🧚 Nellie N. Russell

Historical1

The enduring charm of a rich personality is ever found to be in devotion to a chosen cause.2 Such a personality is here presented in a brief study of an earnest life of effort and high purpose.3

Nellie Naomi Russell was born in Ontonagon, Michigan, March 31, 1862.4 The family removed to Wisconsin when she was very young, and there her father died when she was about eight years of age.5 She was the second of four children whom the widowed mother took to Vermont to live with one of their uncles.6 He also was soon taken away, and the family removed to Ludlow, in that state.7 Nellie, however, spent much of her time at West Rutland.8 Here she united with the church, and attended school, until her mother’s death in 1877.9 At this time the eldest sister, Janet, was in Michigan, and the following spring Nellie, with her brother William, joined her there, while the younger sister remained with their guardian, Dr. D. F.10 Coolidge, in Ludlow.11

Nellie attended school in Ontonagon, but she longed to return to New England.12 Dr. Coolidge, at her earnest request, advanced the money for her travelling expenses from the funds of a small legacy left her by her uncle, on condition that it should be returned to the fund from her first earnings.13

In the autumn of the year 1879, Nellie, although so young, taught a country school, boarding around from house to house, as was the custom at that time.14 The sum advanced to her was returned from her first earnings with the scrupulous integrity which, throughout her life, marked all her business dealings.15 She won the admiration of the school district by her industry and capacity for work and service both in school and out.16

At the close of the session she went to North Bennington, Vermont, where she spent two years in the family of Mrs. Coolidge’s sister, Mrs. H. W. Spafford.17

All this time her great desire had been to prepare herself for missionary service.18 In order that she might get the education requisite for it she toiled and saved until she was able to enter Northfield Seminary, which had just been founded by Mr. D. L. Moody.19 After the first year she was given a scholarship.20 With this as a help she was able to meet all other expenses by what she earned during vacations.21 All she had received from the scholarship she later returned to the institution she had learned to love.22 At Northfield she spent four years in study and congenial work.23 During the last two years she roomed with Lila Peabody, now Mrs. Edward F.24 Cragin of Brooklyn, New York, with whom she formed a friendship, one of the most intimate and strongest of her life.25 It is to this friendship that we are indebted for the few details of the years between her entrance into the seminary and going to China.26 She was an eager, enthusiastic student and was recognized at once by her companions as a leader, was made president of her class, and of the first missionary society formed among the pupils of the Northfield Seminary.27

Mrs. Cragin says of her, “She was of a deeply spiritual nature.”28 I remember her telling me that from her early childhood she loved no stories so well as those of foreign missionaries, and that she hoped, even when a little girl, that some day she might become one.29

One June morning, just before graduation, Mr. Moody took us for an early drive.30 He told us of a plan he had for us to go together to Chicago, to be pastor’s assistants and Sunday-school workers in Mr. Moody’s, the Chicago Avenue Church.31 The Rev. Charles F.32 Goss was the pastor at that time.33 It seemed a large undertaking for two inexperienced young women to go from the little village of Northfield to the great city of Chicago, and to engage in such a work.34 But Mr. Moody felt confident of the results and assured us that we could do it, and so we made the venture.35

Our experiences the first winter were strangely new and varied.36 We worked under Dr. Goss’s directions, calling upon church members and others who we thought might be influenced to attend the services.37 We also visited the sick and helped such as were in need in the neighbourhood.38

