When you Go to Bethel, You Sign Over Your Dead Body.

by new boy 23 Replies latest jw friends

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  new boy

  This is in response to the thread about the supposed suicide of a bethelite in 1995.

  When I went to Bethel I and everyone else, signed a form stating that "If we died while at Bethel the Wathtower Bible and Tract Society,had the RIGHT to keep our body."

  Yes, we thought it strange at the time but as a twenty years old you didn't think much about stuff like that. Besides we were never going to die anyway. 1975 was coming.

  I know of two brothers who killed themselfs while at Bethel and two others who tried end their lives. My guess is people have been killing themselfs at Bethel long before I ever got there.

  James Olsen killed himself in 1973. They kept his body and it's buried someplace in upstate New York.

  So why would the society be so interested in our dead bodies?

  Do they want to deal with the extra expense to bury the bodies? No, doesn't sound like them.

  Do they want to grind the bodies up and use them for fertilizer. No

  But really why?

  My guess is legal issues. If someone could prove wrongful death. There could be a lawsuit. We all know how much they like them.

  Now, the "form" signing your body over makes perfect sense.

  The good Doctor there would sign the death certificate. He state the cause of death and the body is kept.

  Other wise why have such a form?

  Your thoughts?
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  Stealth

  My sister died at age 38 and the authorities required an autopsy be performed due to her age.

  When young men at Bethel dies is an autopsy ever done?

  Are you aware if any at Bethel died from a drug overdose?

  Keeping your body is a very strange rule.
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  Stealth

  They kept his body and it's buried someplace in upstate New York.

  Where is this place? What are the graves marked with? I'm really surprised they don't cremate the body to save money. Do GB members get buried there too?
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  Introvert 2

  All about money and protecting their interests. Shameless legalistic evil cult. RIP Jimmy.

  Thanks for posting this Keith.
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  ToesUp

  OMG, you can't even trust these goons when you're dead!
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  dropoffyourkeylee

  I think there is a cemetery at Wallkill. There are some old posts about it and some of the names
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  OrphanCrow

  For a brief history of Watchtower cemeteries

  http://truthhistory.blogspot.ca/2015/02/find-grave.html

  ...the Society had its own burial ground at the Rosemont United Cemeteries in Ross Township, Pittsburgh. Here CTR and a few Bethel family members and Pilgrims were buried, and their names inscribed on a pyramid monument...

  ...shortly after the headquarters moved from Pittsburgh to Brooklyn for the second time in 1919, this cemetery was to all intents and purposes abandoned...

  To replace the Pittsburgh plot, a new cemetery was created on Staten Island, New York. In 1922 the Society bought 24 acres of land in Woodrow Road, Staten Island. The area is sometimes known as Rossville and also Huguenot Park. The purpose was to build their own radio station WBBR which started broadcasting in early 1924. There was also some farming done on the land, in what was then very much a rural area.
  A new graveyard was established nearby in the same street, alongside an historic landmark, the Woodrow United Methodist Church.......This small burial plot was used until at least the late 1960s....
  The Woodrow Road graveyard was accessible to the general public. It was obviously the policy to have no grave markers. It is reported that today you can recognise the area belonging to the Society simply because it is the only section in the cemetery without headstones.

  
  In the 1960s the Society purchased two properties at Wallkill, Ulster County, about 100 miles north of Brooklyn, NY, totalling a reported 1200 hectares (around 3000 acres). These became known as Watchtower Farms, and extensive printing operations were transferred to this area from the early 1970s onwards. A new graveyard was created on this property that is known as the Watchtower Farms Cemetery. It is a private cemetery on private land and is therefore not accessible to the general public.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
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  Cangie

  Thank you once again, Orphan Crow. I always enjoy what you "dig up" (pun intended) about the Watchtower, especially when it includes history that they don't talk about, or would prefer we didn't know.
  
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  naazira

  Maybe they sell the body parts to medical schools! Haha
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  Pete Zahut

  I had forgotten that we had to sign that document....the joke was that nothing goes to waste at Bethel...they were going to make ink and or soap out of you and bury whatever was left over.