chapter 31. murder suicide and death at the big house.
the people at bethel were killing us spiritually and sometimes they killed us physically too.. many of the old timers were in the infirmary laying there just waiting to die of natural causes.
some had served there for over fifty years.
wunce wuz
Thanks for the correction.
That is why I'm posting this novel here first. So the final draft will be correct in all it's details. Thanks to good folks like yourself.
I can't exactly call my old Bethel friends anymore to get the details straight.
chapter 31. murder suicide and death at the big house.
the people at bethel were killing us spiritually and sometimes they killed us physically too.. many of the old timers were in the infirmary laying there just waiting to die of natural causes.
some had served there for over fifty years.
Chapter 31
Murder Suicide and Death at the big house
The people at Bethel were killing us spiritually and sometimes they killed us physically too.
Many of the old timers were in the infirmary laying there just waiting to die of natural causes. Some had served there for over fifty years. Many never had sex once in their whole life! Just like the Catholic priests, they too chose a life of celibacy in order to serve their god.
Don't you think everyone should have sex at least once in a lifetime?
Maybe those old guys didn’t care about sex anymore. Just like the old joke.
The ninety old virgin is having his birthday. So his best friends get together and say. "We need to get this poor guy a women before he dies!" So they find this knock out twenty one year old hooker. They tell her what the situation is and that she his needs to give their friend "Super Sex" the best ever. So she goes to his house and rings the doorbell. I old guy comes to the door in his bath robe. He opens the door and says. "What do you want?" She open up her coat and says. "I'm here for super sex!"
"OK.” The old guy says. What flavor is the soup?"
I was told that the Bethel family even had to recite a vow of chastity back in the nineteen thirties and forties. Again that all changed when Knorr showed up married in the nineteen fifties.
Some of the old timers were really pissed about that too. One of the old guys who give up the possibility of ever having sex was Wilber Ruth. He was the mail carrier in the factory. He was about eighty years old, bald and about five foot five. His biggest thrill was walking around with his shopping cart and telling the guys what was going to be served for lunch that day.
His favorite announcement was. “Liver to make you quiver and ice cream to make you shiver.”
Interesting when they made liver for lunch about twice a month a third of the Bethel family would skip lunch that day. Yet, they always made ice cream that day to go with the liver. The thought being they wouldn’t have to make as much ice cream.
On Saturdays for lunch it was open sitting and you could set anywhere you wanted. So I happened to be sitting on Wilbur’s table with a couple of his old friends. I ask Wilber why he never got married. He said it was too late for him. Once Knorr change the program up he was way too old to find a wife and still be able to stay at Bethel. I wonder when he was lying there in the infirmary dying, if he just laughed it off as a big joke.
The unnatural death was the night watchman that fell down the elevator shaft in the squib building. He just walked into the black of an open elevator. The elevator wasn’t on that floor…good bye.
Dennis Carlson was murdered cleaning his kingdom hall. It’s seems that Richard Wheelock was conducting a home Bible study with a young Muslim woman. Her brother was in a rage and wanted to find Richard and talk to him. He went to the Kingdom hall looking for Richard but found a small group of Bethelities who were there cleaning the hall. He asked Dennis for Richards address. Dennis turned around to write the address down on a piece of paper. The Muslim took out a nine inch knife and drove into Dennis’s back and trough his heart. They say Dennis had a total look of surprise on his face. Nobody ever expects to be killed and certainly no one expects to be killed while they are cleaning their kingdom hall.
Many poor Bethelites tried to kill themselves while serving at Bethel. Some succeeded. Richard Wheelock the pressroom overseer succeeded. He jumped out a window at the Watchtower Farm. He was able to kill himself. The same thing the young Muslim man wanted to do to him.
Richard seemed like many of the people who had been serving there, rather sad and worn out. He was my overseer when I was in the in pressroom. A man of few words. He would walk up to the press operator and hand him his assignment and say. “Here is the job get it out.” He would turn and walk away.
I talked to a couple of guys in the pressroom who told me that in the four years of working under him, he never once asked how they were doing. He never seemed to show any concern what so ever for people under him.
