From the Papers: Julia Adams’s time in Christian Science

Portrait of Julia A. D. Adams, P00270. Portrait of Joseph Adams, P00271. Both portraits by I. W. Taber. Letterhead: Julia A. D. Adams to Mary Baker Eddy, May 1888, 216.36.040.
In 2023, the Mary Baker Eddy Papers team took a look at Joseph A. Adams, who preached for several years in the early days of the Christian Science church.1 This month we are highlighting his wife, Julia A. D. Adams. Among several women formally trained in medical schools, she expressed an interest in Christian Science and took the next step in studying it with Mary Baker Eddy.2 Here we learn more about her experience with Christian Science, as well as her personal struggle when her husband eventually broke away from the movement.
Born in New York State around 1831, Julia was a M.D. who graduated from the Cleveland Homeopathic Medical College in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1871. She worked as a homeopathic physician and was a member of the American Institute of Homeopathy. After a marriage to William P. Dunning (1830–1866), she married Joseph, a Congregational minister who had also been previously married, in Lorain, Ohio, in June 1875. Four years later they purchased the Cottonwood Hot Springs resort near Buena Vista, Colorado, and operated it as a sanitarium until the mid-1880s, when they moved to Oakland, California. It was there that they both became interested in metaphysical healing.
Joseph became a student of Christian Science after reading Eddy’s book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. In a letter no longer extant, Eddy invited him to come to Boston to preach at her church and study with her at the Massachusetts Metaphysical College. After taking instruction with her in March 1886, he preached several times at the services of the Church of Christ (Scientist) in Boston’s Chickering Hall.
Julia also became interested in studying with Eddy, and wrote to her on June 7, 1886:
There has ever, from my first knowledge of you & your work, seemed to be a strong feeling of sympathy & love going out to you; which has been doubly strengthened since my husband has been with you. I have from the first felt that I should never be satisfied in this work until I had been permitted to receive it direct from you ….3
Julia went on to study with Eddy, completing her Primary class in August 1886. “Words are inadequate to express to you, my love & gratitude for this great Truth which you have been instrumental in revealing to my understanding,” she wrote to Eddy on September 13, 1886. “I feel that I am beginning to catch but glimpses of this great Light.”4 The following month, Julia and Joseph took Eddy’s Normal class together, and Julia became a member of the Christian Scientist Association (she would also become a member of the National Christian Scientist Association and be elected President of the Students’ Christian Scientist Association No. 23, Oakland, California). Afterward, Eddy sent Joseph to Chicago to work with Ellen Brown Linscott, who was the head of the Chicago Christian Science Institute. Julia returned to California to continue her Christian Science work there.
Back in Oakland, Julia was involved with public meetings and teachings between the summer of 1886 and the summer of 1889.5 Julia helped establish the Oakland Christian Science Institute and was listed in the directory of The Christian Science Journal as Principal of the Institute from 1887 to 1889.
While working in Chicago, Joseph became receptive to teachers and teachings that departed from Christian Science as Eddy taught it. He began to take offense when Eddy or those in her church corrected him in matters of doctrine or practice. In February 1887 he began a break from the movement. “It is quite true,” he wrote to Eddy on February 28, “that as far as I am personally concerned a complete moral revolution has taken place; producing an entire change of procedure as regards my future methods of work in connection with Christian Science.”6
Devastated by this development, from Oakland Julia wrote to Eddy less than a week later:
I received a letter from Mr Adams a few days ago which has nearly crushed me. My dear Sister, what does it mean? What has the man done? Where is the mistake for I feel it must be a mistake somewhere or a Misunderstanding? Is it the effect of some Malicious Mind that is trying to break up the harmony which has heretofore existed between you two, & thus so effectually – hinder the progress of the Truth. I have felt to cry out in my agony, this must not be. Is it too late to remedy what seems to be such an unfortunate thing? I know that neither of you would intentionally wrong the other. And then the outcome of such a move as this it seems to me will be such a disastrous thing to the cause so dear to us all…. 7
Even though her husband had started to break away, Julia’s loyalty to the Christian Science movement remained strong, and she signed off to Eddy as “Your sorrowing but faithful Student and sincere friend.”
