by Fred Rosen
Dennis just did not question. He was obedient.
Dennis worked at the Watchtower printing plant from August 1966 to November 1970. While the death of his mother in 1969 had made him sad, he had found the woman to spend the rest of his life with. Her name was Brenda Birdwell.
Brenda was a tall, strapping girl of twenty-two. She had come to the Heights from her Allentown home to serve the Lord. Her parents, Nelson and Peggy Birdwell, originally hailed from Kentucky, but they had moved to Allentown, where economic opportunities were better.
Brenda was very close to her sisters, Sandy and Linda, and her brother, Nelson II. They were a close and loving family, and they faithfully executed the duties of Jehovah’s Witnesses, proselytizing, going to Kingdom Hall on a regular basis, and reading and accepting church doctrine as the truth.
Five times a week, twice on Sunday, once on Tuesday, and twice on Thursday, the Birdwells and all their JW brethren in Allentown and all over the world trooped to their local Kingdom Hall. It was here at Kingdom Hall, the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ church, a plainly furnished auditorium, that the witnesses gathered for Bible and literature discussion.
The Birdwells, the Freemans, and all JWs are required to purchase the literature produced by the printing plant in Brooklyn Heights. They discuss specific pieces of literature, articles, etc., during their literature discussion sessions.
The Watchtower articles Witnesses discussed included “Young People Ask Is Star Trek Harmless Fun?” in which the author offers the thesis that the Star Trek TV series and films only serve to promote “… a worldly attitude of Satan.” And of course, Mr. Spock’s ears did make him look like Satan. Other Watchtower articles discussed included those that rationalize why Witnesses do not believe in blood transfusions even when a life is in jeopardy.
Dennis and Brenda believed what the Watchtower literature told them. They returned to Allentown together to get the blessing of the Elders, the JW equivalent of pastors or ministers, but with infinitely more influence over congregates’ daily lives.
Elders have the power to take away salvation, restrict prayer life, and interrupt family communication or anything else they believe will bring a wayward Witness to repentance. In the worst-case scenario, when a Witness has betrayed the Watchtower in action or belief, the Elders recommend he be disfellowshiped.
Like all the other Witnesses in their Kingdom Hall, Dennis and Brenda reported the time they spent doing society work, that is, door-to-door proselytizing, to the Elders, who put that information into a file. There is a file on each member of the congregation. This file also contains information on major sins a congregate has committed. All information related to a Witness’s private life is kept in master files in Brooklyn Heights. They are never destroyed.
Dennis and Brenda told the Allentown Elders of their love for each other and asked for their blessing to be married. Looking at this couple who had been put on earth to perform God’s good works, who’d come from families of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Elders knew immediately that these two would only extend the bloodline of Witnesses who create God’s kingdom on earth. Without reservation, they gave them their blessing, and Dennis and Brenda married.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are strongly discouraged from attending college. Serving God’s will, especially at headquarters in Brooklyn, is more important. Dennis and Brenda, praying for the knowledge of God’s will every day and every night, understood that the best way to please God was to go back to the Heights and work hard to spread the Jehovah’s Witnesses gospel to nonbelievers.
On New Year’s Eve 1974, the dark clouds gathered for the Armageddon that was imminent. The word was coming to an end. Dennis and Brenda held tight, waiting for the die to be cast, for Gabriel’s Trumpet to sound, for Jehovah to destroy all those but the true Christians: the Witnesses of himself.
Nothing happened. The world kept on.
Realizing that Armageddon was not happening, the Governing Body came out with a complicated pronouncement for their error, while not admitting it had been a mistake. This was an opportunity, a further opportunity, to do good works, to serve the Watchtower and Jehovah before Armageddon. This time no date was set.
Dennis and Brenda felt profound relief. They had a new opportunity, a new light, a new day to serve. Dennis, who had developed into a wonderful public speaker, was dispatched to Allentown, where he appeared as a keynote speaker during a summer assembly of Witnesses at the Allentown fairgrounds.
Dennis addressed a crowd of 12,000, and those who were there said he touched the hearts of the people in his invocation of biblical prophecy.
Dennis enjoyed being home again; he had to admit he had gotten homesick, and so the following year, in 1976, he and Brenda left the Heights for good and went back to Allentown to raise a family, This was the way to best serve Jehovah: To raise children to adhere to his precepts, Witnesses who would do good works, and worship at Kingdom Hall with their brothers and sisters in the organization.
For years, Allentown had been one of the most blessed of Jehovah’s Witnesses congregations in the world, for it was from this small city in the heart of Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley that Nathan Knorr hailed. Knorr would take over for Rutherford as president of the Watchtower in 1992. He would head the Governing Body, and as such become the most powerful Jehovah’s Witness in the world.
Dennis idolized Knorr. When he had decided ten years earlier to go to the Heights, Knorr had sent him a personal letter in which he’d told the young man “…you are going to get a wonderful four-year advanced theocratic training, which is far better than any secular education you can get.”
The fact that he had worked for years in the holy land of the Heights only served to embellish his reputation. When they returned to the provinces, those who’d served at headquarters were looked on as the most holy of the holy, venerated because they had been to the Promised Land, had served Jehovah at his core, and had been close to the Ruling Council.
