I haven't had time to read it all, but from what I've seen so far here, it's quite an incredible story.....thanks to those of you who have spent the time, energy and resources to put it all together for the rest of us.
Rutherford Exposed: The Story of Berta and Bonnie
by Farkel 747 Replies latest watchtower scandals
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Leolaia
Here's a report of the convention (in classic Rutherfordian style) in the 1939 Yearbook:
"In April, 1938, a convention of Jehovah's witnesses was held in Australia. Learning of that approaching convention the Fascists and the Roman Catholic Hierarchy combine put forth their most strenuous efforts to prevent God's people from assembling in convention and worshipping Jehovah in spirit and truth. Public officials of Australia prevented the use of a public hall for the people there to assemble and worship God. Radio stations were forbidden by the government officials to broadcast the Kingdom message. The newspapers were used to publish divers and numerous false statements that would interfere with the convention. Every possible means was put forth by the Fascists and the Hierarchy crowd to prevent the people from learning about God's Kingdom under Christ. Concerning such overt acts of the wicked conspirators Jehovah speaks, at Psalm 2:4, as follows: "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision." No doubt the Lord held in derision that combined opposition that raised its hideous head at Sydney, Australia. All their efforts failed to prevent many people from hearing. The largest hall there available there would accommodate only about four thousand persons. Because the use of that hall was denied Christian people, they were forced to engage an open park; and at the public meeting there assembled 25,000 persons, who heard the Kingdom message and who also learned that the Fascist-Hierarchy combine are operating a racket by which the people are ensnared and fleeced and their liberties destroyed and the way to the Kingdom blocked, so far as it is possible for such wicked agencies to block it.
"Then in a few days thereafter at Auckland, New Zealand, a one-day convention of God's consecrated people was held. There the Hierarchy-Fascist combine and their newspapers put forth their best endeavors to prevent the people from hearing the Kingdom message, and again they failed. Although the public address was delivered at the noon hour on Monday and during a downpour of rain, four thousand people crowded into the hall to hear the good news of the Kingdom and to learn of the nefarious work of the totalitarian monstrosity combine which attempts to destroy all the liberties of the people. Both at Sydney and in New Zealand the public assembly unanimously adopted resolutions disapproving the action of the Hierarchy and the Fascists and emphasizing the importance of the people’s placing themselves under the protection of God’s kingdom.
"On the return to America a brief stop was made at Suva, Fiji Islands, which is a crown colony of the British Empire. There a hall had been taken by contract and a public meeting advertised. The Roman Catholic Hierarchy and allies succeeded in closing the hall and preventing the people from meeting there. The acting governor of the Fiji Islands, himself a Roman Catholic and a tool of the Papacy, in the absence of the regular governor, had issued an order forbidding the importation of literature and phonograph records, or any publications of the Watch Tower, and thus an effort was made to keep the people of the Fiji Islands from learning the truth. The public lecture delivered at Sydney, Australia, had been recorded. A few days after the afore-mentioned public meeting was prohibited the recorded speech was reproduced by phonograph to the public at Suva, and, by the Lord’s grace, they did hear the Kingdom message and learned something of the nefarious conduct of the Hierarchy.
"Early in June a convention of God’s people was arranged for at Seattle, Washington. The enemy, learning of the approaching convention, did everything possible to prevent the people from hearing at that place. Led by the Roman Catholic Hierarchy and ably supported by the Fascists, and the newspapers, a vigorous campaign was staged against God’s kingdom and his witnesses. The public press was fmmished with the facts but, because of fear of the Hierarchy and Fascists, or because of being a part of the combine, refused to give publication to the facts. Such opposition did not deter Jehovah’s witnesses and their companions in carrying forward their work" (pp. 34-36).
This gives some indication of the disastrous conditions of these conventions and suggests by omission that there was no convention held in Hawaii. Looks like Berta and Malcolm + Pauline Rutherford used the convention trip merely as a means to spend time in Hawaii. Judge Rutherford would probably have anticipated the trouble he would have faced in the Pacific.... perhaps he did not want Berta to come to those conventions in case they faced arrests or violence? Or did he have work for her to do in Hawaii? The same Yearbook has this to say about Hawaii:
"During the year the breathren had the great pleasure of two visits by Brother Rutherford and the party of brethren accompanying him, on the way to and from Australia. These visits and the message he brought were of great encouragement and stimulated all the publishers to increased activity. In April, due to the ship's being delayed, the meeting was not held until 10:30 at night, but Kingdom Hall was filled with people, many having waited since early afternoon. On returning in May Brother Rutherford delivered a public lecture, "Warning," which was advertised extensively by means of handbills, tire signs, window cards, and large auto signs and sound equipment. The newspapers ignored Brother Rutherford’s arrival on both occasions, and even the steamship company denied he was aboard the ship, demonstrating the deep hatred these people have for the Truth. But the "Warning" was given despite their attitude. Brother Rutherford also arranged for lectures on the islands of Kauai and Hawaii with good results, also a radio broadcast. Now the priests are warning their people against the literature, and telling them it is a mortal sin to even listen to the phonograph lectures. But the Lord will loosen the prisoners" (pp. 165-166).
