But, alas,
the hot climate (104 degrees in the morning) to which I was a
stranger, was more than I could stand. At noon no one stirred out of
the house or store. I stood the weather for sixteen months, then my
family doctor ordered me back to San Francisco if I wanted to live.
I left San Bernardino for San Francisco, May 11, 1889. Arriving in San
Francisco I took a flat on Geary street, near Steiner. On July 6 I
began my work in the Larkin Presbyterian Church and continued there
one year, when no funds separated singer and people. I gave the small
struggling congregation another month of my services. The congregation
met in a hall in the Western Addition. I think a church was built
later, but it, like everything else, was destroyed in the earthquake
year. I never returned, for after a year at the Geary street flat my
son William and I concluded to move to Oakland. I had lost my position
in the churches. Calvary Church offered me my old place but I did not
wish to oust another who was giving satisfaction, and declined the
honor. In Oakland we rented one of Mr. Bilger's cottages on Fourth
avenue. After remaining there for two years and a half my son William
married and returned to San Francisco to live.
I stayed in Oakland and began my music in the Pilgrim Congregational
Church, through the influence of one of my early musical friends, Mrs.
Nellie Wetherbee. I went to oblige her, as she was one of the leading
spirits of the church.
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