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Urged to Preach
Helen found a baby-sitter, Clara, on whom she could depend. The president was
better than his word. At the time of the conference session, Mrs. Williams was issued a
ministerial license and paid retroactively for all the previous year. (From Helen Williams,
letter accompanying Sustentation Fund Application, 1922.) This appears to have occurred
in 1897.
The usual adventures that occur in families with small children did not pass the
Williamses by, as an incident related by Helen Williams’ granddaughter shows. (From a
tape recording made for the author by Phyllis Vineyard, July 22, 1985. See appendix A, 1.2.)
One day when Helen was baking bread, she found she needed yeast. Not being dressed
to go out, she called three-year-old Hugh, folded his hand around two pennies, and
asked him to go to the corner store for a package of yeast. He did as he was told. The
man at the market took the pennies out of Hugh’s hand and put in a cake of yeast.
Instead of turning the corner toward home, Hugh was daydreaming (he explained
later) and just kept going. Not being able to find his house, he continued walking and
walking. When at length he reached paved city streets, he began to cry because the hot
pavement burned his feet.
A kind man noted Hugh’s distress and helped him get back to the corner store. There
the owner carefully laid the tired little boy down on bags of flour, where he immediately
fell asleep, and called the police station.
The next thing that Hugh knew, he was being embraced by his parents, who were
beaming because their missing little boy had been found. Hugh made up a little song
about being lost and being found by Papa and Mama. Although the parents doubtless
had misgivings about their skill in parenting just then, the three-year-old in that crisis
celebrated the love in his home.
A family portrait from this period shows Eugene Williams, who was about 5’ 6” in
height, to be a handsome man with carefully groomed dark hair, mustache, and beard.
Helen Williams, slightly shorter, was attractive with her blonde, wavy hair and blue eyes.
All the boys were good looking, Irwin with dark hair and eyes like his father, Lewis with
brown hair and hazel eyes, and little Hugh with blue eyes and curly golden locks.
Eugene Williams accepted a call to be superintendent of the North Michigan
Mission; consequently, from Grand Rapids the Williamses moved north to Sault Sainte
Marie. The journey was made by train. Father went first, to prepare the way. Later his
wife and children came to join him. The children loved the long train ride to their new
home, viewing the wild and beautiful country flying past the windows. The train was
put on a ferry to cross the upper peninsula; this adventure provided a memory the children never forgot. (From Hugh Williams’ memories, taped, received August 1989.)
Imagine the boys’ excitement when father met them with a sleigh drawn by a horse,
Patsy, that now belonged to their family! In the sleigh father took his family to their new
home in Dafter. They lived seven miles from Sault Sainte Marie and the Canadian
border, surrounded by woods and breathtaking beauty.

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