[...] However sincere the vice president [Fred Franz} was, it is an undeniable fact that his rather cloistered life at the headquarters from his early twenties onward had largely isolated him from life as lived by ordinary people 'on the outside' (a term used frequently by staff workers at the Watch Tower headquarters with reference to life outside their select community). The things being experienced by those who were engaged in secular employment, who had homes and families, knew what it was to be married or to be parents, had to face the problems and difficulties of day-to-day living as most people face them, formed little or no part of his experience. From my own personal association with him over many years, it was evident that he was quite detached---or perhaps the expression could be "insulated"---from the reality of life as lived by the average person. He was in no sense a "hermit" and accepted occasional invitations to people's homes for meals or weekends, but he was always a "special" guest, someone looked upon as different from ordinary people. Conversation rarely if ever dealt with the more mundane aspects of human occupations. I recall one summer in the late 1940s or early 1950s when he was at our family home in Kentucky on vacation (as I was also there on vacation from Puerto Rico), and he commented on himself and Nathan Knorr, saying: "Brother Knorr is a practical man. I am a scholar." I am sure he was not an unfeeling person, yet in his outlook toward the problems of human living he seemed somewhat otherworldly, at times almost fatalistic about difficulties and even tragedies.
For me, one instance of this was notably impressive. In the 1970s a nephew of mine contracted a sudden pancreas infection that in just three days ended his life. He was only 34. He left behind a lovely young wife and two small daughters. At the funeral, which my wife and I attended, the funeral parlor was packed. As the invited speaker, the Society's vice president (great uncle to the deceased) walked up to the podium, paused, and then in a very loud, almost stentorian, voice said: "Isn't it grand to be ALIVE!" [20] After that introductory exclamation, for several minutes he discussed, effectively and dramatically, the meaning of the words at Ecclesiastes 7:1-4. [21] As yet my nephew had not been mentioned in any way. Then, after approximately ten minutes, in referring to the words about it being 'better for us to go to the house of mourning,' the speaker said, "And the reason why is that sooner or later we're all going to end up like THIS!" and, without turning, he threw his hand backward in the direction of the coffin where my nephew's body lay. The talk went on with further commentary on the Biblical section but with no other reference to the dead man until the close when the standard statements of the reason of the occasion and the names of the deceased's survivors were given.
I felt a sense of burning anger --- not at my uncle, for I sincerely and honestly believe he thought this was the best way to deal with the situation, the best way to combat the natural sensations of grief and loss. What I felt incensed at was the ORGANIZATIONAL ATTITUDE that allowed a person to feel fully justified to speak in a way which essentially transformed the dead person's body into a vehicle or platform on which to base a talk, a talk that expounded organizational doctrine, but which throughout simply made no mention of sadness at the loss of the PERSON whose life had ended, as though by ignoring this the hurt would be lessened. I kept saying to myself, "James deserves something better than this --- surely the text about a 'name being better than good oil' calls for talking about the name HE MADE FOR HIMSELF IN LIFE. Surely there is SOMETHING that can be learned from his life, something about him that can be said to encourage us, the living." [22] Once again, I do not think my uncle lacked any of the feelings I had or lacked the capacity for sorrow and compassion. I believe he simply reflected his training and a lifetime of disciplining himself against expressing strong feeling about anything other than "theocratic interests." [23]
Footnotes 20 - 23:
20 I still vividly recall the sinking sensation I felt in my heart at this.
21 These verses read (NW): "A name is better than good oil, and the day of death than the day of one's being born. Better is it to go to the house of mourning than to go to the banquet house, because that is the end of all mankind; and the one alive should take it to his heart. Better is vexation than laughter, for by the crossness of the face the heart becomes better. The heart of the wise ones is in the house of mourning, but the heart of the stupid ones is in the house of rejoicing."
22 I had been asked to give a prayer following the talk and I remember feeling somewhat choked up and that I began by saying, "An enemy has come into our midst and has robbed us of a loved one. A wife has lost her husband. Little children have lost a father. A father and a mother have lost a son. And we have all lost a friend." Then, for the first time, I could hear some expressions of sorrow among those attending and I frankly found it a welcome sound. I tried to include some of the good things about the man, things worth our imitating, for I thought, "Surely now if ever is the time to express appreciation for whatever worthwhile qualities he had. We owe it to him, to his memory."
23 In the 1980s, when conducting the morning text for the "Bethel family," he emphasized the importance of the work the headquarters staff was doing by relating that, in 1939, when notified by his mother of his father's death, he informed her that he would not be able to make it to the funeral due to the severe press of work at Bethel. His mother angrily phoned Judge Rutherford and, as my uncle told it, the "Judge" ordered him to go to the funeral. This was said with no evident sense of embarrassment, but rather as illustrative of the importance he gave to his assigned work at Bethel, the "house of God."
IN SEARCH OF CHRISTIAN FREEDOM, by Ray Franz, pp. 249, 250
I regret any possible errors resulting from my very poor typing.
CC