I’m not trying to pick on Richard. It just seemed the whole atmosphere there was tortured people overseeing tortured people.
“By their love you will know.”…. That’s just it. It wasn’t there.
There was an atmosphere there that hung over the place. It can’t be described but you could see it on everyone ones faces.
James Olson was cleaning toilets in the factory. Believe it or not, that is considered a good job in the home or factory, because you weren't "on production line" or on one of those damn machines. Plus, no one was on your ass. No overseer to beg to go to the bathroom, but it was a very lonely job. You worked by yourself, there were few people to talk to, all day.
I probably saw him more than anyone. He would get on my elevator many times a day to move his cleaning cart and mop bucket from one floor to the next. I didn't have much to say to him. He was a new boy and I had less than six months to go. You just didn't have much to say to the new boys. We were in two different worlds.
He got on my elevator one day with tears in his eyes. "What’s up?" I asked. You could tell, he didn't want to tell me, but he did. He said that he couldn't take it anymore at Bethel and about a week earlier, he went back home to Indiana. He was AWOL! He didn’t tell anyone. He told his folks he wanted to come back home for good. His parents had a fit and told him he had to go back and do his time. He had made a vow and he had to keep it. He told me he had just left Max Larson’s office, Max had just told him. “What a disappointment he was, to his family and to the organization!"
So what encouragement did I give this poor kid? Basically nothing. I told him. "Hey, forget it, just do your time, then go home and enjoy the rest of your life." I told him basically the same thing that guy told me, my first day at bethel. "Do your job and keep your mouth shut. They don't give a shit about you here!"
I didn’t know it at the time but he took off again for home a week later. Again, his family made him go back and once again Max Larson ripped him a new asshole.
The day he got back to New York was October 31, 1973. I remember that night, because it was Halloween. I was working on my car in the in the garage at the 117 Adams St. building, it was about 9:00 p.m. You could use the garage to work on your cars back then. I was changing the oil in my car, when all of a sudden all Hell broke loose. All of the fire alarms went off in Building 4. The watchmen were running around, trying to find who broke into the factory, they looked everywhere, but could find nothing. It was very strange. The mystery was solved a few days later.
November 2, 1973 about 12:50 p.m. I'm taking everyone back to work after lunch, on elevator in building one. Everyone is standing on the sky bridges, looking out, at the back of building 4. There is an ambulance there, taking the dead body of some blond hair kid out from behind the bushes. There he was surrounded by trash and beer cans. It was nineteen year old, Jimmy Olson! He was stiff as a board and had been dead for two days.
I was standing next to Norm Brekey, the ink room overseer. Next to Norm was Tom Combs, the Job Press overseer. Tom Combs said and I quote "He must have done something really bad to have killed himself!" Then Norm said and I quote. "I glad he jumped off the back of the building and not the front of the building, because we really don't need the extra publicity."
Wow, he was dead and judged on that day.
So my friends. Just who did kill James Olson? Was it the heartless religion? Was it his family? Was it the Bethel brothers?" Was it Max Larson? I'm the only person who knows who really killed James Olson!
It was all of us!
It was the religion, his family, the people in oversight, the Bethel family and it was me! None of us gave a shit, about this kid, James Olson. As far as I’m concerned we all pushed him off the building that night.
By their love you will know them.”…. Yes, this is true.
An organization of love would have let this poor kid go home.
P.S.
The WatchTower Bible and Tract society did keep his body. It’s buried in an unmarked grave, upstate New York.
P.S.S. Many years ago a friend of mine sent Max Larson a post card on October 31. It said. “Do you ever think about James Olson? Hey, we all have a resurrection hope don't we, right?”
back in the nineteen seventies hundreds of cars were stolen, in the city every day!
the new york post said "the average life span of a corvette stingray (sports car) parked on the street in new york was only 24 hours!".
one time driving back from rhode island at 2:00 a.m. i took a wrong turn in the south bronx’s.
Yes parts of this have been posted before. There is new info and the revised version of what will be a printed novel. This novel will be out next year. You are seeing it here first hand on this web sight.
chapter 29.
