Grace Church in Long Beach and had a three year pastorate and made so many friends. My last work there was teaching a bible class of women, 60 of them, organized as a J.O.C. class. The women in that church are always so lovely and thoughtful for the pastor's wife. They were always giving flowers and corsages at various social gatherings and while there our wedding anniversary came on a Wednesday and after prayer meeting they took charge. They gave Dad a book, and me a basket of flowers. Had the wedding march and a little flower girl and we went to the parlor, where they had a lovely bride's cake and refreshments. They had gotten our wedding pictures and the article about our wedding and read it and did us great honor. I forgot to mention that while in Santa Ana and on our leaving there the church gave us all our solid silverware, a dozen teaspoons and also a set to serve six persons of the sterling.

While speaking of Whittier, I forgot to make note of one of our red-letter days in our lives, when we entertained 600 persons at the parsonage to honor our silver wedding anniversary. We had our photos taken and put with the picture was the invitation. We sent out 900 invitations, inviting by the hour for three hours in the afternoon and three in the evening. We sent invitations to all the members of our Whittier Church, some to dear friends of other churches and to relatives. I hired two women for all day, and they made frosted cakes, using the basement of the church. We used 22 gallons of ice cream. Mrs. J. Ben Montgomery and Irene made little silver bells tied with ribbon to place on persons after they had been to the dining room. Mrs. Montgomery cared for all persons going into the dining room. Gertrude and Helen Kinnear cared for the guest book and Mary and Alice the door. High School friends of our children waited on the guests in the dining and Mr. Ackley cared for cutting the ice cream. Ladies of the church cared for the kitchen work. We had a three-piece orchestra play during the reception. The ministers of the Conference had passed resolutions which were sent and read by Rev. Gressenger. The Official Board of our Whittier Church sent two little boys in white with ribbon streamers and a little girl carrying a lovely basket of deep red rose buds. Mr. Chambers, President of the Board, carried a silver ship, with the Christian and U. S. flags and $150 in silver dollars. We also received several checks and many silver pieces. There were so many lovely baskets of flowers; sent by the Kiwanis Club, Official Board, and many individuals. We received on the lovely white bear rug loaned by Mrs. Chase and I wore a lavender and lace dress and a corsage. We have the names of our guests in one of the guest books. We also received a lovely gift from Mr. and Hrs. Frank Anderson, who at that time kept a gift shop. Also during our stay in Whittier, Dad was elected delegate to the Kiwanis International Convention at Denver, Colorado. The folks from California went on a special train on Friday the 13th of the month, using No. 13 engine and 13 cars in the train. Had a stop over and lunch at Lake Tahoe and also had a stop at Reno, Nevada. Dad, as sky pilot, had short services on Sunday in our car. We had Jimmy Smith, of Tajunga fame, and his little organ. It had been very noisy in the car, but during our brief service - while the train went very slowly over the Great Salt Lake - it was very quiet.

From Grace Church, Long Beach, we went to Trinity Church, Pomona. While in Long Beach, we were planning to take a trip to England. The pastor from Christ Church, London, had said he would exchange pulpits with Mr. Oliver. We prayed much about this trip, for Dad had always had a desire to take me to the place of his birth, so we prayed we might be privileged to go, if it was best, and if not, that the way would be closed. It seemed best not to go, as all the doors seemed closed against our going. First, the pastor who was to exchange with dad was sent to Argentine; then our Conference was changed from September to June, and we were moving; then again Mary planned to be married August 5th, so we could not go. We moved about the middle of July, and it was hot in Pomona after living at the beach.

There were many busy days, getting acquainted, having so much company and entertaining, and being entertained. Mary had a lovely wedding in Trinity Church, and the church ladies served and cookies to all the guests. Mary had scores of lovely gifts. For the wedding she wore an exquisite veil that had been made in Calcutta, India, and while she and her husband were on their honeymoon to Alaska, I gave a tea to our ladies and let them see Mary's lovely things.

During the five active years in Pomona we, the people, built a $62,000 addition to the church and it was the best equipped church building for all purposes we ever enjoyed. I did much entertaining: the several committees on the building project, high school graduates, women's gatherings, etc. We made many lasting friendships that we shall always enjoy. Among the many are the P.A.L.S., a social group of women of a mixed bible class. They have visited us each October since we retired and lived in Whittier.

As Dad was of retirement age and as the District Superintendent was anxious to give some young men the better charges, we were rather urged to retire, but as the cottage we were building on the back of our lot was not finished and we felt we really could not afford to retire that year, we told the Superintendent we would take a small charge and be content. Dad had a bad anemic condition and was very pale, but they sent us to Chesterfield Square Church in the south part of Los Angeles, with a pessimistic church board that never seemed to meet itsobligations. We had to rent a house and did not get but eleven months salary, so we only stayed there a year and then Dad retired and we moved to Whittier to live. After a few years, through doctor Harwood of Santa Ana, Dad has been brought back to quite normal health. We both have little ills but not too serious and if we know our limitations and live accordingly we can still be of service.

During our stay Dad has preached for the Quakers, Congregationalist. Baptist, Nazarenes, United Brethren churches and has supplied many pulpits in Methodism. We teach occasionally and help in many church and civic endeavors.

We feel that the Lord has teen gracious unto us and blessed us. We believe in divine guidance and answered prayer. "Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart." and it has been marvelous the way He has led us and kept us. We have been so grateful for good health and so grateful for our four dear children and their companions, and the blessed grand children. I had my mother with me until I was grown and I prayed to be spared to my children. Then, when Alice was not so well, I prayed to be left to care for her until she was cared for. Now my task is to care for my loved husband and if I might be taken away before he is, I pray the same kind providence will give him comfort and peace. Both Dad and I hope we may keep in comfortable health while we live, and never be a burden to any one.

Lots of love to my precious son Wesley and his wife Leona -- Mother.

Editor's note: Prepared for her children May 2, 1941



             



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