Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,.... John 5:28
"The grave of the man who brought Adventism to California, Merritt G.
Kellogg, has been rediscovered. After almost three years of research, on
November 14, 2020, brothers Jim and Lonnie Wibberding, along with Jim’s
daughter Kara, found his grave at the Oak Mound Cemetery in Healdsburg,
California.
---Besides being the first to preach Adventism in California,
M. G. Kellogg founded what are now the St. Helena Hospital and the
Sydney Adventist Hospital, planted several churches, served as a
missionary on the Pitcairn, and more — investing half a century to build the Adventist mission.
A family of deer watch us through the mid-morning chill as we disrupt
their tranquil cemetery, unearthing fallen headstones and inspecting
those that still stand. “W. S. Kellogg.” Much closer. Maybe he is buried
in a family plot. “Francis Elizabeth Kellogg.” Further down the hill, I
saw a “Chester Kellogg.” But no “Merritt Gardner Kellogg.” I round the
next plot.
The tale begins with a twenty-six-year-old farmer packing his wife and three kids into a wagon aimed west.
He needed work. Before they left Jackson, Michigan, Merritt bought two
pairs of new shoes. As he walked beside his oxen, the wooden pegs that
held the soles to his feet fell out, one by one. He would walk hundreds
of miles barefoot before a Native Indian man sold him a buffalo hide
and set his squaw to sewing moccasins.
---In 1859, Merritt, Louisa, and their three kids landed within reach of San Francisco. There, in the fading glint of the Gold Rush, he shared his faith.
He outlived, or almost outlived, most of the other first-generation
pioneers. In his final years, hearing and vision loss further isolated
him. When he died, there were few friends left to remember him. But I want to remember him.
I stoop over another hidden grave.
“Hey guys, I found something,” Lonnie calls. Kara and I abandon our posts and head his way.
I feel a surge of hope but tamp down my response. “What is it?”
Lonnie looks up from the small stone he is studying. “Did you say his initials were M. G. K.?”
“Yes, that’s right,” I respond with hope.
“What were his birth and death years?” he asks.
“1832 – 1921,” I offer.
He twists his face a little, eyes fixing on us and then the tiny
white stone, as Kara and I step around it to see. “It’s close,” he says.
It reads “M. G. K. 1833 – 1921.”
The analysis and research drags out over the next day and a half,
until I get through to the curator at the cemetery (Sarah) on Monday
morning. She asks what surrounds the grave we found. I tell her the
names on the stones on both sides of M. G. K. 1833 – 1921. “Let me look
this up and call you back,” she says.
I wait and wonder, bracing for disappointment. Then, my phone begins
to buzz. Sarah’s voice rings with excitement, “You found it!” Her first
words.
“Really?” I ask in disbelief.
“Yes, I was able to find the grave number by the information you gave
me. In the old folder for that grave number, there is a record that
says, ‘Merritt Gardner Kellogg.’ It’s him. You found it.”
Jim Wibberding of Pacific Union College