1500 bottles of brandy.
i'm driving down the fdr drive late one sunday afternoon.
Chapter 29
1500 bottles of Brandy
I'm driving down the FDR drive late one Sunday afternoon. I’m taking an old timer back to Bethel after he had given the public talk at our Kingdom Hall. He had been at Bethel for over forty years. After a couple of minutes of silence he points over to the Schafer Brewery and said. "Son, if they ever shut down that factory.” He points to the brewery. “They would have to shut down that factory too.” He smiles as he points over at Bethel.
Three guys are sitting around, each drinking a large mug of beer. A Publisher, a Pioneer and a Bethelite. Just then, three flies falls into all three of their mugs of beer. The publisher pushes the glass away and says. "I can't drink this now." The Pioneer looks into the glass, and picks the fly out of the beer and throws it away and keeps on drinking. The Bethelite picks up the fly by its wings and holds its head over the glass and says. "Spit it out. Spit it out!"
To say Bethelities like their booze would be an understatement.
There was one guy, who didn't spit it out. Dwayne who went to Jack Sutton’s Polish wedding, in Green Point. Now, those Polish people know how to put on a wedding!
It was what we called a football wedding. It was a Bethelites dream, because there are two bottles of booze on each table. A bottle of scotch on one end and a bottle of whiskey on the other end of the table. Well, needless to say, Dwayne and many others there had way too much to drink, that night. We took Dwayne back to Bethel. He lived in the 124 building, “The most holy." I told my friend Dave to take him to his room and put him in bed. Which he did, but as soon as Dave left him, Dwayne decided to go to the men’s bathroom, down the hall. So as soon as he hit the door to the men’s bathroom he passed out cold, face down on the floor. At about 4:00 in the morning, some new boy went to the bathroom and saw him there. Oh my god! The new boy thought. This guy is dead! So he called the good doctor up and told him about the "dead guy" in the fifth floor bathroom.
After the Doc's examination, he said "He not dead, but will wish he was in the morning." Of course he was in George Couch's office the next day. He did what we called back then the "Indian Navajo trick." This is where you beg and scream for one's life. It worked, he only got a verbal reprimand. They don't tolerate much at Bethel but if they kicked everyone out of Bethel, for drinking too much, the place would have been a ghost town years ago.
There were many stories about Bethelites back in the 1920's, 1930's and 1940's that they would find passed out Sunday mornings, on the sidewalk or in the gutter in front of the 124 building. They would just dust them off and bring them inside.
Everyone knows Rutherford was a raging alcoholic.
Yes, to this day booze and Bethel go hand in hand.
As for Knorr his favorite was "J&B" scotch. He got it by the case. Of course he never bought it. They were always gifts that were given to him by the many ass kissers he knew.
Even Nathan could have sex after a bottle of scotch. Though I think the good German in him felt guilty as he was doing the dirty deed.
Speaking of cases of booze. Here is one that few people know about. The story of the stolen 1,500 bottles of "Fine Spanish Brandy."
It was the summer of 1973. They were having the "Divine Victory" international convention in N.Y.C. Brothers were flying in from All over the world. Two 747's full of Jehovah’s Witnesses from Spain came for the assembly. All of them were going through the factory on tour. My friend Armando, who speaks Spanish was leading one of these groups through the factory. It happen to be the tour group that had the Spanish Overseer in charge of the whole delegation.
At the end of the tour, the Spanish brother told Armando. "My friend, we have a gift for you and all Bethelites here, at the World Head Quarters. All of the brothers and sisters from Spain have chipped in to buy you and all the other hard working Bethelites a bottle of 'Fine Spanish Brandy' and this is your bottle!"
As he was giving him the bottle to Armando, the Spanish brother asked "So who would we talk to, about how to distribute the other 1500 bottles to the brothers?"
"Well…. I guess." Armando said. "That would be George Couch, The Bethel Home Overseer."
That night, Armando come over to our room, and shared some of his “Fine Spanish brandy” with us. We set there he told us the story of how he got it.
