Wasn't it easier back then because you got a break between the public talk and watchtower study? Also between the school and service meeting? Loved to watch who smoked ;)
JW's in the '40s and '50s
by larc 19 Replies latest jw friends
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Undecided
Hi Oldfarts,
You just about covered it all. You could play on the school athletic teams if the games weren't on meeting nights. In the 40s, at least I could draw names in school at Christmas, but it was a sort of compromise I think. Smoking was permitted but you were considered spititually weak. I hated the street work on Saturdays in the forties, you usually didn't place but two or three.
Generally your life was fun then, I got to see all the movies because my dad worked at a theater as the projectionist. We didn't have to pay anything to see the movies. Almost all the movie actors I saw then are dead now. We spent more time in service because my dad didn't have to go to work untill 6 pm and got home about 11 or 12, depending on how long the movie was that night. He had all day at home except on Saturdays, they had an afternoon movie then at 1 pm, mostly western.
If it rained nobody would go in service, the family would get together and play cards. On Thanksgiving we would usually get together and have a good meal, but we were'nt celebrating anything. Usually we would visit my mother's family, no JWs there at all except us, and enjoy the meal. The kids had to wait until the grown ups had finished, there wasn't room at the table for us all. My mothers worldly relatives were good to my brother and I, they would buy us gifts at Christmas and when we would go see them after Christmas they would give us the gifts.
We had a good life as kids.
Ken P.
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SYN
Damn - I can't even begin to imagine living back then. I was born in a world already filled with the silent screaming of electronics in 1982 - back then a lot of people didn't even have TV!
My great-grandfather once showed me a shirt that he got as a gift from a friend in America in 1942 - apparently it wasn't an expensive shirt at the time - and the stitching was much finer than anything you can get at a department store today. In fact, you'd have to go to a tailor to get that sort of stitching today, or buy Armani! My great-grandfather told me how FLIMSY everything seems to be today - he calls this time the 'Disposable Era'.
I do think it's really cool that more mature people like you guys inhabit these forums - it gives them an interesting slant at times! Since most of my time on the Internet is usually spent chatting with pimply teenagers, this is quite a change...I don't think I'd survive for 10 minutes in 1942.
Although I would ensure I was in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. Hehe! During my time in the Society nothing changed much - only a couple of minor things, which I can't even remember anymore. I think pretty much the biggest thing was that they stopped serving food at conventions, and you had to bring your own.
I wonder what the people of the 1940's would have thought about a guy like me who can type faster (40 WPM) than any typewriter back then was capable of punching letters into the paper!
"I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious sensibilities of anyone." -- Charles Darwin, The Origin Of Species, 1869.
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Sam Beli
Yes, Joy, I had forgotten about the intermission. I think the original idea was to really make it a Public Talk and then give a break so that the public could leave before the WT study. Later they realized that they were loosing some audience at the break (some publishers were leaving too), so attempted to stop the hemorrhage by eliminating the intermission.
Fire, along with the blood doctrine in that era was a lot of ranting against the UN in those days. The UN immerged out of W.W.II, so in its infancy it came under fire (no pun intended) as a beast in opposition to God’s Kingdom.
Other rantings were against college and against marriage – the old “better to remain single” argument.
There was a lot of expansion under Knorr’s administration and he was delighted to organize the largest assemblies ever held by JWs. At the time (50s) JWs set attendance records at Yankee Stadium. Large assemblies combining Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds were held in 1950, ‘53 and ’58 as I recall. These were 8 days long, running Sunday to Sunday; they ended by 6 PM the last Sunday, so we could drive home afterwards and get in bed by 2 am, then wake up Monday morning refreshed and ready for the week ahead.
Sam Beli
I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and striving after wind. What is crooked cannot be straightened and what is lacking cannot be counted. Solomon
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waiting
I've heard this story often:
My husband's parents got married shortly before the father was imprisoned for not serving in WWII. They were looked down upon as "not being spiritually minded" for getting married. They were male - 25, female, 22.
Nine months (almost to the day) that he was released from prison, she delivered a bouncing baby boy. And many local sisters had nasty comments about them "not putting kingdom interests first" and not adherring to the message that "the end was upon us."
Then, they had another boy 2 years later - and it was certifiable evidence of their "lack of spiritual maturity."
She talks about the nasty comments from the sisters often. It's a shame to have to give of your life to prison, and then be condemned for wanting children. But that's what happened to them.
Btw, he died as an elder at 80; she still attends (now 81) and grumbles all the time....."but they're just imperfect men, like us." But, if we don't get to the meetings, Jehovah will kill us at Armageddon and we won't be resurrected. And "what will I tell your father when he's resurrected and he asked where you are?"
waiting
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larc
Two other things,
Anyone back then who thought they were of the anointed, were older, people who had been in the organization in the 1920's. They were called "the remnant".
The WT sold Beth Sarim and Beth Shan in the 40's after Rutherford's death. They stopped writing about the men of the OT being resurrected before Armageddon. Nonetheless, some Witness continued believe it for several years. I knew one sister who thought they might return at the 1953 world assembly.
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Sam Beli
Yes Waiting, I too remember those stories. I was one of those babies born in the Rutherford era. My parents were told that is was to bad that I’d never get to graduate from High School before the big A.
Now my parent’s great grandchild is running around.
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plmkrzy
I thought this post was for people in there 40's and 50's
But I remember having breaks between meetings, so some were still doing that in the 60's I remember the same people out in the parking lot during the break and all the kids would be running and playing, the teens would just be standing around trying to look cool, that is until someone they new drove by and then they would turn around fast or hide behind someone. he he he
Seeing smokers outside was pretty common.
plm -
plmkrzy
Oh Yah! I remember when the announcment was made at
our KH about the sign of the beast being identified
on the 4th of July stands. We had to stop buying
fireworks. I was bummm'd. That was 196?.
My dad refused to buy fireworks anymore so my mom
would take us to where ever they were having a
fireworks show. She said "Were not lite'n um and
I can't see any reason why we can't wacht um"
plm -
larc
refiner's fire,
I went back and reread my last post to you. I sounded a little harsh - sorry.
Doctrinal changes did a occur. Blood became an issue in the early 40's. The resurrection of the ancient worthies in our time went out in the late 40s. Strong encouragement not to get married went out around 1950, at the time that Knorr decided to get married. Around 1960, the interpretation of the higher powers was changed for the third time. Also, around that time, the sisters were told that they should be in the TMS - some didn't like that. It was also about this time that they started giving tests, once a month on the TMS material. I don't know if I would call it a periond of stagnation, more one of stability. The JWs had their highest growth rate from the mid 40's to the mid 50's. I think this was due to Knorr's introduction of sales and marketing techniques.