A few days before he died, Mr. How—the owner of a nice farm—called 17 year-old Stephen Haskell to his bedside. He explained that he knew he did not have long to live and that he needed help.

“You’ve been faithful, Stephen. I appreciate your help. Now I am leaving you, for I can’t live long. The farm and everything on it will be left in your hands. I know you’ll do your best.”

“Stephen,” he continued, “I’m am worried though about what will happen to Mary. You know that I’ve been both father and mother to her. She’s unable to take care of herself, and I don’t know what to do.” With tears glistening on his pale cheeks he concluded by saying,” This is a lot to ask of a young man, but, Stephen, but when I am gone, would you look after her? She has no one else in all the world.”

Stephen hesitated. He was only 17. He was a hired hand. And Mr. How was asking him to take care of his partially paralyzed daughter! How could he possibly do such a thing? True, he had helped Mr. How when Mary needed to be carried in and out of the house or from room to room. And true, he was fond of her. But was he mature enough and wise enough to be entirely responsible for her? But he was grateful for all Mr. How had done for him and he solemnly promised to do so, “I’ll do my best not only to take care of the farm, but to take care of Mary also.”

It was not a decision Stephen took lightly. He had helped Mr. How on the farm for perhaps a year or so and knew the routine of the work. However, taking care of Mary was another matter entirely.

After Mr. How’s death, Stephen thought long and hard about how he would fulfill his promise to take care of Mary. The only appropriate way he could think of was to marry her. He was not quite 18, and she was 40! But he had promised to take care of her. Not knowing how else to keep his word, he talked it over with her, and she accepted his proposal, saying that she did love him.

Mary was a deeply spiritual woman and also very practical. She was always patient and contented, never complaining under depressing circumstances or physical suffering. She cultivated sunny thoughts and had cheering words for those around her.

Both Stephen and Mary belonged to the Methodist church when they married, and their faith served to strengthen each other as they prayed that Mary’s health would improve.  Within a couple of years her health was so much better that she was able to resume most of her former activities. It is said that Mary How Haskell could “manage spirited horses as few men could.” They always had one to three horses.

Stephen wrote to Ellen White saying, “Physicians said that were she healed she could not walk as she had lost the use of her muscles by being bed ridden. I thought God would heal her. This He miraculously did the second or third year after our marriage.”

Mary and Stephen had been married a little more than two years when he heard the message that Christ was coming back to earth very soon. The sermon he heard thrilled him, and even though he was only 19 years old, he began to share the good news with everybody he came in contact with.

One day he spoke enthusiastically with a friend, and began to turn from scripture to scripture to prove his points. His friend said to him, “Stephen, why don’t you preach? You ought to rent a hall and preach.”

“Well maybe I will,” was Stephen’s half-joking response. “If you rent the hall, I will preach.”

His friend was not joking though, and it was not long before he came knocking on Haskell’s door. “We’ve got the hall, now come and preach to us.”

What! Him preach? This was more than young Haskell had bargained for, but he could not back out now. A date was set and he preached the only sermon he had ever heard on the subject of Jesus’ second coming.

His listeners eagerly gathered around him after the meeting, asking for more studies. A small group formed and they began to study the scriptures together. In his mind, he kept hearing the words, “You need to preach!” He did not know whether this was his own desire or whether God was asking him to preach.

He also had Mary to consider—after all, he had a wife to support. He was a professional soap maker, selling his own product on a regular sales route around the country. This, of course, often took him away from home for weeks at a time. As he travelled, he worked on algebra problems, eventually conquering the subject. Following the logic he found in solving algebra problems, he made points in his sermons that were firm and sound, based not on algebra but on the formula of comparing scripture with scripture, thus reaching correct conclusions from the Word of God.

In 1953 Stephen met William Saxby, who introduced him to the Sabbath truth. Stephen resisted it at first, telling William, “If you want to keep that old Jewish Sabbath, you can do so, but I never shall.” When he departed from the home of William, he was given a few tracts about the Sabbath. As he travelled down the river by boat, he read and reread the tracts. There is nothing but Scripture there and he could not argue with that. At the next stop, Stephen got off the boat and went alone into the woods to pray and settle the Sabbath question for himself. He spent the day reading and praying, and just before dark he came to the conclusion that the seventh-day was indeed the Sabbath. He then returned home to begin preaching about the Sabbath.

He did not go into preaching full-time, however, since he realized there was not much money to be made from preaching unless the audience was unusually generous.  He and Mary still lived on their farm, and he kept his soapmaking business. Mary also accepted the Sabbath and supported her husband in his ministry.

In 1868, Haskell was ordained into the ministry and began travelling more extensively, being sent by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He travelled to Europe, to India, to Africa, to Australia and around the USA. Through all of his travels, Mary was willing and content to remain at home and wait for his return. She did her part in supporting him in whatever God called him to do. She cared for him as tenderly as he cared for her. As the need arose, when Mary was getting older and having difficulty caring for herself, the Lord sent just the right woman to stay with her when her husband was called away.

While travelling in Europe,  one day Stephen received a telegram that he should return to America immediately as Mary’s health was failing. She had suffered a series of partial strokes.  Without delay he was on his way. His arrival revived Mary’s failing energies for awhile; husband and wife enjoyed a few days together between frequent absences made necessary by church administrative duties, but he remained near her.

Mary was a committed Christian. She bore her physical pain with patience and always had cheerful words for others. She and Stephen were married for about 40 years. They were living in California, where Mary passed peacefully to rest on January 29, 1894, at the age of 81. She left a record of long years of cheerfulness and fortitude, frequently under intense suffering.

Stephen was immediately very lonely. For more than 40 years they had loved each other. Even when separated by his travels, he had known that she was thinking of him and praying for him. Now he felt he was alone in the world, for he had no children.

In writing to Ellen White a short time later, Stephen wrote, in capital letters to emphasize the point, “I LOVED HER AND SHE LOVED ME.”