You guessed it. It’s been over forty years and I still haven't seen my bottle of brandy yet. Oh, they got passed around alright and you have a good idea who got them. We even saw some of those bottles show up at local Elder's homes in the N.Y.C. area. About thirty guys, the Bethel “heavies” and their friends got them all!
Isn’t it stealing when you give something to a person to give it to another person but that person keeps it for themselfs?
So this brings to the absolute worst possible thing at Bethel. A Bethelite who steals from his fellow Bethelite! Stealing from some poor Bethelite making .73 cents a day. That should be a stoning offence. We had three of them, in the four years I was there. They would wait until we got paid, since we got paid in cash. Then go into your locker when you were working and ripe you off. It never happen to me but I had friends who had to borrow money to buy subway tokens because of what this so called "brother" did.
One of these guys was one of the most self-righteous newboys you ever saw. He would walk around the factory with an "Aid to Bible understand book" under his arm. He gave a text comment one time and said. "I have walked the floors of the 124 at night and I have heard Rock n Roll music coming out of the brothers rooms." This guy was trying to out righteous even the governing body. Sure enough six months later it was announced at breakfast table. "Brother Leroy Righteous has been disfellowshipped for stealing" Isn't that always the way it is, it’s always the more righteous ones you need to watch. Just like in your local congregations.
At Bethel one of the most dangerous things there was a self-righteous new boy.
back in the nineteen seventies hundreds of cars were stolen, in the city every day!
the new york post said "the average life span of a corvette stingray (sports car) parked on the street in new york was only 24 hours!".
one time driving back from rhode island at 2:00 a.m. i took a wrong turn in the south bronx’s.
Back in the nineteen seventies hundreds of cars were stolen, in the city every day! The New York Post said "The average life span of a Corvette stingray (sports car) parked on the street in New York was only 24 hours!"
One time driving back from Rhode Island at 2:00 a.m. I took a wrong turn in the South Bronx’s. Not a place you wanted to be in the day time let alone at night. I was driving around trying to find my way back to the express way. I could see the glow form the cutting torches. People were cutting up the cars they stolen the day before right on the street and the alleys. I was praying "Please God get me out of here."
Sometimes we would see the cars that broke down on the Brooklyn Bridge the night before. They would be pushed to the end of the off ramp. We would pass them on our way to the factory at 7:45 a.m. They had no tires. Then we passed by them again going to lunch. They had no trunk or doors. Then we would pass by them on our way home that night, no engine or seats. The next day, it was just the shell sitting there.
A brother in my Hall, got a flat tire on the Brooklyn Queens Express Way. A road, back then had so many pot holes in it, you would swear it was shelled by mortars. Anyway, he gets out of the car and starts jacking up the back end to change the flat. Just then, a car pulls up in front of his car and stops, four black guys jump out and before he could say a word, they start jacking up the front end of his car.
"Hey! What are you doing?" He asked.
"Hey mother fucker ...you get the back two and we’ll get the front two!” They said.
"But this is my car!" He yelled.
"Yeah?" They looked up at him with a confused look on their faces.
"Yes it is!” In ten seconds later they back in their car and were down the road, looking for more, free auto parts.
Bethelities didn't always have to work on that Saturday mornings at Bethel. An exBethelite told me that back in the 50’s that some Bethelites jump in their car on a Friday night after work and tried to drive all the way back to Chicago and be back for breakfast by Monday morning. They didn't make it. They crashed their car and three of them died. So Knorr figured that if they had been working, that would have never happen.
New light, we work on Saturday mornings. That man was a genius.
My soon to be brother in-law Mike Stillman, had a 1946 orange Chevy pickup truck with a camper on the back. The camper was made out of old barn wood. The camper door looked like an old out house door. It even had a half-moon on the outhouse door and above the door it said. "Keep on Trucking."
Calvin Chyke assistant factory overseer hauled him into his office one day and told him, that he was a disgrace to the organization and how dare he put on his truck "Keep on Trucking." Calvin told him that everyone knew that the term really meant “Keep on F....king!
