I think GB wives are taken care of to a better degree than CO/DO/ZO wives. I'd be willing to bet that a GB wife has quite a bit of dirt on the upper echelon that would be embarrassing if exposed to the public. To ensure their discretion, they'll get an apartment and monthly pension.
One of the Governing Body had a stroke yesterday
by AndersonsInfo 426 Replies latest jw friends
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insearchoftruth
I think GB wives are taken care of to a better degree than CO/DO/ZO wives. I'd be willing to bet that a GB wife has quite a bit of dirt on the upper echelon that would be embarrassing if exposed to the public. To ensure their discretion, they'll get an apartment and monthly pension.
Another benefit of being a GB member.....one question, are the wives of the GB of the anointed??
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AllTimeJeff
one question, are the wives of the GB of the anointed??
No. In fact, most are not.
Just to clarify, it is generally up to the branch as to whether certain widows are taken care of. Ulysses Glass widow Ann rides around Patterson all day in her little mechanized scooter.... Usually at 50 MPH I might add.... She is dangerous, she has a horn on that thing, and she knows how to use it.
Sam Friends wife Jean, also a widow, was at Patterson. I could not think of a nicer person I met while I was there. She is obviously being taken care of as well.....
Again, it basically depends on who knows you, and who likes you, if a widow is "taken care of".
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coffee_black
You are probably right ATJ... and it has probably changed over time. My uncle was at Bethel from the time of Rutherford. He was an announcer on WBBR. They dubbed him "the man with the golden voice". He married my aunt shortly after Knorr married in the late 40s. It suddenly became ok to marry. They went to Gilead, class of '57 and then CO, DO and finally wound up in in Alaska in the early '60s. He died there in the mid 60s. For any old timers here...his name was Andy Wagner. Their story was in a yearbook...I think in the late 70s/early 80s
Coffee
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AndersonsInfo
I'm going to relate more of which that has been off this thread's subject, but it is my glimpse into aspects of life at Bethel that have been brought up here. Of course, what I say is my viewpoint and other people have theirs. I know that there is no right and wrong here, just a matter of perspective and experience.
The same day we entered into Bethel there were, I think, seven others in our group. One of them, a young woman, married a Bethelite who had been there around ten years or so. She became a widow sometime in the first four or five years of her marriage, if I remember correctly. Her husband was killed in a car accident during a weekend away. There were other Bethelites in the car but only he was killed. She was not asked to leave Bethel.
Another young woman, a close friend, was married to the overseer of the Factory Paint Dept. for somewhere around eight years. He died of a liver disease (paint related) and she was not asked to leave.
While we were there, two men ran off with other men's wives, and their wives were not asked to leave.
I worked in Engineering with a wonderful gal whose husband ran off with another Bethelite's wife sometime in the 1970s. She wasn't asked to leave.
An assistant to the guy who ran the office complex Building Office kept a mistress in NYC and when discovered, he was booted. His wife was not asked to leave.
A lovely young woman, a proofreader in Writing, whose husband was asked to leave immediately when he transgressed in a big way, was not asked to leave.
I would ask that you please don't decide that Bethel leaders are cold and unfeeling people. We would never have stayed there if it was such a horrible place. Granted, the religion has some pretty harmful policies, some that most of us didn't even know about when we were JWs until we found ourselves in a position to be hurt by the policies; but all in all, other than some nut cases in Bethel, who eventually got booted, there was kindness shown by supervisors towards personnel. Bethel is no different from any other large organization with many, many workers. It's actually quite secular. Few people talk about the Bible, etc. We were there to work and when large numbers of people live and work together there are always issues that come up that need addressing, some of which are not handled fairly. Who said life was easy, in or out of Bethel!
When I was at Bethel only two years I needed surgery. Usually, people who are that new at Bethel do not have their surgery paid for by the organization and are asked to leave. I won't go into detail here how these things are handled, but will say it depends upon the circumstances. My surgery was paid for because those who made such decisions wanted us to stay. By that time, both of us had become valuable to the expansion work that was going on and it was thought that it was important for us to stay and continue on with our work.
We understood when we came to Bethel that we were brought there to work. If we couldn't work, we would go home. If surgery is needed by newer Bethelites, such as a young guy who has been there a year and cleans toilets, etc., WT will pay for it, but the worker will be asked to leave and asked to please pay the money back when he can after he recuperates. It might not seen fair or kind to the reader, but decision-makers were conscience of the fact that it was donated money that was paying the bills. There were 6,000 people at the US Bethels and every sort of circumstance imaginable and I think the people who ran the places, for the most part, tried to do what was right.
Of course, I can tell you about some experiences at Bethel that were not pleasant due to inept overseers, but I got through it and lived to talk about 'em. Changes in Bethel policy, which touched other Bethelites lives, occurred because of those experiences, but it was due to certain circumstances that made things work out well for all of us. I'm going to share some of those experiences in the future in my blogs on Freeminds.
Barb
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slimboyfat
Barbara are you working on a book about your bethel experiences? I really hope so. It would be like an updated version of Visions of Glory, except better.
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Olin Moyles Ghost
Barbara, thanks for your insider's insight. Your "fair and balanced" presentation lends weight to your position. It's good for all of us to remember that the WTS is a man-made organization--nothing more and nothing less. Just like any other man-made organization, such as General Electric, the Republican party, or the Boston Red Sox, it's neither all-good nor all-bad.
The organization includes good people who do good things. This doesn't excuse the harm that is done by the policies of the organization. But we do ourselves a disservice and damage our credibility when we fail to recognize that there are some good people in the org--even in positions of power.
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quietlyleaving
thank you Barbara. It is easy to forget that love and humanitarianism is a strong impulse among JWs
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AndersonsInfo
Olin Moyles Ghost: Well put. Excellent comment. That's what I should have said, but didn't because I couldn't. I think I ramble on too much and don't hit the nail on the head as well as you do, Olin.
No, slimboyfat, I'm not working on a book about my experiences at Bethel. I'm trying to piece my life together in parts and put it on Freeminds in the form of blogs. I've posted 3 parts and #4 is due any day now. In the future when I get up to the years I was in Bethel, I'll include some of the info I've been posting here yesterday and today so I won't have to reinvent the wheel and that's when I'll talk about events that I've never publicly talked about before.
What I've been working on for the past few years is about the organization's old history and finding it fascinating. Some of it is making its way to the blog and more is on the way, but the majority will come out in another medium. Also, I'm working on some speeches that I will be giving in Europe in the future. I'll post more about that later when all the plans are in place.
Barbara
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coffee_black
I wasn't saying that my aunt's situation was/is the norm. She was never at Bethel. The way she was treated was very disturbing to my family...especially my grandmother, who professed to be of the annointed. My aunt was well loved by the jws in Alaska. They did not want to her to leave, but she had no means to stay. They gave her a lovely send off... I still have the pictures.
Coffee