Our Sunday-school work was among the very poor, and in localities where we went with not a little trepidation.39 Our custom was to select a street and to call from house to house, from family to family.40 We asked the children of those visited to come to the Sunday-school, and gave them cards telling them when and where to go.41 In many cases the parents could not understand English, but, as the children practically lived on the streets and so picked up its language, they understood us when we asked them to come and to bring others with them.42 In this way we gathered the children into Sunday-school, the boys into Miss Russell’s class and the girls into mine.43 Miss Russell soon had a class of one hundred and fifty or more boys.44 In connection with this there were organized evening classes.45 The help of young men, who taught the boys carpentry and other kinds of manual work, was secured, and they were encouraged to seek other vocations than those of newspaper venders and boot-blacks.46 Some showed unusual talent, but had no opportunity for study or advancement.47 Miss Russell wrote to Mr. Moody with regard to them and asked if an arrangement could be made by which the most promising could be admitted to Mt.48 Hermon.49 He gladly entered into the plan and carried out her wishes.50 A number of these boys thus entered Mt.51 Hermon school and afterward took college courses.52 They were accompanied all the way upward by the sympathy, advice, and assistance of Miss Russell.53 She kept in touch with many of them all her life, corresponding with them after going to China, and hunting them up during her furloughs in this country.54

Miss Russell’s great characteristics were, I think, the giving of herself unsparingly for others, and doing this with sympathy, tenderness, and love.55 One incident, among many which I recall, strikingly illustrates this.56 During the anarchist riots in Chicago, when even men did not dare go into the disturbed neighbourhood, Miss Russell went without fear, and without protection, to the anarchist headquarters to comfort the little old mother of one of the condemned men.57

After five years of earnest, successful work in Chicago, Miss Russell, well fitted by such training, felt that the time had come for her to go to the distant field, which she always had kept in view.58 The way was opened for her to enter the work in China under the Woman’s Board of the Interior in connection with the American Board of Foreign Missions.59 She accepted the opportunity as the fruition of the hope and desire of childhood, girlhood, and young womanhood, and in twenty-one years of devoted service made “good proof of her ministry.”60

The record of the rare life of Miss Russell is in the hearts of many to whom she was very dear.61 It is suggestive of some of her loveliest qualities that it has been difficult to secure anything beyond the bare historical facts with regard to her early years.62

The brief outline, given by the only sister who survives her, Mrs. J. R. Branaman, and a lifelong friend, Mrs. D. F.63 Coolidge of Ludlow, Vermont, show how heavy were the burdens of her youth and explain, in a measure, her peculiar and yearning sympathy for toilers struggling under difficulties for an entrance into a larger intellectual and social life; for widowed mothers, caring for groups of children, and for young students making their way with little aid through courses of study.64 Of her own early experiences she rarely spoke.65 In years of close companionship I learned little of them beyond the ever-recurring suggestion of her rich inheritance from a father of deep religious faith and a mother brave and tender, with the highest standards of duty.66 These so impressed her daughter that, in incidental ways, they were often implied in the reasons given for her choice of lines of conduct.67

Her warmth of affection for her own was apparent in every mention of them, and knowing this, one can realize what separation from them, even in childhood, meant to her.68 She truly “Bore the yoke in her youth” and learned to carry it so buoyantly, and walk under it with such elasticity of spirit, that one’s memory of her is always that of largeness and joy rather than of mere patience or resignation.69 She knew better than most of God’s children how to delight in all the beautiful things her Heavenly Father had placed in the earthly environment, and it was not until disease and sorrow had wasted her reserves of strength that she began to speak often of the life beyond.70 To that she looked and for it she longed, not as rest from service but as larger opportunity and wider vision.71 The springs of her life deepened as the physical resources were depleted, and we who were much with her during the last years often realized that she drank from celestial fountains and in weakness found courage and power among the Hills of God.72 In the long night watches when pain was her companion, and the burdens of those about her who claimed her never-failing sympathy pressed heavily upon her loving spirit, she would often light the candle at the head of her bed and read from some author of insight a poem or other glowing page, ponder it for relief, and bring to us at the breakfast table the result of her thought upon it, in a radiant face and a gentle aloofness from everything petty and trivial, which banished mere gossip or small talk and sent us refreshed to our tasks.73 She, worn with sleeplessness and anxiety, was yet the inspirer and comforter, and all with a self-effacing sweetness which sought no recognition of what she gave!74 Indeed, in her quiet dignity, she made any allusion to, or expressed gratitude for, such obligation difficult.75