Oh, those brothers they just love to have fun with us. I guess there are two types of people in the "Lord's house" the testers and the testis.
Michael never took it off. He was in the ink room and good old Norm Brekie would protect him. He was bullet proof.
As Bob Dylan said. "Some of us are prisoners and some us are guards."
I walked by my parked car on the way to the factory one morning in the winter of 1974. Some kids had sprayed painted my car with the words "Fuck you" in red paint on the front fender. I thought, did they really mean "Keep on Trucking." I laughed to myself, I wished I had painted it on there instead of them. Because that is how I felt.
Oh yes! I waited until someone said something before I took it off.
Two months before my sentence was up. "I was serving a 1 to 4 for impersonating a minister"
I was walking to the factory one day, my car was parked next to the park. As I passed it, I notice that someone had taken a ball peen hammer to my wind shield, right were the driver looks out! As I looked down the street, I saw all the cars parked behind me. All of them had their wind shields smashed. Then I looked up the hill, and saw all the cars with smashed wind shields. I counted 53 cars with smashed windshields that morning. Someone had some fun the night before. Well, that was the death blow for my baby. They wanted 85 bucks for a new wind shield.
There was no way I could put another dollar into that car. So I drove it up to Rhode Island one Saturday in January in 1974. A hundred and eighty miles with no wind shield in it, it was 25 degrees with wind chill factor of cooler than shit. The heater blasting, hoping the cops didn't pull me over. I parked the old girl, at my soon to be in-laws house at New Port Rhode Island.
I parted the car out. I sold the transmission and rear end to a friend, keep the engine and tires for myself. I sold the gas tank to Roy Baty, he welded it into his van. Because of the 1973 -1974 gas crisis, now he could buy 35 gallons of gas at a time and not have to wait in those gas lines.
In the end, she looked just liked one of those cars at the bottom of the Brooklyn Bridge. R.I.P. sweetheart. My first real love!
My next vehicle was a 1966 Ford Econoline I needed a van because I was going to move cross country, when I moved out of the big house.
chapter 28. my dollar car .
your only true free time was saturday afternoons & evenings if you weren’t working a second job that is.
so on saturday many bethelites would take the train up to times square and seventh avenue and walk around looking for a good movie to go to.
Chapter 28
My dollar car
Your only true free time was Saturday afternoons & evenings if you weren’t working a second job that is. So on Saturday many Bethelites would take the train up to Times Square and Seventh Avenue and walk around looking for a good movie to go to. Of course some guys were looking for hookers like Pat P who was the elevator operator in the 129 building.
Some guys would walk all the way down to Flat bush Blvd. in Brooklyn. It wasn't unusual to walk all the way down there to find there wasn’t a movie worth seeing and walk all the way back home. With little money there wasn’t much to do in the city.
They don’t give you a vacation your first year there. So, in your second year there you got eleven vacations days. Besides that time, the only time I got to leave the city was to go to the district conventions. In 1970 it was Virginia Beach, Virginia. In 1971 Jim Pipkorn and Dave Borga and I went to Montreal Canada. In 1972 it was Jim and me to Scranton Pennsylvania.
So to own a car at Bethel meant you had freedom
to leave the prison! Without a car your whole life was either Bethel or your
Kingdom Hall. Unless you knew someone with a car, you
were stuck there months on end.
A car could change all that.
Some guys there had some nice cars too. Jim Pipkorn first had a 1965 ford mustang rag top. Then he got a 1967 GTO. Mr. G Job king Dave Borga had a 1969 Mach 1, There was a 1968 396 rag top SS camaro there, that some guy on the waiter crew had. Anyway they all spelled... freedom!
They did have their problems. One of the biggest problems was parking. There was none for the average Bethelities back then. The Bethel “Heavies” all had parking spaces of course. The society had plenty of places for us to park after they bought the Squibb property but why make it easy on the brothers? Many years later they finally decided to give the Bethelites some free parking.
Driving around "The Heights" looking for an open spot could be a real adventure. If you got back there late on a Sunday night you might spend an hour looking for a spot. At that time of night you might find a parking space maybe a mile away over by the factory. The walk home could be very exciting. Sometimes you have to run all the way back if there were six black guys following you. I love New York.
