
John Allen Burden.
Photo courtesy of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists Archives.
Burden, John Allen (1862–1942)
By Richard A. Schaefer
Richard A. Schaefer, B.A. (La Sierra College). Director of Community Relations, Loma Linda University Medical Center, 1976-2000. Historian, Loma Linda University Health, 2000 to the present. President, Loma Linda Chamber of Commerce, 2008-2010. Commissioner, City of Loma Linda Historical Commission, 2008-2020. Schaefer’s numerous books include LEGACY (heritage of Loma University Medical Center), Service is Our Calling (50th anniversary of Loma University School of Dentistry), A Century of Caring (history of Loma Linda University School of Nursing), Glory of the Vision (history of Loma Linda University School of Medicine), and Protons: A Beam of Hope, CREATION: “Behold It Was Very Good.” Schaefer is a prolific author, public relations professional, and public speaker who has presented and represented Loma Linda University history for over 50 years.
First Published: January 28, 2020
John Allen Burden, the co-founder of Loma Linda University and administrator of several sanitariums, wholeheartedly devoted his untiring and self-denying labor to establish an institution where Seventh-day Adventist youth could be educated to become medical missionaries. He had an enthusiastic and unwavering faith in the cause he loved.
Early Life
Burden was born in a rough log cabin chinked and plastered with mud, in Grant County, Wisconsin, on March 24, 1862. His middle name was his mother’s maiden name. At 9 years of age, he accompanied her to a Seventh-day Adventist evening meeting, where they were given printed copies of Ellen White’s early writings, which–after they returned home–Burden asked someone were to read to him. In 1874, he joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church. His commitment continued throughout his life.
Marriage
In 1880, Burden enrolled at Healdsburg College (now Pacific Union College) in Healdsburg, California. He married Eleanor Baxter on April 12, 1888, at the Rural Health Retreat (later named St. Helena Sanitarium), where both were employed. Eleanor was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 13, 1865. She was truly Burden's helpmeet. Throughout her life she worked under him in such capacities as bookkeeper and cook at the various sanitariums he managed.1
St. Helena, Australia, and Glendale
After a brief time on an Oregon fruit farm, the Burdens returned to St. Helena Sanitarium, where John Burden became its manager. In 1900, they moved to Australia, where he assisted in the development and management of another sanitarium.2 He also helped develop a restaurant and a health food factory in Australia. 3
In 1904, at Ellen White’s request, Burden returned from Australia to promote sanitariums in Southern California. Prodded by her letter telling him that "a sanitarium should be established near Los Angeles,"4 he began searching for suitable properties. One property of interest was the Glendale Hotel, built at a cost of $60,000, that was listed for $26,000, too much for his budget. Pointing out that the money would have to come from church members, he asked if the price could be reduced. The reply was "How does $12,000 sound?" Burden put up $25 in earnest money; however, the Southern California Conference constituency rejected the purchase. They reversed their decision only after Burden and the conference president, Clarence Santee, decided to use their own money to advance the $2000 down payment, and then Santee read to the delegates a letter from Ellen White asking, "Why was this work delayed?"5 When the new Glendale Sanitarium opened, Burden became the manager.6
Loma Linda
While Burden was still managing the Glendale Sanitarium, Ellen G. White encouraged him to establish additional facilities in Southern California. "Redlands and Riverside have been presented to me as places that should be worked. . . Please consider the advisability of establishing a sanitarium in the vicinity of these towns."7 In May 1905, Burden reported he had evaluated seventy-six acres of land, known as Loma Linda, five miles from Redlands, which he felt matched White’s description of what she had seen in vision. Speculators had sunk $155,000 into what had turned out to be an unprofitable investment.8 The owners had lowered the price to $110.000,9 then to $85,000, and eventually to $45,000. On April 12, 1905, Ellen White wrote to the church members, “Arouse, and avail yourselves of the opportunities open to you.”10
Burden met Ellen White when she stopped in Los Angeles on her way to the denomination’s 1905 General Conference Session near Washington, D.C. When he described what he considered to be a spectacular bargain, she asked him to inspect the property more closely and report to her.
Burden’s account could hardly have been more encouraging. He found that Loma Linda included thirty-one acres of grain, twenty-two acres of alfalfa, vegetable gardens, an apricot orchard, a barn, and a twenty-three-acre terraced hill covered with orchards, gardens, and beautifully landscaped lawns. Its grounds included scores of tall shade trees and pepper trees filled with canaries; a profusion of flowers and ornamental shrubs, carriage drives, and over a mile of gracefully curving concrete walks. The summit of the hill rose about seventy-five feet above the valley floor. Structures included five cottages, a large recreation hall, two bowling alleys, and the five-story, sixty-four-room frame hotel. All in excellent condition, the buildings were lighted with electricity and heated with steam. Water was piped throughout the property from a large artesian well. The price also included $12,000 worth of almost new equipment and a stock of supplies that had never been used. It would be a perfect site for a sanitarium.11 When Burden asked what the lowest amount the owners would accept would be, they said they would settle for $40,000.12
“What shall we do?” Burden asked. “We must act at once as the [the Loma Linda Association] is anxious to sell, and there are others who want it.” He suggested that Ellen White confer with conference leaders.13 Based on a confirming vision she received the night before, she asked her son, William C. White, to send a telegram to Burden. He should immediately secure an option to purchase the Loma Linda property.14 To complicate the issue, one of the church officers sent another telegram advising Burden to cancel the deal!
