Esther Allen Peterson

Whate'er Betide: a Novel Esther Allen Peterson First edition

Millie was a city girl, who had become used to nice things, but she always planned on becoming a missionary to China. While working in Philadelphia, she was acquiring skills so that she could move to Chicago and work while attending Moody Bible Institute to prepare for mission work. But then she met Sam, a senior seminarian, who was looking for someone to marry, before he headed out for his first call. She wondered if she could serve the Lord just as well by going with Sam to the frontier town of Jordan, Montana. So, in 1930, in the middle of a severe drought and at the start of the Great Depression, she married Sam and left for Montana. Whenever Millie became afraid she hummed Be not dismayed whate'er betide. God will take care of you. She hummed it when she had pheumonia, when caught in a sandstorm and a blizzard, and when they left Jordan because of a family emergancy and went back East, and then couldn't find a call, and returned to Jordan only to find that they had already hired another minister. But she was never sure that God would see them through. Then she hummed the song again while unpacking in the new manse in Carson, North Dakota and she knew that God would take care of them, no matter what.