Over a year later, Julia’s feelings hadn’t changed. She was steadily going about her work for the movement in Oakland. At the same time, Joseph was finding his way in Chicago, working with teachers and groups who were not Christian Scientists. In an action noted as the “Chicago Vote,” his card was removed from the directory of the Journal as a result of a request made by the Board of Directors of the Church of Christ (Scientist), Chicago, in February 1888.8 “…when it comes to my own husband,” Julia wrote to Eddy on May 9, 1888, “coming here & taking such a stand directly opposite to me, & to his previous teaching, what is the result to be?” Even though that may have been the case, she also felt as though Joseph hadn’t been treated entirely fairly. As a faithful Christian Scientist, Julia looked to Eddy for guidance. “My Dear Sister,” she continued, “can you give me a thought occasionally, to help me through this dark place, & for me to do my duty faithfully?”9
By October 1889, Julia had left Francis Fluno and Ella Fluno to carry on the work in Oakland, and gone to join Joseph in Chicago, where she continued working for the cause of Christian Science. Before doing so, she struggled with her husband’s break from a movement she passionately believed in, all the while defending him to Eddy. She wrote to Eddy in May 1888:
Whilst I am free to say to you that there are some of his positions that I do not endorse in the slightest, still I must say this, that if all of those parties who are fighting him, manifested one half of the Christian Spirit that he does in all of this matter, they would certainly do very differently from what they do ….10
In an August 1891 letter to Eddy, Julia defended Joseph by citing many examples of his loyalty, despite what had been done and said during the previous few years. “I feel that I do know that you have never taught a Student in any form who has stood as faithfully to you and your teachings as he has,” she wrote. She recognized that “I don’t say this because we always think alike, for we do not. There are many things in which we differ widely as to methods, ways and means &c. But that does not change the principle of either of us in the least.”
As devoted as she was, she believed Eddy had publicly wronged Joseph—having accused him in early 1887 of plagiarizing her writings and ideas—and that she should publicly atone through the Journal.11 “But amid all of this I have still gone on with my own way and work, and never swerved to the right or left, but stood firmly by you and your work.”12
Eddy felt otherwise, and relayed this in a letter to Julia dated August 24, 1891:
I wrote you that “if I have wronged your husband I am willing to confess it and ask his pardon” but added “I know that I have not wronged him”. You know what I have done in helping him, this is proof of my love, and I know that I have not accused him falsely. Others know that I have defended him from accusations, also, they see no evidence that when I christianly admonish him he changes his ways in things which they see ….13
After that response from Eddy, Julia’s presence in The Mary Baker Eddy Library’s collections disappears.
In 1895 Joseph returned to Oakland on his own. There he tried to found a church, lecturing before various audiences on spiritualism and “gospel science.” He passed away in Seattle, Washington, in 1900.
Julia continued living in the Chicago area, where she appears to have resumed her career as a physician. She passed away in Palos Park, Illinois, on May 30, 1905. Her correspondence with Eddy provides readers with insight into her personal struggle between faith and family, and is available to read on the Mary Baker Eddy Papers website.
Please note: Quoted references in our “From the Papers” article series reflect the original documents. For this reason they may include spelling mistakes and edits made by the authors. In instances where a mark or edit is not easily represented in quoted text, an omission or insertion may be made silently.
- See “Joseph Adams and Christian Science pastoring,” 10 July 2023.
- For more examples of these women, see “Women doctors write to Mary Baker Eddy,” 14 March 2022.
- Julia A. D. Adams to Eddy, 7 June 1886, 216.36.043, https://mbepapers.org/?load=216.36.043
- Julia A. D. Adams to Eddy, 13 September 1886, 216.36.044, https://mbepapers.org/?load=216.36.044
- “Growth of Christian Science on the Pacific Coast,” Oakland Tribune, 22 December 1903.
- Joseph A. Adams to Eddy, 28 February 1887, 216.36.012, https://mbepapers.org/?load=216.36.012
- Julia A. D. Adams to Mary Baker Eddy, 5 March 1887, 216.36.045, https://mbepapers.org/?load=216.36.045
- “Chicago Vote,” Journal, April 1888, 49.
- Julia A. D. Adams to Eddy, 9 May 1888, 973.96.014, https://mbepapers.org/?load=973.96.014
- Julia A. D. Adams to Eddy, May 1888, 216.36.040, https://mbepapers.org/?load=216.36.040
- See 163A.27.047 and L07892.
- Julia A. D. Adams to Eddy, 21 August 1891, 216.36.051, https://mbepapers.org/?load=216.36.051
- Eddy to Julia A. D. Adams, 24 August 1891, L13944, https://mbepapers.org/?load=L13944