How was Albert D. Schroeder (GB) able to raise his child at Bethel?

Boxed elder bugs

I am just curious, maybe this topic has gotten covered before but when I was at Bethel the policy was that nobody could have a child there, if you had children you had to leave? So how was Governing Body member Albert D. Schroeder able to bypass those rules and raise his son Judah there at Bethel, Judah was there when I was there and worked as a waiter and seemed like a nice kid but why the exception, don't Bethel rules apply to everybody?

This is the only case I know of at any of the Societies headquarters where someone was allowed to raise their child there and didn't have to leave.

I wonder if Judah is still at Bethel?

blondie

There have been families that come into Bethel with minor children because that was the only way they could get a doctor on staff. At Wallkill they had a separate house, but they were part of the Bethel family.

I think there have been others but I don't know the details.

Blondie

Seeker4

Check out my post on Dr. Jim Howard, who had a daughter at Bethel who was in her early teens. The doctor that followed Jim, as I remember, was a black brother with four young kids. I remembering working at Bethel for a week and seeing this brother with his kids - some of them asleep at "morning worship." It must have been cool for the parents, but hell on the kids.

I think Judah Ben Schroeder (translates to "Judah, son of Schroeder" if I remember my Hebrew correctly) was very likely the first such child, and as a GB member's son, of particular interest to some of us long time JWs.

S4

james_woods

I posted this before on an experience thread about going to Cong. Servant school in Pittsburgh, PA. They had Schroeder Sr. there as the instructor with the boy (about 10 or so in 1970) and his mom. They were given an apartment and car. The official line was that they had to do the school there because of lack of room in Bethel itself. Don't know exactly how long they were kept in PA, but I think several years.

Speculation was, of course, that since having a child at Bethel was not allowed except in this one case (at the time) - that the arrangement was made to keep the family sort of "out of sight, out of mind" for a while from the regular Bethelites.

TopHat

I remember meeting a family at Wallkill who lived in a farm house owned by the WTS on the Bethel compound...they had a teenage son...Their duty was to keep the house ready for any Elite GB or other higher ups to stay for the weekend or a few weeks. They were also in the middle of renovations in the house. The house was an average middle class resident. So yes, some families were allowed to live in Bethel homes.