Sydlik was a character. A Bohemian type. I saw a man that seemed to never tire chatting with people. Most people liked him but no one thought of him as a Bible scholar. Many times when I was going to libraries outside of Bethel, I'd see him walking through the office halls seemingly with nothing to do. When I'd go into his office, I rarely saw any paper work on his desk. He didn't seem to have a very important job, whatever it was. Dan did let it be known that any Bethelite with a problem was welcome to come and talk to him and that's why so many young men were in and out of his office. He was part of the Personnel Office. And in that office was John Booth and two other Bethelites. John Booth typed up Bethel outside speaking assignments. That was his job and I can't imagine that being too important, either.
I was friends with a young woman in Bethel who spoke five languages and was brilliant. She was a concert pianist and an accountant. She was assigned to Home housekeeping. One of the Office overseers wanted her in his department, but didn't go through correct procedure to transfer her. He got into lots of trouble with the Building Office for bringing her over to his department for a few days on a trial basis. I saw the hot verbal argument between the two men in the hall one day. She was punished by the Building Office and sent to Shipping. None of this was her fault but she was punished. Her husband went to Dan Sydlik and he made arrrangements to transfer her to Writing where she was sorely needed. However, by that time, she and her husband were so angry that they left Bethel and they left the Witnesses a few years afterwards.
I liked Dan and had fun teasing with him. We had only been in Bethel a few months when we found ourselves sitting at the same table with him at supper. Joe is a big tease and said something about me being Polish. So Dan responded by saying something to me in Polish like "Hello." Joe said he knew Polish too and he said a few words to Dan that he heard my mother say to our son when he was little at least a million times. Joe had forgottn the meaning of the words, but what he said to Dan was, "kiss me." Dan replied, "You're not my type!" That gives you some insight into Dan Sydlik. Can you imagine what Jaracz would have said if Joe uttered those Polish words to him?
One time after work, I was walking from the office back to the Towers and talking to Dan. We had just heard that either the Watch Tower or JWs had been banned in Poland, I can't remember which one. However, the other entity was not banned. So I said to Dan, "Don't they know that the two are the same?" He turned and with a straight face said, "Well, they're Polish, you know."
The Bethel family enjoyed it when Dan conducted morning worship because he was always good for a laugh. One morning I gave my text comment to the family of 6,000 people through TV hook-up. It was about something new and interesting I had read about the buzzing of bees in National Geographic and somehow I linked it with JWs preaching work. Joe was next to comment. So when Dan introduced Joe he said, "Let's see you top that!" The whole family laughed and laughed and I heard about it for the whole day and the next, and the next.
Dan loved liked a son, Lee Watters, a very special younger man who wrote the Young People Ask book and quite a few very nice books like Happiness, etc. (I'm not sure about Happiness, but Lee excelled at that type of writing.) Lee wrote the Oct 8, 1991 Awake! articles about helping abuse victims. He died a few years ago of a brain tumor and I was told that Dan had to be helped out of the KH after the funeral talk. He was crying and moaning, "My son, my son... How will I live without you." I have a very soft spot in my heart for both of these men and can hardly write about this.
Dan was a reformist. He told Joe and me that he came up with the idea of Assistants to the GB thinking this would bring in new, fresh ideas to the organization. He suggested men from the outside of Bethel. The idea was accepted. Dan was extremely disappointed in that the Assistants who were appointed were ole' school Bethelites and nothing would change, he said.
We know nothing about what part Dan played in the events of 1980.
About Fekel: He was in Linotype when Joe was in the Press Room in the 1950s. He had been there since the Rutherford days. We don't know when he died. He was a George Hanna type, just an ordinary soul who did his job and stayed out of trouble.
The Jackson you speak of who was there ten years is not the one we knew. The Jackson we knew eventually ended up one of the GB. He was there when Joe was there in the 50s and worked with Covington. Joe didn't personally know him. I think he died around 1982 or so?
Swingle was nice. He was not a sophisticated man, but rather course; could curse like a trooper at times. He seemed not to be very intelligent, but one time I read a letter he wrote to an overseer where I was working. It surprised me to read a letter that showed tact, kindness and intelligence. After Lyman married a woman with children, he became acquainted with things that he never thought about before and the experiences with her family tempered him. He liked to tell jokes. I remember being in his office looking through all the files in a huge cabinet from Grant Suiter's day that contained lots of Van Amburgh's personal material. Swingle was sitting at his desk and came over to hand me a letter he carried around in his wallet. It was from Rutherford to Woodworth telling him not to publish anymore articles in the Consolation magazine about hemorrhoids or he would be removed from his job. It was a funny letter and Swingle was laughing as we talked about it.
Swingle was for many, many years Arthur Worsley's room mate before he married. Both of them were strong-minded characters. Swingle was a friend of Ray Franz and tried to help him during the 1980's debacle, but was over ruled.
The ole' timers at Bethel lived closely with each other for many many years. It's obvious that there had to have been many negatives that took place between them over those years that we will never know about. What I know about is only the tip of the iceberg. If I had stayed there, imagine what I would have learned. Readers here will never know the inside tales because the participants have died or are dying off. Plus the living don't want to share the stories with the "outside" because "they don't want to bring reproach on Jehovah's organization."
Barb