The arranging of lectures on Kauai and Hawaii (the Big Island) could well explain why Bonnie Heath and William Heath did not return with Rutherford on the S. S. Mariposa; they were sent on an interisland tour and left on the S. S. Matsonia several days after the Mariposa left. The same talks on Kauai and Hawaii could have technically been given by Malcolm Rutherford, but as far as we know, he wasn't following his dad in the religion at that point (according to RR), but this point is not confirmed. The fact that Malcolm was travelling together with his father is something that needs explaining.
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Leolaia
Nosferatu....I actually found a ton of stuff last night that I have yet to post. Merry might need to revise her timeline again once I'm through.
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Merry Magdalene
Oh boy! More stuff! I hope some of it is the newspaper articles JFR mentioned. I'm quite curious about those. But whatever it is I am quite eager to see it!
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mama1119
What an intersesting post. I can't believe how much research everyone has done.
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drew sagan
You guys are nuts!
Keep up the good work. -
Lady Lee
You probably don't realize this but after sifting out many of the posts that applaud all the hard work Farkel, larc, Merry, Leolaia, VM44, Athanasius and I know there are others have done on this thread there are 135 pages of questions and documented information regarding this issue. (that is 135 pages
You've written a book just in the discovery of facts
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Leolaia
JUDGE RUTHERFORD'S TRAVELLING COMPANIONS
The
TheJoseph Rutherford 43 11/8/1869 Versailles, Missouri 10 Orange St., Brooklyn, NY Mary Rutherford 42 8/17/1871 Hornville, Missouri 10 Orange St., Brooklyn, NY
TheJoseph F. Rutherford 44 11/8/1869 Versailles, Missouri 10 Orange St., Brooklyn, NY Mary M. Rutherford 42 8/17/1872 Hornville, Missouri 10 Orange St., Brooklyn, NY
Malcolm C. Rutherford 22 11/10/1892 [Illegible] 10 Orange St., Brooklyn, NY
TheJoseph F. Rutherford 51 11/8/1869 Missouri 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY Arthur Goux 23 1/11/1897 Forest Park, Illinois 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY
TheJoseph F. Rutherford 52 11/8/1869 Morgan, Missouri 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY Arthur Goux 25 1/11/1897 Forest Park, Illinois 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY
Robert J. Martin 43 3/30/1878 Elkhart, Indiana 127 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY
TheJos. Rutherford 54 11/8/1869 Morgan, Missouri 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY Bonnie Boyd 27 7/17/1896 Natulos, Iowa 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY
William Van Amburgh 60 8/28/1863 Eader, Minnesota 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY Luie Van Amburgh 59 11/8/1864 Detroit, Michigan 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY Walter Salter 40 ------------- [Canadian citizen] Toronto, Canada
TheJos. Rutherford 55 11/8/1869 St. Louis, Missouri 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY Bonnie Boyd 27 7/17/1896 Waterloo, Iowa 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY
Robert Martin 47 3/30/1878 Elkhart, Indiana 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY Hannah Martin 16 10/16/1909 Babylon, Long Island 1000 South Madison Avenue, Pasadena, CA Alexander Macmillan 47 -------------- [Naturalized, 6/7/1923] 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY Emma Hamilton 63 3/16/1862 Chicago, Illinois 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY Walter Salter 41 ------------- [Canadian citizen] Toronto, Canada
TheJoseph F. Rutherford 56 11/8/1869 Morgan Co., Missouri 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY Bonnie Boyd 29 7/17/1896 Waterloo, Iowa 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY
Robert J. Martin 48 3/30/1878 Elkhart, Indiana 18 Concord St., Brooklyn, NY
