Many think of Ellen White as a very serious and solemn person. Yes, she was serious, and she was solemn, but she also knew how to laugh. There is a time to be serious and a time to laugh. Good clean humour is good for the soul. As Solomon wrote: “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” Proverbs 17:22
Here are a couple stories from the life of Ellen White showing the fact that she had a clean sense of humour.
1) Wille White, the son of Ellen G. White, was an avid sleeper in church even when sitting at the front. The story is told of a time when Willie was scheduled to have the closing prayer. The main speaker, wanting to make a point in the middle of the sermon, saw Willie sleeping so he exclaimed, “Elder White, isn’t that so?” The slumbering Willie (as his mother always called him), thinking it was his cue for the prayer, jumped to the speaking podium and promptly gave the benediction, while it was only the middle of the sermon.
Wille even managed to fall asleep during his mother’s presentations. One hot August Sabbath afternoon in St. Helen, California, Ellen White noticed a ripple of suppressed laughter in the audience as she preached.
Knowing that she had not made a humorous remark in her sermon, she turned around to see what was so amusing. Her son Willie was there fast asleep. Then she apologized with a bit of humour. “When Willie was a baby,” she noted, “I had no baby sitter, so I had a Battle Creek carpenter make me a cradle on rocker-arms, just exactly the width of the pulpit in the Tabernacle. I would then place Willie in the cradle before the worship service began; and while I was preaching, I would use my right foot to rock the cradle, to keep him asleep, lest he awaken and disturb the service. So, don’t blame Wille; blame me. I was the one who taught him to sleep in church… on Sabbath!” while the congregation enjoyed a hearty chuckle, Sister White got on with her sermon. Willie, meanwhile, was oblivious to both his mother and the amused congregation (ALW, interview by RC, August 1968).
2) Some have stereotyped Ellen White as being devoid of humour, but that was far from the case. Dores E. Robinson (who later married her oldest granddaughter) remembers his first meal at her table when he went to work for her in the 1890’s. “I was 20 years old and very bashful, and wondered how I could live and hold converse with such a saintly woman whose conversation I expected to be entirely on sacred things. Miss McEnterfer [Mrs. White’s companion and nurse in her later years] brought in a dish of greens which Mrs. White requested at every meal because she thought they were good for elderly people. Miss McEnterfer set the personal dish before Sister White with the joking remark, ‘here is your horse feed, Mother.’ I was horrified and was looking to see Sister White rebuke her for this levity. She glanced quickly over the table and with a humorous glint in her eye, and her mouth curved up slightly, she remarked, ‘I don’t know as my horse food is any worse than your cow’s peas’” —the vegetable of choice for the others at the table. (DER to Ernest Lloyd, October 15, 1948).
3) Sister White not only enjoyed an hearty laugh at the predicaments of others, but she could smile at herself. A case in point involves a “hug-me-tight” (a warm vest for cold days) that she received in the mail in 1914 from an acquaintance in Japan. Her personal secretary reports that “she tried it on, and instead of going around her body, the edges went about to her sides. She told me to tell Sister DeVinney that she greatly appreciated the gift, but that there was a great deal more to her than some people thought.” (DER to WCW, November 3, 1914)
4) At times she made picturesque remarks regarding clothing, as when she wrote that “sisters when about their work should not put on clothing which would make them look like images to frighten the crows from the corn.” (–Testimonies for the Church, vol. 1, p. 464), or when she told her granddaughters not to dress as if they were going go a funeral or when the clothing of some tasteless individuals looks as if it flew and lit upon their persons.” –Child Guidance, p. 415
“A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance.” Proverbs 15:13