The other thing you could do was park illegally. Sometimes you just didn’t have a choice. Many guys did, sometimes you got lucky and got no ticket. If not, the fine was ten dollars and twenty five dollars for a fire hydrant.
The other problem was break-ins. If you had a rag top you would never lock your car. The reason was if they wanted in, they would just take a knife and cut your roof open. You would have to leave your door unlocked, so they could get in. Most of the guys there used a heavy duty chain around the steering wheel and brake pedal with a big pad lock on it. Sure, they could hot wire the car and maybe even drive it away. There would be no brakes or steering for them to use however. Some guys would put a kill switch in. You would always chain your hood down so they couldn’t steal you battery. Another thing you would do is always leave your glove box open, to show them there was nothing of value in your car. If you didn't your side mirror could be broken by the next morning.
Believe it or not in the two years I had my car in New York City people broke in it and tried to steal that piece of shit three times.
We would see new cars parked on the street, in "The Heights" in six months they looked terrible. The reason was the way New Yorkers like to park. The parked by sound. They back in, until they hear a crunch, then they move forward until they heard another crunch and then they back up and hear the final....crunch....now you’re parked.
After two years there, I met the love of my life. She wasn’t pretty but she was cheap. I bought a car for only one dollar. That’s right, one buck! My roommate Jack Sutton’s girlfriend’s Hedie had a 1968 Ford Fairlane. The car got totaled in a crash. The insurance paid her off and gave her the car. She sold it to me, for a dollar. The car looked like something out of a "Mad Max" movie. It was a complete wreck! Every quarter panel was trashed. It had been rear ended at about 40 mph. The trunk that was 5 ft. long was now only 3 ft. long. It looked like shit, but she ran great.
I would drive down the FDR drive radio on. Elton John singing "Rocket Man." It was like parting of the Red Sea. A 1/4 mile ahead of me, people in their cars would start moving into the other lanes. They knew someone was coming, a man who had nothing to lose.
As Bob Dylan said once. "When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose!"
I was in Lower Manhattan driving my piece of shit car one Saturday. I pull up to a stop sign and this tramp walks up and starts trying to clean my windshield with a rag that looked like he blew his nose in it a few times, After 15 seconds he asked me for a buck.
I saw the irony in this and I had to say. "Are you Crazy? You need to give me a buck!”
He said. "Why should I?" I said. "Because I bet you make more money than I do. How much money do you make a month?"
He said." I don't know, with my VA check, maybe three to four hundred dollars. I said "I make twenty two bucks a month. You need to give me a buck buddie!”
He didn't believe me. I'm not sure, I believe it either. A homeless person was making more money than us a month.
I took Guys to the airport for five dollars, good money. I drove guys in my Kingdom Hall to our meetings. Instead of the hour plus train ride we could do it in just twenty minutes . They gave me their subway money. Five people at .70 cents per trip was good money. Last but not least she could get me far, far away from the wonderful house of god, on the weekends.
what is the funniest or strangest thing to happen to you or your partner when knocking on doors?.
mine was seeing a greenhouse with mannequins inside.
scary...paul.
Doing door to door in New York in the 1970's a women dressed in black, black hair and really white skin opens the door she looks just like Elvira. She stands there stone face and says nothing, eyes straight ahead. We launch into our sermon. After a couple of minutes something or someone grabs her and pulls her away from the door. The door slams shut. We turn and start to walk away. On the other side of the closed door there is the sound like someone is getting an incredible betting no screams but a lot of noise like someone being thrown to the floor. We stand there for a minute or two. The door creaks opens and she is standing there just like before with the same weird look on her face.
"Are you OK we ask?" Says nothing. I look at my friend and we both look at her. Next second someone or something grabs her again and pulls her away from the door. the door slams shut. There is sounds of another beating going on the other side of the door.
"Should we call the police?" My friend asked me.
