Thanks for the link. I will listen to it this evening. This is exactly what I have been looking for, some real life accounts of what people faced. My parents lived through it but alas they are now gone and it's too late to get their stories. I remember my mother talking about it more than my dad and I am now thinking that he wasn't affected by it much at all, which is why I am interested in hearing more personal accounts of what it was like.
startingover
JoinedPosts by startingover
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14
Amazing interviews with real people
by beksbks inthese interviews were done in 1971. i've only listened to three or four now, but they are intense.
i can't seem to stop crying.
you have to go to the site and choose an interview, and it takes real player to listen.. http://www.studsterkel.org/htimes.php.
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Less meetings= ?
by JimmyPage indo less meetings each week =.
less indoctrination=.
the wt loses its grip?.
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startingover
My wife now goes to meetings on Sunday morning and Monday night, that's it. Strange after all those years of a meeting every other day.
I was thinking that there's a chance they might change it back again to the old way, but once something like this is started and people get used to the free time I think they would fight the change. It would be like going back to nine day conventions. Imagine them trying to do that today.
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Why I am an atheist
by Awakened at Gilead insomeone (a born-again exjw) on youtube asked me why i was an atheist... i crafted a brief response... it follows:.
1. religious reason: there is no proof for god outside of the bible.
once i dropped my belief in the bible, the judeo-christian concept of god fell apart like a house of cards.
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startingover
Very logical reasoning Lance! And an excellent response to the post above your last.
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Please lurkers, members - watch this National Geo Movie....
by AK - Jeff inand if you can, keep this btt'd for a while?.
i don't watch too many of these presentations nowadays.
i am 90% healed now.
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startingover
I saw it when it was broadcast and I was wishing my JW wife could have seen it. Isn't it interesting how he worked sex into the whole game and how the women and their husbands went along with it.
Apparently he tried it with a girl too young and now he's in jail.
The reaction to the stroke of midnight on the predicted date is enough to really see the level of mind control going on. It's like they were oblivious to the reality of what had happened. The children refusing to leave with their parents who had figured it out is probably out of the realm of understanding to most people on this planet, but as exJW's, especially those of us who have friends and family still involved it's all too real.
Thanks for the link.
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anyone learn a second language as an adult?...what is best method?
by oompa inneed to learn spanish and do not want to start attending spanish congo!!!!
!...............................oompa.
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startingover
I think you should start here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngRq82c8Baw
A few years ago I went to a local 2 year college and took a beginning spanish class. Big mistake. I had an ongoing headache and got further behind every class, something I had never experienced before. I just couldn't comprehend it fast enough to keep up. I finally had to quit to regain my sanity. The biggest problem was that there were a bunch of kids in the class that were just taking it for credit who were raised in a spanish speaking home. I didn't stand a chance with them controlling the class. So my advice is don't do what I did.
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"Millions Now Living Will Never Die" was told to be literally true
by VM44 inin the 1920's the watcthower had the "millions now living will never die".
in the proclaimer's book there is a photo of a bible students book booth with a sign that said in large letters, "millions now living will never die!
this is literally true.
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startingover
Shameless bookmark. Great scans and comments! Thanks!
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Clayton Woodworth letter
by startingover ini found this among my families archives.
i have no idea who carl is who transcribed it.
rutherford can also see bro.
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startingover
Hippie,
I said this in the first paragraph of this post:
There is really nothing scandalous or a coverup in this letter but I decided this section was the best place to post it.
I agree Leolaia, there needs to be another section for just history.
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Clayton Woodworth letter
by startingover ini found this among my families archives.
i have no idea who carl is who transcribed it.
rutherford can also see bro.
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startingover
I found this among my families archives. I have no idea who Carl is who transcribed it. The following 2 paragraphs were at the end of the letter but I moved it to the front for clarification. There is really nothing scandalous or a coverup in this letter but I decided this section was the best place to post it.
Since this letter was typed by Clayton J. Woodworth in 1918 it was quit old and fragile and since the photo copy that was sent me was hardly legible’ with much effort this copy was made. Bro. Woodworth became editor of the Golden Age when it was started in 1919. He was one of the founders of the international Correspondance schools from Scranton, Pa. Each week end he would go home by train to see his family and take interest in ICS. He was faithful to Jehovah right to the end. The one who copied this letter knew him personally.
