Dr Maclaren's guidance must have been a great resource when she was coping with the challenge that came in the person of her new daughter-in-law Evelyn Oldenbourg, and perhaps we can see both challenges in her letter to John on 9 March 1872. Ellen Ewing quotes her saying, after she had been writing about Evelyn,
I am wondering whether it is good for us or not to hear statements contrary to what we believe to be truth; it tries me most when I see some reason in what is advanced and yet feel the view at variance with what I have long been accustomed to regard as undoubted truth. If, by this means, we are driven to prayer and more earnest searching, no doubt the result will be good. Certainly it is more easy to go on undisturbed, enjoying our belief and living upon it, refusing to listen to any opposition. What is right is another question [1]
Evelyn, a school friend of young John's sister Ellen, came from a very different background. Her father Gustave Oldenbourg, who died when she was a baby, was a German-born stuff and yarn merchant in Leeds, and her mother Angelina was from Yorkshire. Ellen Ewing quotes her mother Evelyn's memoirs:
Perhaps my young life abroad and such a varied outlook and education did not quite fit with the somewhat serious severe atmosphere of this family, though I was happier there than anywhere else. [2]
Katharine Chorley, remembering her Aunt Evelyn, thought that the "months on end" Evelyn had spent with family in the "so much softer and sunnier and more expansive" surroundings of Dresden and Munich had
infused into her outlook the richness and the freedom which raised her mentally a head and shoulders above almost all the women I knew when I was young. [3]
She described with great fondness Evelyn's unconventionality and eccentricities, her energy and bravery, indicating that Evelyn, who was to suffer such dreadful losses in her life, had no religious faith
her philosophy of life threw her on to her own resources and offered her neither comfort nor explanation. She did without and, unarmed, threw back the challenge of suffering with a gallant 'No Surrender'. [4]
A greater contrast with her future mother-in-law cannot be imagined. Evelyn's daughter Ellen Ewing wrote
Evelyn sensed that she was not entirely acceptable, though she probably failed to realize the spiritual upheaval which her advent in the family had caused, especially in the Mother and even the level headed Ellen. [5]
Almost everything about her seems to have been a challenge. When Alice visited John and Evelyn in their first home near Birmingham, she wrote to John on 21 April 1873
Evelyn is really a fascinating hostess; her bright, happy face is quite contagious. I must follow up your advice and not trouble about scratched furniture, plate, etc., and all best things in daily use. I say to myself it is only a matter of money – earlier replacement, no great concern if they can afford it, and, if not, they must use the spoilt or do without. What say you to my conclusions? [6]
But Alice grew steadily more and more comfortable with Evelyn, writing on 18 May 1890 to John
When left alone with Evelyn we get on very well; she is very daughterly and interesting as well, and I can say more of my mind to her than to any of the four daughters-in-law [7]
John and Evelyn had married on 4 March 1873 at St John's Church in rural Longsight, half an hour's walk west of his parents' home at Grove House (the church is now a mosque). His younger brother Alfred was married four months later, and his marriage also took place in a parish church.
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