The tale of two(x2) sisters and the Around the World Tour

by james_woods 15 Replies latest jw friends

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  james_woods

  In Oklahoma City, back in the buildup to 1975 (lets say about 68 or 69), there were four very special older JW ladies who had a great influence on my life. I would like to say something nice about each one.

  Starting with Lois & Marie...(Lois VanDoren & Marie Salyer for those old enough to remember). Lois & Marie were probably the most kind and faithful JW ladies I have ever met. I got sent to do the tuesday book study at their house on 23rd street way back then. They had an almost uncanny sense of hospitality for the study group which never failed. I can still remember how they would make us vanilla ice cream with tiny ground up bits of coffee about once a month after the study and have a little tea party for us just like your little old lady music teacher would do.

  They also had a terrific sense of humor - they allowed one of the "brothers" who was a little down on his financial luck to help them light their central heat. It was in the attic...and the guy did not know that you cannot step on unsupported sheet rock in between the roof beams, and so came down through the ceiling and onto the kitchen table. They never held a grudge - it just became a great family joke to tell again and again.

  When I got sucked into being a pioneer, they were always there to go out in service and pay for the gas (and these ladies were certainly not wealthy). One of the circuit overseers insisted that every book study conductor should go and have a little "evening service" night about once a month right before the tuesday night study. Nobody would go except for Lois & Marie - and they did it with me every single time until the stupid idea died out when they changed him to another circuit. We would just go drive around in their Chevelle Malibu and do "return visits" on some of their old non-witness friends for an hour before the study. Incidentally, that Malibu was a 1967 2-door hardtop in white with a black interior. I guess nobody told them they should have had a four-door. The extra free and easy hour was a big help for a struggling new pioneer who was always really ashamed to go out in service and bother other people at their homes.

  Lois was the first of the two to pass away. She apparantly had either a massive stroke or heart attack one evening just as she was going to bed and Marie found her just slumped over right beside the bed. Of course, it was just too late to do anything. I was out in a small town where the need was great when it happened. I came back to OKC for the service - Marion Dunlap gave it. It was the only JW memorial service that I have ever heard in which "the hope of the new earth, study with the witnesses, 144,000 etc"...got a back seat to Marion giving a very dignified and respecful eulogy for the deceased.

  Marie and I somehow had the guts not to cry, and I still don't know how we did it.

  Thats it for now - and I still am going to post a similar tribute to Helen and Lucille and the around the world trip.

  James
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  looking_glass

  James - what a lovely story. I look forward to reading more.
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  Confession

  How nice of you to remember these sweet ladies in this way. Reminds me of a few myself.

  Best,

  Confession
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  damselfly

  That was sweet, they sound like they were lovely.
  
  Dams
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  james_woods

  Yes, thanks, they were quite lovely. They were also not anything like "hard-core" witnesses...but thank God they did not have to see the 1975 fail to come to pass.

  I think there were many such really good people around back in the 50's and 60's but the extremist ways of the WTS now has either ruined or run of most of these kind of people today.
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  damselfly

  The older ladies in my old hall were all sweethearts, genuine nice people and sincere in their faith. They were not like the rest of the hall at all.
  
  Dams
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  luna2

  A lovely story. Reminds me of a few people I knew when I first came in. A different breed.
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  silentWatcher

  I think there were many such really good people around back in the 50's and 60's but the extremist ways of the WTS now has either ruined or run of most of these kind of people today.
  
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  my mom says that too (She's in her late 50's, but was raised a witness). She says the change started around '75. huh. most of the older ones in my hall were sincerely decent people too.
  
  -silent
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  wiegel

  Thanks, James, it made me think of a some of the dear old sisters I knew back then. trudy
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  james_woods

  I guess most everyone has picked up on the idea that this thread is sort of a "memorial day" tribute for four very nice ladies who died as JWs years ago. None of them were hardliners on the end of the world, but I think they all somehow hoped to see it in their time. No such luck!