P.S. I Personally knew is son Clayton J. Woodworth Jr. and have met several in the family from Scranton, Pa. While visiting the construction of a new Convention Facility in Florida, I talked with a sister that was serving as a hostess and found that she was a cousin to a brother that I was incarcerated with during WW- II. It was then she told me of this letter in her possession. When I told her That at one time, C.J. Woodworth Jr. & I were in the same congregation and that I knew of some in the family she volunteered to send me a copy of this letter. I received it about ten years ago and at this weeks CBS in the Isaiah book reminded me of this letter. I Thought that some of you would appreciate reading it. I had sent a copy of this letter about 9 or 10 yrs ago to Bro. Woodworth’s daughter who is in the Circuit work and the wife of brother Paul Allen. I have known Carol Woodworth Allen since she was a baby and have watch her grow spiritually. Upon completing high school she pioneered until she married Paul who served us as a circuit overseer.The last time I saw them was in Louisville. Ky. while visiting a congregation there.
Carl
The letter:
Raymond Street Jail
Brooklyn, N.Y.
June 23, 1918
Dear Ones all:
It is a lot of fun to belong to the tribe of Asher. It helps on to enjoy the follies of the high life of our great cities. We are all on the third tier of cells. Brother Rutherford is in 9 N 7,
Brother Van Amburgh is in 11 N 7 and I am in 24 N 7. That means we are in the north Gallery Number 7; in room number 9. 11 and 24 respectively.
When we came up to our Gallery, Bro. Rutherford goes in first, after parting with
Bro. Van and me; then Van goes in, after parting with me, and then I go in, bringing the heavily made iron doors shut as I do so. The lock is on the outside and shuts with a resounding clang that can be heard all over the prison. When the 155 prisoners in this section go in together the result sounds like an army of locusts going over the top of a tin roof. See Rev. 19:18 comments in Vol. VII “SCRIPTURE STUDIES”. Brothers Martin, DeCecca, MacMillian, Robinson, and Fisher are in 19 S 3, 22 S 3, 23 S 3, 24 S 3, and 25 S 3, that is in Gallery 3, rooms 19, 22, 23,24, 25 respectively. This Gallery is opposite ours, only 20 feet from cell to cell. This enables me to see and exchange greetings with DeCecca, MacMillan, Robinson and Fisher. Martin is just outside my range of vision, but I can hear him when he LAUGHS.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 26
Since writing the foregoing, Bro. Rutherford has been transferred to a clearer cell, 20 N 7,
only 4 door from me, and directly opposite Bro. Martin. Bro. Rutherford can also see Bro. MacMillian and Bro. Hudgings in 18 S 2 almost directly under Bro. Martin. Bro. Van cannot see Martin, but can hear him talk and LAUGH.
Bro. DeCecca has been transferred to another prison. The Pope has just escaped! DeCecca is the man, so the papers say, that caused the great Italian retreat a year ago. Poor DeCecca! He never did a thing in his life but minister to the needs of a hand full of believers - and write one ore two unfortunate letters, one of which was to his own brother who had written to him for advice.
But this is the life! You explain verse in the Bible - say Rev. 16:13,14 - and then you attend a three-weeks comedy or farce, showing the end from the beginning, and each day see it coming closer and closer. You know it is coming, and you know Howe!
In due time, you arrive at the Hotel de Raymondie. You stand in line, and are searched for drugs and sharp instruments of any kind. Residents are respectfully invited to cut their nails with their teeth. By the new process it is very interesting to see Bro. Van trim his hind paws.
Your room is 6 x 8 x8 feet high. It contains one door of eight 1 inch vertical bars set 3 inches apart in a frame of Iron Posts 3 inches wide with five cross pieces of equal size. At the bottom is a hole 6 x 9 inches through you receive your food. This hotel is very particular to treat all its guests alike, but the arrangements for attending social functions between 3:30 P.M. and
7:00 A.M. are not all that could be desired, and I shall leave here the moment my board is up.
Your room does not have any windows and the scenery inside is not interesting, baring the fact that you can see every private and personal act of the parties in the square of nine cells directly opposite to you. If you cover more then a fourth of your door with paper you disobey a rule, and the disobedience of rules in a prison is no joke. For coughing at night a man was taken out of his cell, and I think, was put in the cooler, as the dungeon is called. I heard him crying on the way there, and afterward.
Your furniture consists of an Iron cot, which may be hooked up against the wall, and two large, double, heavy woolen blankets, with a straw tick pillow covered with a slip made of flour sack cloth. No sheets. The walls are very cold and even the blankets have not been able to keep us from shivering all night, some nights. This leads us, sometimes, to sleep in our clothes, and even Bro. MacMillan does not look tidy, when he has slept all night in his clothes.
Then you have a sort of Methodist mourner’s bench 20 inches high, 13 inches wide and 28 inches long, with one shelf in it, 8 inches above the floor. This contains your fine china and other table ware, consisting of two enameled-ware 1-quart bowls which Mac has christened cuspidors. As for me and my house, we are not brought up to eat out of cuspidors, but you can not always sometimes tell what you will do in this world. You do a lot when you learn howe.
