Families in Bethel

 The Story of the MacMillan family

An earlier post on this blog (search for article “The Brooklyn Bethel Family in 1910 and 1913”) showed how many children at one time lived with their parents at the Society’s headquarters. This was particularly true after the move to Brooklyn in 1909 and the establishment of Bethel.

One such family was that of Alexander Hugh MacMillan (1877-1966). He is known today for his 1957 autobiographical work Faith on the March. However, although the book covers his conversion and many key historical facts of Watch Tower history, much of his personal life is omitted. He does mention in his book (on page 43) that he was married in 1902. For the record, his wife was Mary Goodwin (1873-?). The marriage took place on October 6, 1902, when he was 26 and she was 29. She supported him as a Bible Student and full-time worker for the Watch Tower Society.

Picture of Alexander and Mary taken from Who’s Who in the Bible Student Movement.

Alexander and Mary were to have two children, and in the census returns for the Brooklyn Bethel taken in April 1910, the whole family are living there. Alexander is listed as Minister, Bible Society. The head of the whole household is given as Charles Taze Russell. The MacMillan’s first son was Albert Edmund Cole MacMillan who was born on December 11, 1907. In the 1910 census he is 2 years old. Their second son, Charles Goodwin MacMillan (shortened to just Goodwin in the census return) was one month old. Charles Goodwin was born on March 28, 1910, but died of tubercular meningitis on February 3, 1912.

The 1910s was a tumultuous decade for the MacMillans. It included the death of a child, the death of Charles Taze Russell, the appointment of a new president, Joseph Franklyn Rutherford, and then the arrest of key officals on charges of sedition in 1918. Alexander was one of those convicted and sentenced to twenty years imprisonment. The men were freed in 1919 and all charges then dropped.

By the 1920 census Alexander, Mary and Albert Edmund were back in the Brooklyn Bethel with J F Rutherford as the head of the household. Here is an extract from the census return. Albert Edmund was now 12. Alexander is listed as Minister, Religious Pub(lishing) House.

Travelling forward to the 1940 census, Albert Edmund is no longer with them (at some point he married Dorothy, born 1908, died 1969) and Alexander and Mary now live in West Virginia. Alexander’s occupation is now Regional Director for the Watch Tower Society.

According to his life story in The Watchtower for 1966 Alexander went back to live in Bethel in 1948. It may be that Mary had died. He was to work extensively at the Society’s radio station WBBR and then write his famous book.

When he died, the newspapers gave Albert Edmund as his main surviving relative.

Albert Edmund did not stay with the religion of his parents. He died in 1971 and was buried next to his wife in the Long Island National Cemetery.

Final resting places

 Graveyard memorials are an interesting adjunct to genealogy and history. They often tell us about attitudes towards death and also fame, going right back to the pyramids of Egypt. It is notable in the 19^th century with the attempts of Victorians (in the UK at least) to outdo their dead rivals in the cemetery with spectacle. It’s been said that the attitude in 19^th century Britain was – if you can’t take it with you, you can at least show the rabble you once had it.

With that in mind, it is interesting to note the grave markers of the first six presidents of the Watch Tower Society.

William Henry Conley

Conley was a wealthy industrialist who became first Watch Tower president in 1881. By 1884 he had left regular association with Charles Taze Russell to go on a different religious journey. But his memorial is typical of wealthy men who made their name.

Photograph by the author

In fairness to Conley, his actual grave marker was quite standard, alongside almost identical ones for his wife and adopted daughter. But the family memorial for his name is quite striking, even today.

Charles Taze Russell

CTR was the first president of the incorporated Society in 1884, and founder of the magazine now known as The Watchtower (originally Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence). He gave instructions for a simple funeral at the Society’s own plot in United Cemeteries, Ross Township, Pittsburgh. His first marker pictured in the 1919 convention report was very simple, but something more elaborate was installed in 1920. Even so, it was a fairly modest affair, when compared with other markers of the time, including in the same series of cemeteries.

Photograph by the author

It should be noted that the pyramid installed near the grave marker, was not for CTR but for the whole Bethel family along with colporteurs of the day. Like a war memorial it was originally intended to commemorate the names of 196 people. In practice only nine names were ever engraved on it before the idea was abandoned. The structure was taken down in 2021.

Joseph Franklyn Rutherford

The second president of the incorporated Society was Joseph Franklyn Rutherford. Originally a grave space was reserved for him on the same site as CTR. But the headquarters were now in New York and a new graveyard was established on Staten Island. The Society bought land in 1922 and established both a farm and a radio station there. The radio station had the call letters WBBR and opened for transmission in 1924. Adjoining this property was a famous landmark, the Woodrow Road Methodist Church, with a number of graveyards surrounding it. The Society was to have its own section here. It is not known when this began, but the last interment of a Bethel worker at the old cemetery in Pittsburgh was that of Charles Buehler in 1925.

When JFR died he was buried at Staten Island.

Below is a snapshot from Google Earth taken from Woodrow Road showing part of the cemetery.

