Hi Lois, I am writing about things learned by reading about it; regarding Knorr's marriage I remember this sad case that I am posting; I have read also that Knorr's marriage was never consummated. Who knows and who cares?
Sorry, I think that we are getting away from the topic.
Charles De Wilda was a young man, with a military past who wondered into the lobby of the Brooklyn Headquarters building sometime after World War I. Asking for a job, he was given one for room and board and a few dollars month. He stayed for almost his entire life.Years later, after meeting a mature sister, also a follower of the Watchtower Society, he asked permission to marry her. The president, Knorr flatly refused. It was against the rules. Bethel members could not marry, they must remain single.
But in 1952 Knorr married one of the headquarters staff. Later, Charles De Wilda confronted the president, telling him he should leave headquarters for violating the rule, that he showed less Christian love than anyone Charles knew. Charles was reprimanded, and his life was made miserable.
Having started his headquarters life as a young man, even staying at Bethel during his vacations, now elderly and without funds, he found his life unbearable (this was done by such practices as forcing him to eat alone in one corner of the dining room) and he decided to leave. He stayed within a few blocks of the buildings where he had spent his entire adult life. Workers in the Watchtower Society's factory would see him on the street and in the park, some giving him quarters and dimes so he could stay out of the weather in "flop houses"
President Knorr heard about the charity, and announced a strick policy forbiding any member to give money or any other assistance, to Charles De Wilda. Knorr had letters written to surrounding congrogations absolutely forbidding any Witnesses from helping him.
Shortly thereafter, the old mans lifeless body was found on a Brooklyn park bench, the author was told, in the dead of winter, wrapped in newspapers. No announcement of his death was made at the headquarters of Jehovah's Witnesses where Knorr had often used him as an example, pointing to his several decades of hard work as "the best book binder" in the factory to illustrate the "proper attitude" Bethel workers should have. In fact Charlie's name was never publicly mentioned again by Watch Tower officials.
http://exjehovahswitnessforum.yuku.com/reply/254935/CHARLES-DE-WILDA#.WUa7vWgrLSs