Then you have a nickel-plated table-spoon. A least you should have. I did not find mine until after I had my first meal here., and unless you have tried eating ham and eggs out of a deep tray without anything more then your fingers to help you, why then you have missed something. Bro. Rutherford did not find his spoon until the fifth day. How he has managed to eat his meals in the meantime is a matter between him and his towel into which I dare not too particularly inquire.
The room contains a wash-basin, with no stopper, and a spring faucet which closes the instant the hand is removed. It also contains a porcelain, coverless toilet which is strictly sanitary if kept scrupulously clean. There are 400 of these in this wing. The Russelites keep theirs clean. I cannot speak for the rest; but I can smell for them! The ventilation is entirely inadequate. Singing and whistling is forbidden, but we have Wagerian opera all the time, i.e. heavy airs. This makes everybody sleepy and stupid, and it is a fact that the average prisoner is in bed eighteen hours out of twenty four. We have all found it very difficult to study much except Bro. Fisher who was born wearing spectacles and his hands full of types. Bless his dear heart, he and Bro. Rutherford have already produced some splendid Tower articles, in spite of all conditions.
Then you have a pile of newspapers, and if inclined to think lightly of them at first, you soon come to realize that in these papers and in soap and a wash-rag, lies your one chance of cleanliness and self respect. Your room is painted buff on the ceiling and half way down the side. A reddish brown base 18 inches high is painted about the bottom and the floor and wainscot section of the wall were once painted a light brown. You enter at midnight. Your keeper slams the door behind you, and you find yourself the midst of unspeakable filth and disorder. Worn out with your three weeks attendance at the grand farce you wrap yourself in the top blanket and sleep fitfully until 5:30 when the light in the top of your cell goes on and the tier-man comes running along, shoves a broom under the door and orders you to get up; and clean up the cell and put your discarded papers through the door, along with your soiled towels.
You arise, and stripping for a sponge bath, find yourself bitten from neck to hips and covered with a dozen poisoned blotches 2 or 3 inches in diameter. You succeed in getting in touch with the jail physician on the fourth day. He looks at you and tells you that it is something in your blood. You take his advice with a grain of salt, as you have already killed bedbugs, lice and fleas in your cell. You take a dose of salts, in fact, and are glad to get the morning shower bath and sulphur ointment which he also prescribes.
The jail meals are at 6:00 A.M. , 12:00 Noon, and 5:00 P.M., but every hour or so a caterer send a man through selling cakes, coffee, pies and fruit, and takes orders for excellent meals, which are thoroughly well cooked and very appetizing. By buying one good caterers meal each day, suitable selecting from the regular jail menu provide amply for all one’s needs.
Every morning at 6:00 A.M. a bell rings. Then comes the clatter of what Mac calls the cuspidors out through the holes in the bottom of the doors and on the Iron steps. Immediately every boy in the place (for all men are but boys) yell, “moosh”, “moosh” and the Russellite begin to laugh. Martin’s yell of boyish glee at the rediculousness of the whole situation rings to the remotest corner of the dreariest cell in the place, and everybody joins in the chorus.
Down each tier goes an attendant with a big bucket and long-handled dipper, shouting “honor-mush” as he comes. You are an “honor” prisoner. You have not misbehaved in prison, so you get mush. Some morning it is hominy with milk and sugar already mixed in it, and is palatable. Other mornings it is oatmeal of Lapage’s liquid variety, and without milk and sugar., I would have to be hungrier than I ever was yet before I could eat it. The morning meal also contains good war-bread, all you want of it, and a hot drink - as it were coffee. The coffee supplied by the caterer at 5 and 10 cents is excellent.
At noon the jail gives a splendid soup, containing lots of meat and vegetables, and all you want of it, and more bread and coffee, potatoes and meat or hash. The evening meal is of bead, apple sauce, and tea of coffee.
At 7:00 to 7:45 A.M. we walk in the covered court , a motly array, seventeen of us are Negroes. There are three cells between Bro. Rutherford and me,with Negroes in two of them. The court is clean to start with, but many of the men smoke and chew, and make bad shots at the cuspidors. Hence, we have to wipe off the soles of our shoes when we return to our apartments. On these walks we eight brethren seek fellowship with each other by two and threes and fours, occasionally talking with others when any seem inclined to listen. Stopping an instant while Bro. Hudgings comb my hair , a pickpocket snatch at my watch, but the chain broke and I saved it. Behind me a murderer boasted of getting only ten years for murder. We seven each get 80 years Total 560 theoretically, because Uncle Sam and I disagree as to the meaning of Rev. 16:13,14 It is an awful crime to be a Bible Student nowadays: and sincere.