The Woodrow Road Methodist Church is on the right. On the left is a fence separating a housing development, which was where the Woodrow Road entrance to the Society’s property used to be. The radio masts for WBBR were behind the Methodist church and their own graveyard adjoined the WBBR property. The graveyard is noted for the policy of having no grave markers at all. This was used for Bethel workers until the end of the 1960s, even though they sold off the radio station in 1957. The last recorded interment was in December 1968. (See The Watchtower magazine for February 15, 1969, page 125.) So J F Rutherford has no grave marker at all. He is buried in this private cemetery area with five others who went to prison with him in 1918.

Nathan Knorr, Fred Franz and Milton Henschel

In the 1970s a new cemetery was established at Watchtower Farms in Walkill, Ulster County, NY. It is also a private cemetery but this time on private land, and now the decision was taken to have simple grave markers flat on the ground.

Here are the markers for the next Watchtower Society presidents, Nathan Knorr, Fred Franz, and Milton Henschel.

Nathan Knorr and Fred Franz

Milton Henschel

It is an interesting progression from the memorial for William Henry Conley.

 

Pictorial Memories

 This blog’s function is to research history from the era of CTR. However, from time to time, material of a more recent nature has been offered. Some photographs from private sources came to light on the death of the original owners, and the current owner gave me permission to publish them several years ago on a now defunct blog. To my knowledge, all the people in the photographs have now passed away, so the material is being reproduced here.

The photograph below is the earliest and advertises the talk Government and Peace. This was relayed by wire from America to Britain in 1939 and the venue here was Bristol.

 

The next two photographs are convention pictures that date from 1946.

 

 The next photograph is from the same era as the convention photos. The Consolation magazine changed to Awake in 1946 and the Watchtower magazine changed from large format to its present page size in 1950, so the photo fits between those years.

 

And now for some pictures of people. The description will be under the photographs.

 

The group photograph is Molly, Margaret and Glen Howe. Howe became a very famous legal advocate for the witnesses in Canada. He married Margaret from Portsmouth where this photograph was taken. I personally visited Molly on several occasions. Molly and Margaret first contacted the current owner of the pictures in 1950 with the witnesses’ message. As one might say, the rest is history.

 

This is a photograph from the 1950s of Pryce Hughes.

Hughes became Branch Servant in Britain in 1942. The previous Branch Servant, Bert Schroeder from America was deported - with the witnesses’ view of war and with a name like Schroeder it was perhaps inevitable at that time. Pryce Hughes replaced him, although he was in jail as a conscientious objector at the time. He remained Branch Servant until the 1960s, when as an older man he became Bethel Home Servant. You nearly always found him in the garden when visiting the British headquarters that had moved to Mill Hill, London, in the late 1950s.  I met him on a number of occasions.

 

This is a photograph of Phil Rees.

Phil Rees was very well known in Britain for decades. In Australia during the last war he was involved in the Society’s activities when they were under ban. I believe he married the branch servant’s daughter, and not long after the war came to Britain where he worked as Factory Servant at the headquarters in Craven Terrace and then Mill Hill for many years. One of my claims to notoriety was when Phil Rees actually mentioned me by name in a District Convention talk in 1977. People turned to those sitting next to them and said “Who...?”

 

This photograph dates from a British convention in 1958, and will have been taken in the convention office. On the left standing, and holding the American 1958 convention report, is Eric Courtney. Next to him, seated and poring over a typewriter, is Tony Byatt. At the back of the picture is Jim Robbins.

Jim Robbins and his wife stayed at our home for a week in the 1950s. Eric Courtney was a well known district servant in his day covering the 40s, 50s and into the 60s. I conducted several special schools with him in the 1970s, and ultimately attended his funeral.

As a young teenager, Tony Byatt went around the second-hand bookstalls in London in the early days of the Second World War with Bert Schroeder, the Branch Servant. As noted above Schroeder was deported in 1942. He was later involved in the setting up of the Gilead Missionary School in America. Decades later in the 1980s I was there when Bert and Tony met up again and reminisced at length. I used Tony Byatt’s personal library on a number of occasions for various writing projects and when he died I was left some books in his will.

So although the photographs are not mine, I do have a personal interest in several of them. With thanks to the present owner for making them available.

French songbooks

A few years ago Miquel kindly sent me some photographs of historical French language Songbooks that came to hand.

 

This songbook, a second edition printing from 1919 corresponds to one of the Zion's Glad Songs series.

 

This 1928 songbook corresponds with the 1928 Songs of Praise to Jehovah, which basically replaced Hymns of Millennial Dawn for IBSA meetings.

 

 

This 1948 songbook corresponds with the 1944 Kingdom Service Songbook, which was the book released for when singing was reintroduced at general congregation meetings in 1944 in English language congregations.

 

Spanish songbook

A few years ago Miquel kindly sent through the two interesting photographs above. This is the Spanish version of Hymns of Dawn, and as such is extremely rare. This version was published in 1925. It differs from the English language version in that some hymns were taken from the original, while others were taken from Spanish evangelical hymnals of the day.

This is a second or new edition of the Himnario de la Aurora del Milenio. The first edition dates from 1919, and may have been published as a supplement to the Spanish Watch Tower.