On May 14, 1905, Ellen White wrote an impassioned letter:
Dear Brother Burden, Your letter has just been read. I had no sooner finished reading it than I said, “I will consult no one: for I have no question at all about the matter. . .” Secure the property by all means, so that it can be held, and then obtain all the money you can and make sufficient payments to hold the place. Do not delay; for it is just what is needed.15
Thus, Burden arranged to purchase the land and the buildings. The purchase was to be completed within three years and eight months. A first $5,000 down payment would be followed by three monthly payments of $5,000. The remaining half of the price ($20,000) would be due at the end of three years. One thousand dollars would secure an option that would hold the property until June 15, when the remainder of the $5,000 down payment would be due.
But, on Sunday, May 28, Burden’s supervisor, G. W. Reaser, new president of the Southern California Conference, sent Burden a telegram, not to make a deposit on the property.16 Nevertheless, at Ellen White's urging, and with her assurance that the Lord would provide, John Burden paid $1,000 to secure an option to buy Loma Linda on Monday, May 29, 1905. By taking personal responsibility, he did not obligate the Church. He risked forfeiting the money as well as the property if the down payment or any of the subsequent payments could not be made.17
Two weeks later, on Monday morning, June 12, 1905, Ellen White visited Loma Linda for the first time. As she arrived with her son by express wagon from Redlands, she gazed at the main building, and said, “Willie, I have been here before.”
Willie (who would know) responded, “No, Mother. You have never been here.”
“Then this is the very place the Lord has shown me, for it is all familiar.” She turned to one of the ministers in her party and added, “We must have this place.”18 As she inspected the facility with about twenty other church members, she said repeatedly that she recognized it as the very place she had been shown four years before.
On June 20, delegates from nearly all of the twenty-two churches in the Southern California Conference met and endorsed the purchase of the Loma Linda property. Conference president Reaser, told the delegates that Ellen White had said that this sanitarium should be the principal training school on the West Coast.
On July 26, 1905, the due date for the second payment, the Southern California Conference committee met in emergency session. The $5,000 payment was due at 2 p.m., and they had nothing. John Burden was confident in the validity of Ellen White’s gift of prophecy. She had told him that money would come from “unexpected sources.” Others were not quite so sure. Someone suggested that the troubled group wait for the morning mail. When the mail arrived, it, included a letter from an unknown woman in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Inside was a bank draft for $5,000, the exact amount needed less than four hours later on that deadline day. One who had been especially critical approached Burden and acknowledged the providential turn of events. “It seems that the Lord is in this matter,” he said. Burden replied, “Surely He is, and He will carry it through to victory.”19
Other unexpected funds from various persons made it possible to pay for Loma Linda in less than six months. This promptness gained additional discounts totaling $1,100.20 Loma Linda’s final purchase price was $38,900.
John Burden took charge of the budding sanitarium. The first two patients arrived on October 12, 1905. By the end of 1905, sixty-four guests had registered from as far away as Oregon, Missouri, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts.
Establishing a Medical College
However, Ellen White envisioned more than just a sanitarium at Loma Linda. She wanted a full-fledged coeducational medical school whose graduates would be "fully qualified and legally recognized physicians."21 Burden began recruiting teachers and students for the new medical school.
During the first quarter of 1906, administrators organized “an advanced training school for workers in connection with the Sanitarium.” In April, a council consisting of members of the Pacific Union Conference and the Southern California Conference committees met with Ellen White in Loma Linda to finalize plans for opening the Loma Linda College of Medical Evangelists. They called Professor Warren E. Howell, principal of Healdsburg College, to lead the new venture.22
Later Life
In all, Burden received seventy-six letters of counsel from Ellen White for the work at Loma Linda.23 In December 1915, after managing Loma Linda for nearly a decade, Burden became the manager of the Paradise Valley Sanitarium. He retired the year after his wife, Eleanor, died on July 17, 1933. In 1939, he returned to Loma Linda to serve as a chaplain,24 but on June 10, 1942, while walking home from a Bible study in Redlands, Burden was struck by a car and killed almost instantly.25
Sources
Burden, John A. “A Great Work, Developing the College of Medical Evangelists. Ellen G. White Document File 9-e, Chapter VI, 14. Ellen G. White Estate Branch Office, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, California.
Burden, John A. “Special Workings of Providence, Loma Linda Seen in Vision.” Ellen G. White Document File 9-e, Chapter VII, 1. Ellen G. White Estate Branch Office, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, California.