  Well, this is part two - my very good friends Helen Murray and Lucille Fitzgerald. Helen and Lucille were sisters (like Lois and Marie) but their social positions could not have been different. Helen and Lucille were the owners of a very upscale paint and wallpaper store in Oklahoma City that had been started way back in about 1920 by their father. It was called "Murrays" and they had a street front showroom office on 23rd street down close to Oklahoma City University. Their clients were mostly the fashionable millionaires of the day and mostly in an upscale neighborhood called Nichols Hills - sort of the Beverly Hills of Oklahoma City. They themselves lived separately in very elegent antique style homes in another older part of OKC.

  I mention this much of their background because it was Helen & Lucille who provided the wallpaper contracts for Marion Dunlap for many years, and who later helped Ed Dunlap when he got dumped from Bethel. Helen told me later that she felt bad about Ed and Marion, but that she and her sister were just too old and set in their ways to make such a bold statement. I never tried to debate the truth and falsehood issues; they probably had had it in full measure from Marion.

  Back in about 1964 or 1965, the Society sponsered an "Around the World" tour in which a group of around 120 or so wealthy witnesses (or at least witnessses who could afford the tickets) started out in NYC at Bethel and then went all through Europe, down Italy, across N Africa and the Middle East, India, IndoChina, Australia and NZ (I think) and then back up to HongKong, Japan, and Hawaii before disbanding in LA. This was timed out to have them attend a few of the so-called internation assemblies planned in key cities for that summer.

  While most of the dozen or so people I knew who were on this tour mostly just went along and looked at it, Helen had a mission. Lucille's son had given her a high-end 35mm camera and enough film to fully record everything. Helen, being an artistic sort and an enthusiast for architecture mostly took shots of famous buildings and locations - recording some great architectural details and historical things. There was not much emphasis on the assemblies themselves. Helen was a truly talented amateur photographer.

  When they got back, she assembled the 35mm slides into a sort of chronological travelogue which lasted around 2 hours. This was presented to many kingdom halls as evidence of the big trip - Helen herself did the commentary. These were done as a sort of kingdom hall level special event (usually on Saturday). They were unique - a meeting you could look forward to sitting through, given by a LADY, and fully sponsered by the congregation committee. It was also the only really educational JW meeting I have ever been to - a big deal for a 16 year old kid because we didn't have travel channel in those days and my geography book at school was a B&W job from about 1930. Helen had taken an interest in me and usually let me organize the slide tray rings in order while she did the travel show. I don't know what happened to those slides - they would be of great historical value today.

  In 1973, I took a trip with Helen and Lucille to New York City to see Bethel. This was a semi-sponsored group of OKC and Tulsa witnesses who wanted to see the big apple HQ. The Society put us all up in one of the worst flea-bag hotels I had ever seen in my life (my mother always insisted on traveling in clean hotel rooms). It was right across the street from part of Bethel, I heard they later bought it and made it into a dorm.

  Helen (and Lucille, but mostly Helen) decided that James needed to see the cultural values of New York more than to be brain pounded on the official Bethel Tour. She could get us a short form private tour next day. So we skipped it, went to Museum of Modern Art, shopped at Macy's (she had much advice on presents for my GF of the day) and she steered us to supposedly the very restaruant where that cold white leeks & potato soup was invented...(etc.) Later that evening she blew the three of us right into bethel and steered me to the brownstone apartment of a "very important Bethel guy she knew". It was the first time I had met Ed and Betty Dunlap.

  Walking back to the coldwater flophouse, Helen steered us around a block or so to a tavern. (She knew right where the closest decent one to Bethel was). She said "I am going to have to have a cold beer and carry off a pint of Whisky before I can go back and sleep in that room"!!! The next night Ed got her and Lucille into an adjoining luxury apartment in his building which was unused.

  I know some of this may make these two sound like JW elitist snobs, and maybe thats how some viewed them back then. But they were my friends, and they taught me a lot about real life. Helen never married, but she sure was the good looking strong willed female of her times. I asked Marion just before he died last year if maybe Helen was kind of his GF before he married Edith.

  He just kind of growled in that gravel voice of his "Oh, yes - Helen...hehhehheh" - so I cannot call it confirmed or denied. I sure miss all of them.

  James