Names to Faces

Whenever I obtain an old publication of the Watch Tower Society I always check through its pages, in case a previous owner has tucked in a Motto card or newspaper cutting or photograph as a bookmark. I have had some excellent finds this way.

 A set of pocket edition Studies that ended up in Australasia a few years back had two photographs tucked inside them. Alas, the original owner did not think of posterity by writing a name for the person on the back of the photographs, but just some personal comments that would only mean something to immediate family and friends.

We know that the person in the two pictures above was the grandmother of a previous owner of the books (name unknown) and here is the relevance to this blog - she worked with Charles Taze Russell in Bible House.

The black and white photograph has printed on the back,”Taken at Myrtle’s last summer” and the faded color one has “Week of November 30, 1957.”

Does anyone recognize who this might be?

When this material was first published elsewhere, one suggestion was that it might have been a Margaret or Martha Wilson, married to George M Wilson.There were no Wilsons on surving lists of Bible House workers, but they were part of the Allegheny class.

Perhaps the biggest lesson from this is always write names in pencil on the back of photographs. You never know who may want that information further down the line.

More on Henry Weber

Henry Weber was the vice president of Zion’s Watch Tower Society from 1892-1904 (his death). During this time several long-time associates left fellowship (see A Conspiracy Exposed and Harvest Siftings 1894) but Henry was well trusted and respected.

Henry was a horticulturist, and the one official photograph in general circulation is taken from the book American Florist. Although this book was published in 1900 we don’t know when the photograph was taken.

Henry’s story is covered in an earlier article on this blog, which can be found here.

https://jeromehistory.blogspot.com/2020/03/henry-weber.html

Because of his long and faithful service, it seems his photograph was on the wall in the Pittsburgh Bible House parlor. Below is a photograph of the parlor and on the wall on the right, above the furniture, is a portrait.

The original 5 x 7 inch glass plate negative of this photograph is owned by Brian K. Using 12,800 dpi scanning and some Photoshop manipulation, the picture below was rescued.

The sitter in this picture is holding a volume of Millennial Dawn. Comparing the covers of the editions of Millennial Dawn from that era, the most likely candidate in the photograph is volume 4, The Day of Vengeance, which was published in 1897.

This photograph can be found in the Watchtower Society’s historical exhibition. Below is a snapshot taken by the author from a display in Brooklyn in 2014.

Now the exhibition has been relocated to Warwick, Henry’s photograph may have been repositioned, but there is no reason for it to have disappeared.

As noted above, Henry died in 1904. His funeral service was conducted by CTR. Some of the family remained in fellowship with the Society for many years. It was noted in The New Era Enterprise for October 19, 1920 that the controversial “miracle wheat” had now been rebranded as “Weber wheat,” and had won prizes for the company. The business H Weber and Sons, was to last until 1978, and its records were ultimately donated to the Smithsonian Institute by a descendant.

One more recent reference shows how long after Henry some of his family remained in association with the Watch Tower Society. The Cumberland Evening Times (Cumberland, Maryland) for April 3, 1971, carried a funeral notice for one of his daughters, Diane. She lived to be 93, and the notice made the point that she was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The People's Pulpit Association

 When the headquarters moved to Brooklyn in 1909 it was deemed advisable to create a new corporation to deal with publishing and property matters, The People’s Pulpit Association. With grateful thanks to Bernhard, here is the letter CTR sent out inviting certain trusted Bible Students to become members. The letter also details the original officers of the association. You may need to click on the image to see it in full.

For further information please see Bernhard’s book