Soon I was led to make myself known to the pastors of the various
churches, one of whom agreed to give me an opportunity of addressing an
audience from his pulpit. His name was Thurston, and I shortly learned
that he was a nephew of the people with whom I had traveled in
gospel-wagon work. The following notice in the Santa Clara News of July
7, 1903, heralded the prospective meeting:

FOR A RESCUE HOME

Mrs. Florence Roberts, who is known in San Francisco as the Rescue
Missionary and Singing Evangelist, will address the public in the
Baptist church next Sunday on the subject of the establishment of a
non-sectarian home for women near San Francisco.

She comes highly endorsed by prominent citizens and Christian
societies. There are, she states, thirty-five thousand women on this
coast to be reached, and she is endeavoring to procure funds for a home
to which they can come for reformation. A free-will offering will be
taken at the conclusion of the address.

Prior to this meeting I learned of a little rescue home in San Jose,
the adjacent city, and one afternoon Lucy and I visited it. We went
without previous announcement, for I wanted to satisfy myself as to its
merits. It was a pretty old-fashioned cottage of about eight rooms,
located at 637 East St. John Street. There were but two girls--one a
mother, the other a prospective one--and, sad to relate, a most
inefficient matron. I quickly took in the situation, and, for the sake
of the inmates, privately decided to accept erelong her invitation to
sojourn temporarily under that roof.