"Na.....it's New York"
the bottom line there is zero tolerance for any homosexual activity in jehovah’s holy organization.
so all known gays had been kicked out and disfellowshipped before i got to bethel and gays got kicked and disfellowshipped and disgraced when i was there.
sorry, i guess i meant most homosexuals were kicked out in disgrace.
This was written by someone in the Canadian Bethel who seemed to know Chapman and Greenless well.
Percy Chapman and his companion Leo Greenlees were sent by Rutherford from London Bethel in 1936 to replace the rebel Canadian Branch Overseer, Walter Salter, who had started up his own group over the "elected elders" debacle. Percy was a mesmerizing public speaker of the old school (no voice amplification required) and with his Lancashire lilt of voice reminded me of Winston Churchill, flapping jowls and all. I can still remember the reverberating vibrato of his voice warning of the "vile depths of the abominations" and since I knew that homosexuality was "an abomination unto the lord" wondered if that was what he was referring to. It was not until later that I began to suspect the administration at Bethel was mainly gay.
I remember the shock at a district assembly in 1959 at Halifax, Nova Scotia where Percy Chapman, then the branch overseer of Canada was to give the main talk. Suddenly who should appear to replace him, but Brother Knorr, the President from New York. Percy Chapman just disappeared from sight. Later we found out that Brother Knorr had removed all responsibilities from Percy but allowed him to remain at Bethel in Toronto as a janitor. The next shock was that Percy Chapman was forced to be married. Percy, following the Rutherford line, was totally anti- marriage and he made sure that none of the "Bethel boys" even contemplated the subject with very strict rules and early curfews. The only way a bethel boy could see another sister would be to go on a Bible study with her. My parents started studying in 1945 with a beautiful young pioneer sister named Joyce Randall and every week there would be a new Bethel boy accompanying her. She later was sent to Gilead and posted in Peru, totally isolated, only to be seduced by a latin lover. Of course she was disfellowshipped and sent home in disgrace. But my family did get to know a lot of Bethel boys. They were all young and handsome, hand-picked by Percy Chapman; there was even an elite group known as "Percy's boys" who would accompany him to expensive restaurants and bars and receive other favours. At the time, Bethel was on Irwin Avenue, now (although replaced by a condominium) in the centre of the gay district of Toronto. There was even a Kingdom Hall above "the Parkside", one of Toronto's few gay bars in the fifties and sixties.
Poor Leo Greenlees, Percy's close companion for three decades even when at London Bethel, had to find himself a new room-mate. Leo was a cheerful, likable fellow, with his thick Scottish brogue and also an electrifying public speaker. He was very open about his homosexuality to those few good-looking young brothers like those he would meet at one of the summer resorts in Haliburton run by Jehovah's Witnesses (later bequeathed to the Watchtower Society). I got to know Leo a little better when he was assigned to be congregation overseer at the Kingdom Hall I attended as a teenager during the early sixties in Richmond Hill, just north of Toronto. He would bring along another bethel boy, Lorne Bridle, who was very good looking and charming. After a failed marriage to a young pioneer sister, he eventually committed suicide. I often wondered what tortured state of mind led him to that - but so often the fate of closeted gays in the Watchtower society!
the bottom line there is zero tolerance for any homosexual activity in jehovah’s holy organization.
so all known gays had been kicked out and disfellowshipped before i got to bethel and gays got kicked and disfellowshipped and disgraced when i was there.
sorry, i guess i meant most homosexuals were kicked out in disgrace.
This is old information. Mark Palo even has a YouTube on the subject. This was all exposed the same time they "Let Leo leave" to find more young kids to have Bible studies with. Bastards!
Google Jehovah Witnesses governing Body
Three members resigned
Ray Franz we know why.
Chitty, Greenlees, Do some research it's all right there.
the bottom line there is zero tolerance for any homosexual activity in jehovah’s holy organization.
so all known gays had been kicked out and disfellowshipped before i got to bethel and gays got kicked and disfellowshipped and disgraced when i was there.
sorry, i guess i meant most homosexuals were kicked out in disgrace.
My guess after he screwed over poor Mark Palo he probably went through Mark's pockets looking for loose change.