At 7:45 Martin, MacMillan, Fisher, and I take a shower bath together - a rare treat. The bath is as fine a shower bath as is to be found anywhere. Then we go back to our cells, but are left out again at 8:45 to 9:30 to see the sun and clouds and the tree tops of a near by park. At
10:00 A.M. to 11:30 those whose wives are here may go down to the visiting corridor, where they talk through wire mesh grating - so near and yet so far. This is a curious sight. On one side and one the other a long line of people jabbering loudly at each other, in the attempt to be heard above the general uproar. Martin and I have had visitors twice in the week we have been here.
We attended services Sunday A.M. at 9:00 Bro. Fisher played in the absence of the regular organist The chaplain preached at us eight. Manifestly he did not remotely understand the first thing about his text. his talk was silly, so I just passed 15:2,3 along to the seven and they marked Job 15:9 and sent it back - all of which was without profit - in some sense at least - to the Asherites. See Rev. 7:6
At 1:30 to 3:30 we have our concluding talk in the inner court, during which time we may get shaved, for 15 cents each. Every man lathers himself and the barber gives him a quick once over and turns him out with his clothing well spotted with leather in “Jig time”.
HINTS TO HOUSEKEEPING
Be sure to take with you an extra towel, soap, wash - rag, Mirrors Not allowed
Scrub your side walls, floor, bench, bed, wash basin, and toilet thoroughly. At the first opportunity slam your blankets hard repeatedly against the corridor bars. Then carefully pick them over carefully on both sides, inch by inch , eight times.
In making your bed lay a double thickness of the bottom blanket on the bed. Then lay on it eight thickness of clean newspaper. Put two thickness of newspaper inside the top blanket. Sleep with the back of the top blanket under you. By doing this you will keep warm.
Cover your floor with news paper turned up 6 inches around the base. This will hide the tobacco stains which you could not scrub off.
Lay extra floor paper in your runway. Discard these every day.
Cover your bench and toilet with paper napkins to save your towel. A clean towel, of good quality, is provided each day.
Sort over your papers and magazines and wrap up for discard if soiled or greasy.
Caterer’s meals are supplied in three white enameled ware serving - dishes, 1 1/2 inch deep with vertical sides and double handles. they are circular in for and 6 inches in diameter. One contains your soup, one your meat, and accompanying potatoes or spagetti, and the other your desert.
Wipe off the bottom of these dishes with paper napkins ere you receive them into your suite, lest you be sorry afterward when you see the grease spots everywhere.
Satchels or suit cases are not allowed in cells. anything left such is liable to be stolen. Supplies from your suit case can be obtained on application to the office before 3:30 P.M.
The light in your cell must always be burning when you are in it and extinguished when you leave.
In my cell at present, I have in the side board ( i.e., the shelf or mourners bench ) a paper containing 5 cents worth of salt ( enough to last me until I get out ), a paper containing two potatoes boiled in their jackets.. I have learned to peel these deftly by using the handle of the spoon. There is also a ham sandwich and an egg sandwich, saved from my ham and egg dinner. There are also two peaches , two bananas and an orange, total cost 15 cents. These will provide my evening meal today and breakfast tomorrow.
On the same shelf are my Bible, two magazines, pocket hymnal. pocket Revelation and Poems of Dawn, letter paper and envelopes, and Tower. Beneath it is a package of clean linen amd underware. When anything gets soiled I wash it and hang it nest to the ceiling on the iron pipe which carries the electric light wires. Hanging it there now are my nighty and tie, a paper folded so as to throw my pillow out of the direct light and a string to which my hat is attached by a bow knot run through the loop of the bow knot on the hat. There it is clean and I can get it and put it on in five seconds.
In the wall I found two small holes. Into these I thrust wooden toothpicks and now have on the wall a beautiful Lake and Mountain scene, formerly the cover of a Christian Herold, and a spiritual calendar which a dear sait of God mailed to me.
Phil. 4:11-13; Eph. 4:1-3; 2 Cor.13:11:14
In fondest love,
Clayton J. Woodworth
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Your favourite wise quote? Mine is...
by Newborn in"don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened".
(do i dare to think what may come from oompa, joe d, outlaw etc).
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startingover
It's easier to ask for foregiveness than permission.
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My sister called! I've written her a letter...
by Confession ini was working in corpus christi this past weekend, when my sister called out of the blue on sunday.
she, like the rest of my family, is a very zealous jw, and since i am recognized as an apostate, i haven't seen nor spoken to her in about four years.
i was completely shocked that she called.
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startingover
Excellent letter!