TheJos. Rutherford 58 Nov. 1869 Versailles, Missouri 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY Bonnie Boyd 39 7/17/1898 Iowa 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY
Robert J. Martin 49 Mar. 1878 Elkhart, Indiana 117 Adams St., Brooklyn, NY Alta Eckols 49 1878 Old Frankfort, Illinois 330 Union Bldg., San Diego, CA
TheJoseph Rutherford 59 11/8/1869 Versailles, Missouri 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY Bonnie Boyd 30 7/19/1899 Waterloo, Iowa 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY
Robert Martin 51 3/30/1878 Elkhart, Indiana 117 Adams St., Brooklyn, NY Donald Haslett 34 7/3/1895 Mount Vernon, New York 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY Alta Eckols 51 4/21/1899 Old Frankfort, Illinois 330 Union Bldg., San Diego, CA
TheJoseph F. Rutherford 61 11/8/1869 Versailles, Missouri 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY Bonnie Boyd 31 7/17/1896 Waterloo, Iowa 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY
Robert J. Martin 53 3/30/1878 Elkhart, Indiana 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY Robert S. Emery 32 8/12/1898 Chicago, Illinois 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY
TheRobert Emery 33 8/12/1898 Chicago, Illinois 124 Columbus Heights, Brooklyn, NY Bonnie Boyd 31 7/17/1900 Huston, Texas 124 Columbus Heights, Brooklyn, NY
TheJoseph F. Rutherford 62 11/8/1869 Versailles, Missouri 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY Bonnie Boyd 30 7/17/1901 Waterloo, Iowa 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY
TheJoseph F. Rutherford 64 11/8/1869 Versailles, Missouri 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY Bonnie Boyd 35 7/17/1896 Waterloo, Iowa 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY
Nathan Knorr 28 4/23/1905 Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY
Walter Salter 49 ------------- [Canadian citizen] Toronto, Canada
TheJoseph F. Rutherford 64 11/8/1869 Boonville, Missouri 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY Bonnie Boyd 30 7/17/1903 Waterloo, Iowa 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY
Joseph F. Rutherford 64 11/8/1869 Versailles, Missouri 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY Bonnie Boyd 36 7/17/1898 Waterloo, Iowa 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY
Matthew A. Howlett 46 ------------- [Naturalized, 4/17/1931] 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY
Helen Howlett 30 9/6/1904 Cleveland, Ohio 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY
Walter F. Salter* 50 ------------- [Winnipeg, Canada] Toronto, Canada
* Walter Salter cancelled his departure.
The
TheJoseph F. Rutherford 65 [i.e. 1869] U.S.A. U.S.A. Bonnie Boyd 32 [i.e. 1903] U.S.A. U.S.A.
TheJoseph F. Rutherford 66 11/8/1869 Versailles, Missouri 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY Bonnie Boyd 40 7/17/1896 Waterloo, Iowa 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY
TheJoseph F. Rutherford 67 11/8/1869 Versailles, Missouri 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY Bonnie Boyd 35 7/17/1902 Waterloo, Iowa 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY
TheJoseph F. Rutherford 68 11/8/1869 Versailles, Missouri 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY Bonnie Boyd 33 7/17/1904 Waterloo, Iowa 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY
William Heath 33 11/17/1903 Atlanta, Georgia 206 Lambeth Road, Baltimore, MD
Berta Peale 35 10/30/1901 Bethel, North Carolina 2311 North Haven Blvd., Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio
TheJoseph F. Rutherford 68 11/8/1869 Versailles, Missouri 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY Bonnie Heath 41 7/17/1896 Waterloo, Iowa 4440 Braeburn Road, San Diego, CA
William Heath 34 11/17/1904 Atlanta, Georgia 4440 Braeburn Road, San Diego, CA
Matthew Howlett 49 --------- [Naturalized, 4/17/1931] 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY
Berta Peale 35 --------- U.S.A. U.S.A. Malcolm Rutherford 48 --------- U.S.A. U.S.A.
Pauline Rutherford 41 --------- U.S.A. U.S.A.
TheBonnie Heath 41 [i.e. 1896] U.S.A. U.S.A. William Heath 34 [i.e. 1903] U.S.A. U.S.A.