Campbell, Michael W. “Burden, John Allen (1862-1942) and Eleanor A. (Baxter) (1863-1933).” In The Ellen G. White Encyclopedia, edited by Denis Fortin and Jerry Moon. Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2013.
“Eleanor Burden obituary.” ARH, September 7, 1933.
Hudson, Otis A. Letter to Percy T. Magan, MD. June 11, 1942.
“J. A. Burden obituary.” ARH, August 27, 1942.
The Medical Evangelist, April 1959, 27.
“The Purpose of the College of Medical Evangelists, and the History of Its Development, No. 5.” The Medical Evangelist, June 1920.
Robinson, D. E. The Story of Our Health Message. Nashville, TN: Southern Publishing Association, 1943, 1955.
White, Arthur L. Ellen G White: The Early Elmshaven Years, 1900-1905, Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1981.
White, Arthur L. Ellen G. White: The Later Elmshaven Years. Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1982.
White Ellen G. The Paulson Collection of Ellen White Letters. Payson, AZ: Leaves-of-Autumn-Books, 1983.
White, Ellen G. Special Testimonies, Series B, No. 3. EGW Writings. Accessed December 15, 2019. https://egwwritings.org/.
Notes
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Eleanor Burden obituary, ARH, September 7, 1933, 22.↩
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J. A. Burden obituary, ARH, August 27, 1942, 25.↩
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Michael W. Campbell, “Burden, John Allen (1862-1942) and Eleanor A. (Baxter) (1863-1933),” in The Ellen G. White Encyclopedia, ed. Denis Fortin and Jerry Moon (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2013), 326.↩
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Ellen G White, Letter 211, 1904, quoted in Arthur L White, Ellen G White: The Early Elmshaven Years, 1900-1905 (Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1981), 372.↩
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White, Ellen G White: The Early Elmshaven Years, 1900-1905, 373- 374.↩
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J. A. Burden obituary, ARH, August 27, 1942, 25.↩
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Ellen G. White, Special Testimonies, Series B, No. 3, 3, EGW Writings, accessed December 15, 2019, https://egwwritings.org/.↩
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Edward S. Ballenger was among the “scouts.” The original $155,000 investment on the Loma Linda property would be an estimated $3,100,000 today. See Robert C. Sahr, “Inflation Conversion Factors for Years 1700 to estimated 2012,” Oregon State University.↩
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Ellen G. White, The Paulson Collection of Ellen White Letters (Payson, AZ: Leaves-of-Autumn-Books, 1983), 323; John A. Burden, “A Great Work, Developing the College of Medical Evangelists,” Ellen G. White Document File 9-e, Chapter VI, 3, 9, Ellen G. White Estate Branch Office, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, California.↩
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Ellen G. White, Special Testimonies, Series B, No. 3, 31, EGW Writings, accessed December 15, 2019, https://egwwritings.org/.↩
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D. E. Robinson, The Story of Our Health Message (Nashville, TN: Southern Publishing Association, 1943, 1955), 345, 346.↩
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D. E. Robinson, The Story of Our Health Message (Nashville, TN: Southern Publishing Association, 1943, 1955), 347; John A. Burden, “A Great Work, Developing the College of Medical Evangelists, Ellen G. White Document File 9-e, Chapter VI, 8, Ellen G. White Estate Branch Office, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, California.↩
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D. E. Robinson, The Story of Our Health Message (Nashville, TN: Southern Publishing Association, 1943, 1955), 347-348.↩
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John A. Burden, “Special Workings of Providence, Loma Linda Seen in Vision,” Ellen G. White Document File 9-e, Chapter VII, 1 Ellen G. White Estate Branch Office, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, California.↩
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Ellen G. White, Special Testimonies, Series B, No. 3, 8, EGW Writings, accessed December 15, 2019, https://egwwritings.org/.↩
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John A. Burden, “A Great Work, Developing the College of Medical Evangelists, Ellen G. White Document File 9-e, Chapter VI, 14, Ellen G. White Estate Branch Office, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, California.↩
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“The Purpose of the College of Medical Evangelists, and the History of Its Development, No. 5,” The Medical Evangelist, June 1920, p. 26-27.↩
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Arthur L. White, Ellen G. White: The Later Elmshaven Years (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1982), 18; Burden, “A Great Work, Developing the College of Medical Evangelists,” Ellen G. White Document File 9-e, Chapter VI, p. 19.↩
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Burden, “Special Workings of Providence, Loma Linda Seen in Vision, Ellen G. White Document File 9-e, Chapter VII, pp. 13-14.↩
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D. E. Robinson, The Story of Our Health Message (Nashville, TN: Southern Publishing Association, 1943, 1955), 360-361.↩
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Ellen G. White, Letter 61, 1910, quoted in Campbell, 327.↩
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D. E. Robinson, The Story of Our Health Message (Nashville, TN: Southern Publishing Association, 1943, 1955), 65.↩
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The Medical Evangelist, April 1959, 27.↩
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Campbell, 328.↩
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Otis A. Hudson, Letter to Percy T. Magan, MD, June 11, 1942.↩