In 1897 Vida Goldstein (1869 – 1949), my first cousin three times removed, established a committee to raise money for the Victoria Hospital for Women and Children (Queen Victoria Hospital in Melbourne).
Soon afterwards, however, with her mother, two of her sisters, and one of her aunts, Vida adopted the beliefs and practices of the Church of Christ, Scientist. Christian Science was a variety of New Thought, a form of radical idealism, whose central proposition is that disease is a mental error, not a physical disorder. Since bad health is an illusion; its correct treatment, ‘mind cure’, was effected in the realm of spirit.
After their conversion, Vida and her family refused any dealings with conventional medicine, including hospitals and the medical profession
From 1877 when they moved to Melbourne, the Goldsteins attended the Scots (Presbyterian) Church whose minister was the Reverend Charles Strong (1844-1942), well-known for his ‘progressive’ views on theological and social issues. In 1883 he was defrocked over doctrinal disputes and expelled. Two years later, in 1885, he founded the Australian Church, with himself as minister. His “congregation largely composed of religious liberals and ex-members and adherents of Scots Church”. The Goldsteins were among those who followed Strong to his new church, their concern for the poor and oppressed and for peace to some degree the consequence of Strong’s influence. It was he it seems who introduced them to the ideas of Christian Science through his discussion group the Religious Science Club.
Vida was the first member of the family to join the Church of Christ, Scientist in 1902.* She was closely followed by her mother Isabella and sister Aileen. Vida was on the first board of directors in Melbourne and became president in June 1903. Aileen later trained as a First reader, a member of the congregation elected to serve and be responsible for church services.
The husband of Lina, the third daughter of Isabella, thoroughly disapproved of Christian Science and Lina did not become a Christian Scientist.
In 1901 Hyde Champion, husband of Vida’s sister Elsie, suffered a severe stroke, which left him paralysed on his right side.
In August 1902 the Society Notes column in the Melbourne Arena newspaper reported
Among well known Melbourne people whose bodily ailments the Christian Scientists have undertaken to cure is Mr. H. H. Champion. It is claimed by members of the cult that Mr. Champion, who has been in very bad health for some time, is deriving great benefit from the Christian Science treatment, and even the most sceptical will hope that the claim is justified. I hear by the way that Mrs. Champion, of the Book Lovers' Library, who wore glasses before she fell in with the scientists, has since been enabled to abandon them. If this kind of thing goes on there will be hard times among the doctors and oculists.
Hyde Champion’s niece Leslie Henderson remarks in The Goldstein Story (page 149):
I do not know whether this stroke occurred before or after the Goldsteins had become Christian Scientists, nor do I know whether Hyde himself ever became a real convert to this religion. I rather doubt whether he did. But I do know he was taken regularly to the services at the Christian Science Church in St. Kilda Road. The services there were held, not on the ground floor but on the first floor, which meant that Hyde had to struggle up and down a considerable number of steps. Elsie and her mother and sisters were so utterly convinced of the truth of Christian Science that they believed, against all evidence, that he would be cured in time. But he never was.
Enthusiastic converts to the new religion, Vida and her sisters encouraged their friends and acquaintances to follow Christian Science. This didn’t always work. In the early 1900s the family became friends with the writer Stella Miles Franklin (1879-1954). Miles Franklin was a special friend of Vida and Aileen and they unsuccessfully tried to convert her.
The Goldstein family, with the exception of Elsie’s husband, Hyde Champion, all enjoyed good health. Isabella Goldstein nee Hawkins was an exception. Isabella died aged 66 and her granddaughter Leslie wrote rather tartly that “I do not know what caused her death, but she must have had some illness which her Christian Science beliefs made her unwilling to acknowledge.”**
Isabella’s sister Georgina, who also became a Christian Scientist, lived until the age of 88. Isabella’s daughters lived until their 80s with the exception of Lina Henderson, who had not followed the family into Christian Science, and lived to 71 years of age.
*As I understand it, ‘The First Church of Christ, Scientist’ was the name of the mother church in Boston established by Mary Baker Eddy in 1879. The doctrines of Christian Science had been developed by Eddy in her book published in 1875.
**Isabella Goldstein’s death certificate (3669/1916) states her cause of death was Cardiac Asthenia (weakness) which was of 4 weeks duration. She was seen by Dr L Henry, a legally qualified medical practitioner, three weeks before her death on 12 January 1916.
The Bulletin magazine of Feb 3 1916 reported
The late Mrs. Goldstein, Vida’s mother, who died the other day in Melbourne, was a member of the Hawkins family which in the early days squatted at Melville Forest, Portland. The lady was a “Christian scientist” of the first water, and remained an Eddyite until the very last, flatly refusing to see a medical man ; but near the end, unknown to the dying lady, a doctor was summoned and did what he could. The cult will find small comfort in the fact that, while Mrs. Goldstein lay on her deathbed, a daughter [Aileen] was on her way back from the home of “Christian science” in the U.S., where for some time she had been studying its latest and more carefully revised phases—and perhaps comparing the earlier and ungrammatical editions of Mary Baker Eddy’s writings with the literary products of her later years. In spite of the general tendency of the family to sing “I Didn’t Raise My Son to Be a Soldier,” Selwyn, the only Goldstein boy, is on active service.
Related posts and further reading
- V is for vivacious Vida on the vamp
- Trove Tuesday: Vida Mary Jane Goldstein (1869 – 1949)
- Sepia Saturday 195 : International Day of Peace
- Isabella Goldstein nee Hawkins 1849 – 1916
- Y is for Yannasch
- Three little maids from school
- Henderson, Leslie M. (Leslie Moira) (1973). The Goldstein story. Stockland Press, Melbourne
- Kent, Jacqueline, 1947-. (2020). VIDA : a woman for our time. [North Sydney, New South Wales] : Penguin Random House Australia
- Roe, Jill & HarperCollins. (2018). Miles Franklin : a short biography. Sydney, New South Wales : HarperCollins Publishers
- Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University,
- Janice N. Brownfoot, ‘Goldstein, Vida Jane (1869–1949)’, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/goldstein-vida-jane-6418/text10975, published first in hardcopy 1983
- Geoffrey Serle, ‘Champion, Henry Hyde (1859–1928)’, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/champion-henry-hyde-5548/text9457, published first in hardcopy 1979
- C. R. Badger, ‘Strong, Charles (1844–1942)’, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/strong-charles-4658/text7697, published first in hardcopy 1976
- Jill Roe, ‘Franklin, Stella Maria Sarah Miles (1879–1954)’, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/franklin-stella-maria-sarah-miles-6235/text10731, published first in hardcopy 1981
Wikitree:
- Isabella (Hawkins) Goldstein (1849 – 1916) my 2nd great grand aunt
- Vida Jane Mary Goldstein (1869 – 1949)
- Elsie (Goldstein) Champion (1870 – 1953)
- Henry Hyde Champion (1859 – 1928) husband of Elsie
- Lina (Goldstein) Henderson (1872 – 1943)
- Leslie Moira Henderson (1896 – 1982) daughter of Lina and author of The Goldstein Story
- Aileen Goldstein (1877 – 1960)
- Georgina (Hawkins) Nichols (1856 – 1944) sister of Isabella and another of my 2nd great grand aunts
- Dorothy Mary (Nichols) Coupland (1892 – 1973) adopted daughter of Georgina
- Charles Strong (1844 – 1942)
- Mary Morse (Baker) Eddy (1821 – 1910)
- Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin (1879 – 1954)
This post was created as part of Amy Johnson Crow’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. This week’s theme is “Influencer.”