Joseph F. Rutherford 68 11/8/1869 Versailles, Missouri 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY Bonnie Heath 34 7/17/1904 Waterloo, Iowa 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY
William Heath 35 11/17/1903 Atlanta, Georgia 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY
Berta L. Peale 36 10/30/1901 Bethel, North Carolina 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY
Nathan Knorr 33 4/23/1905 Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY
In Farkel's original post, we learned that Bonnie Boyd first came to Bethel in 1923 to work as a stenographer for William Van Amburgh. This is reflected in the data presented above, in which Bonnie first appears in the Spring of 1924 travelling with the Van Amburghs. Thereafter she was the one constant throughout all subsequent Rutherford voyages. The chiropractor Alta Eckols also travelled in the group in 1927 and 1929, the year that Beth Sarim was built. The most maddening aspect of these data is wildly varying age and date of birth given for Bonnie Boyd. It is hard to escape from the fact that Bonnie lied about her age for many years. This made it impossible for a long time to track down Bonnie's family because of the false information given to census takers, ship passenger lists, etc. The SSDI gives her DOB as 7/17/1904 and the 1900 census of Victoria and John Boyd of Waterloo, Iowa does not mention her tho it mentions several of her siblings, indicating that she was not yet born. There is a pattern in her misrepresentation of her age in that she initially made herself much older than she really was and decreased her age as time wore on (while at times reasserting the original DOB):
YEAR (VOYAGE) AGE CLAIMED AGE CLAIMED DOB DISCREPENCY 1924 (S. S. Paris) 19 27 7/17/1896 +8 years
1925 (S. S. Paris) 20 27 7/17/1896 +7/8 years
1926 (S. S. Columbus) 21 29 7/17/1896 +8 years
1927 (S. S. Ile de France) 23 39 [? 29] 7/17/1898 +6 years
1929 (S. S. Rotterdam) 25 30 7/19/1899 +5 years
1930 (U.S. Census) 25 31 [c. 1899-1900] +5/6 years
1931 (S. S. Breman) 26 31 7/17/1896 +5, +8 years
1931 (S. S. P. Hoover) 27 31 7/17/1900 +4 years 1932 (S. S. P. Coolidge) 27 30 7/17/1901 +3 years
1933 (S. S. Statendam) 28 35 7/17/1896 +7/8 years
1934 (S. S. Santa Lucia) 29 30 7/17/1903 +1 1934 (S. S. Statendam) 30 36 7/17/1898 +6 1935 (S. S. Lurline) 30 32 [c. 1902-1903] +1/2 years 1936 (S. S. Statendam) 32 40 7/17/1896 +8 years 1937 (S. S. Santa Elena) 32 35 7/17/1902 +2/3 years 1937 (S. S. Normandie) 33 33 7/17/1904 +0 years 1938 (S. S. Mariposa) 33 41 7/17/1896 +8 years 1938 (S. S. Queen Mary) 34 34 7/17/1904 +0 years Since she was still a teenager when she embarked on her first voyage, it looks like she presented herself as much older at first and then gradually came down to hear true age over the next 14 years. I don't know why she gradually lowered her age over the years, perpetuating the fib for a rather long time, rather than simply adopt her actual age thenceforth when she reached her twenties. The wildly varying DOBs contrast with those of Rutherford himself, who always gave his DOB as 11/8/1869. This meant that the age gap between the two of them widened over time. And yet Bonnie was still inconsistent, sometimes using the original DOB as late as 1938! I suspect the reason for this is that she had several different passports, each giving a different DOB and she did not necessarily bring with her the same passport each time. When Bonnie went on her first trip overseas on the S. S. Paris, her passport number was 380995. It would have been on this passport that her DOB was (falsely) given 7/17/1896. Then when she sailed in 1927 on the S. S. Ile de France, she gave her DOB as 7/17/1898. Interestingly, the passenger list indicates that she used a different passport, for the number was I74542. Then when she sailed on the S. S. Normandie in 1937 and gave her true DOB as 7/17/1904, her passport number was 302701. Thus we have evidence of at least three passports and she probably had more for the other DOBs. This is a very strange and curious phenomenon. Did Rutherford keep buying her new passports every year to help her change her age? And isn't that illegal to provide false information on your passport?
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jgnat
I'm trying to organize this mass of data in to several graphical timelines and family trees. So keep it coming. I'm watching with interest.
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Merry Magdalene
Absolutely fascinating, Leo. Great work!.....I'm going to go way out on a limb here and ask you to take a look at Bjranca Poleson in Manitoba (at Ancestry.com) because there are no Blanch Polesons nor Horboles to be had anywhere else, and I think Bjranca may be a mis-spelling of Bjianca(=Bianca=Blanche). There are both Polesons and Horboles in Manitoba (but only a few that I could find). ~Merry (wild goose chaser)