One Particular historic event in the Christian Science movement became increasingly important to me, because my grandmother had been there. I can recall hearing her tell of how, in 1906, she had been so sure that she would be attending the Annual Meeting of The Mother Church when the Extension to the Original Mother Church would be opened to the public.
Yet for several reasons, it seemed impossible for her to go. My mother, my grandmother's only child, was to graduate from junior high that June, while her mother would be gone. Also, my mother's father had passed on a few years before, and there were no funds available to make the trip from Minneapolis to Boston and back. Nonetheless, my grandmother, who was not a willful individual, felt strongly that she was to be present at that historic event, where thousands of Christian Scientists were to gather in order to attend this meeting of purpose, occasioned by the fact that the Original Edifice of The Mother Church was no longer able to provide enough space for those wishing to attend Annual Meeting. She felt that even though she didn't see the answer immediately as to how the means would be provided, she would still be going. She could not deny the spiritual intuition that insisted on her getting ready to do this. Having seen so many proofs of healing in her work as a Christian Science nurse and, on occasion, praying for others, she recognized her purpose. Strongly encouraged by her daughter, she began to prepare her clothes for the journey.
She had had proof that when one is obedient, healing comes at the most unexpected moment in the most unusual way. In 1895, during the period in which she was reading Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy for the first time, she experienced a remarkable healing. She had suffered many years from a sleigh accident in which the horses had run away. The sleigh had hit a log, and my grandmother—then in her teens—had been thrown out. This incident resulted in a spinal curvature she had doctored and medicated throughout the years with the hope of being healed, but that had never happened.
