DIY History | Transcribe | Campus Culture | Adelia M. Hoyt memoir and photographs

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Page 41

UNFOLDING YEARS 41

I had been reared in a Christian home. I do not remember the time when I did not believe in the Bible as the inspired Word of God and in Jesus Christ. His Son, as my personal Savior. In childhood I had made public profession of my faith, but my parents did not think me old enough to join the church. It was not until I was sixteen and a student at the I.C.C., that I was baptized into the fellowship of the Baptist Church. After this I took part in all the religious activities of the school, leading prayer meetings and testifying at every opportunity. Now that I was home to stay, I began taking a more active part in the work of the church. I taught a class of little girls in the Sunday School and was President of the Young People's Society. I also mingled more in the social life of the community, having been duly elected a member of the Women's Literary Circle. 
In that fall of 1887 Blanche urged me to visit her in Davenport, Iowa. As my parents were going back to Janesville, Wisconsin, on a short visit and I could go part of the way with them, it was so arranged. Those were two very happy weeks I spent with my dear friend, her mother and sister. It was October and we were much out of doors. Blanche has written me of a wonderful new machine, a typewriter, on which she could write her compositions. I too had literary aspirations -- but how to get my thoughts on paper? During my visit I learned to use this new machine and found it most fascinating; but its cost was considerable and it was many a day before I had a typewriter of my own. 
Blanche was taking Latin and German under private tutors and this fired my own ambition. She loaned me some of her Latin books and I returned home full of many plans. My father gladly undertook to teach me what he knew of Latin, but I soon out distanced him and he became little more than my reader. That winter I attended the Latin class at our high school where I won the respect of teachers and pupils. Sickness cut short my attendance at school but I continued my studies at home. My sister and I took a correspondence course in German, A well educated German neighbor used to read to me. I read

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UNFOLDING YEARS 41 I had been reared in a Christian home. I do not remember the time when I did not believe in the Bible as the inspired Word of God and in Jesus Christ. His Son, as my personal Savior. In childhood I had made public profession of my faith, but my parents did not think me old enough to join the church. It was not until I was sixteen and a student at the I.C.C., that I was baptized into the fellowship of the Baptist Church. After this I took part in all the religious activities of the school, leading prayer meetings and testifying at every opportunity. Now that I was home to stay, I began taking a more active part in the work of the church. I taught a class of little girls in the Sunday School and was President of the Young People's Society. I also mingled more in the social life of the community, having been duly elected a member of the Women's Literary Circle. In that fall of 1887 Blanche urged me to visit her in Davenport, Iowa. As my parents were going back to Janesville, Wisconsin, on a short visit and I could go part of the way with them, it was so arranged. Those were two very happy weeks I spent with my dear friend, her mother and sister. It was October and we were much out of doors. Blanche has written me of a wonderful new machine, a typewriter, on which she could write her compositions. I too had literary aspirations -- but how to get my thoughts on paper? During my visit I learned to use this new machine and found it most fascinating; but its cost was considerable and it was many a day before I had a typewriter of my own. Blanche was taking Latin and German under private tutors and this fired my own ambition. She loaned me some of her Latin books and I returned home full of many plans. My father gladly undertook to teach me what he knew of Latin, but I soon out distanced him and he became little more than my reader. That winter I attended the Latin class at our high school where I won the respect of teachers and pupils. Sickness cut short my attendance at school but I continued my studies at home. My sister and I took a correspondence course in German, A well educated German neighbor used to read to me. I read