At the beginning of March 1945, just before the end of the last World War, my mother was with us three little children on a small steamship, which was really only an excursion boat, in the storm-tossed Baltic Sea. We had been told that this would be the last vessel to leave before the enemy forces reached the area. And we were also told that the chances of getting through in one piece were very slim, since the two previous boats, which were much larger —one with three thousand refugees on board—had hit mines and gone down.
But there was no other way out for us. We had been underway on foot all night, having crossed the enemy lines and then our own, and this ship was now our last possibility of getting away from the immediate happenings of the war.
The ship was filled to overflowing, mostly with women and orphaned children. People were full of fear and uncertainty. When the ship left the small, sheltered harbor and set out upon the wild Baltic Sea, something happened that I will never forget. We children could not take the steamer's constant up and down in the storm and were constantly hanging over the railings. Suddenly I saw my mother leaning against the cabin, singing hymns out loud, one after the other. And all at once she sang a verse that made me listen even though I was only a little girl. It was one of Mary Baker Eddy's hymns, called "Christ My Refuge":