In 1976, Dennis, all of twenty-eight, was nevertheless venerated and given the rank of Elder. He was looked on as a pious man with a deep understanding of the Bible and its meaning, with a quiet ability as a teacher to communicate that knowledge to even the most recalcitrant of pupils.
As he gained status in the congregation, Dennis, as an Elder, must have been exposed to and trained in some of the undercover work of the Elders. This would include following members of the congregation who were suspected of wrongdoing; and accessing congregation files, which revealed inside information on all the congregates, including his wife, parents, in-laws, and siblings, and eventually, his own children.
Two years later, in 1978, Brenda gave birth to their first child, whom they named Bryan. After Dennis’s father died that same year, his sister Valerie came to live with him, Brenda, and the new baby she helped to care for.
Two years later, Brenda gave birth to their second child, David. She would give birth once more, in 1984 to Erik.
The family settled in a house on Ehrets Lane, a quiet street in Salisbury Township, only a few miles from downtown Allentown. It was a two-story ranch house that some developers like to call a “splanch.” There were two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a bathroom when you entered. Walking downstairs, you came to a narrow corridor into which two more bedrooms and another bathroom opened.
Ehrets Lane was a peaceful place. On any given day, it was quiet enough to hear the wind chimes from a house nearby. To add to the rural feeling, in the corner window of her bedroom, Brenda put a picture of a rooster that could be seen from the street. The location, though, had been picked for more than its serenity or property value.
Down the block and across the street was the local Kingdom Hall, the locus of their family life, the source of their sustenance, the wellspring from which the bounties of Jehovah flowed. Dennis and Brenda were doing good works. They had formed a loving family. Now, all they had to do was live happily ever after.
EIGHT
It was not an uncommon sight in the
1980s for an Allentown resident to open his door and see Dennis Freeman on the porch steps, accompanied by his redheaded children, Bryan, David, and Erik. They were there to proselytize by selling copies of Awake! and The Watchtower. The Freemans would appear fresh scrubbed and clean cut, with sunny smiles and even sunnier dispositions. They were only too ready to answer questions about Jehovah’s Witnesses and to enlighten the uninitiated.
Sometimes, Dennis would convince the Allentown neighbors he met through the door-to-door ministry to attend Kingdom Hall study sessions. Dennis was nothing if not obedient, and he wanted his children to be that way, too. And for a while, they were.
Bryan and David and later Erik attended all the study sessions with their parents and when their parents wanted them to, did their door-to-door ministry. From the outside, things looked normal in the Freeman family. The Freemans had a basketball hoop out in the driveway, and neighbors used to see father and sons playing ball. They seemed to have a good relationship. But you never know what happens when the door closes at midnight.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses are not supposed to drink alcohol. Yet, according to court records, alcohol was brought into the Freeman house in the form of beer. Starting at six, David began drinking beer.
Despite the prohibition against alcohol, there is a big problem with alcohol abuse among Jehovah’s Witnesses. The contradiction between JW policy and the consumption of liquor that David and Bryan could see in the community must have been terribly confusing to them.
The boys’ outside lives were made difficult by their parents’ religious beliefs.
Children who grow up as Jehovah’s Witnesses grow up in an atmosphere of isolation. They are not allowed to participate in after school group activities. Friendship with schoolchildren who are not Witnesses is prohibited. On the rare occasion when David and Bryan questioned their parents’ beliefs, which had been imposed on them, they were answered with biblical quotes from the Witnesses’ version of the Bible that supported their beliefs.
Obedience was the watchword.
Because Witnesses do not believe in government, the Freeman brothers were the only ones in their classes who did not salute the flag and say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. While it was their constitutional right to do so, it nevertheless alienated them further from the other children. Jehovah’s Witnesses are also prohibited from engaging in sports and other forms of competition.
On Christmas morning, there were no presents under the Christmas tree for David and Bryan because there was no Christmas tree. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe in established holidays. December 25 was like any other day. The Freeman boys never had the joy on that day that their friends at school had told them about. Neither did they celebrate Easter or that most pagan of American holidays, Halloween.
The Freeman brothers never got birthday presents either, because celebrating birthdays is prohibited under Watchtower doctrine. They had to listen to their friends tell stories about how wonderful their parents treated them on their birthdays. The brothers were told that their present was being, “in the truth,” as Witnesses refer among themselves to their beliefs.
“Why can’t we have birthdays?” David asked.
“Why can’t we have Christmas?” Bryan asked.
“Why can’t we trick-or-treat on Halloween?” Erik asked.
It was the rest of the world that was wrong, Brenda would tell them; the only correct religion, the only religion acceptable to God, is Jehovah’s Witnesses, Dennis would say stoically.
But all this paled before the deadly decision that would await their parents should they ever be hurt and require a blood transfusion, for Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe in blood transfusions. Should a transfusion be the difference between life and death, their religious beliefs would have obligated Dennis and Brenda to watch their children suffer and die, rather than transfuse blood into their veins.
No matter how much they suffered as parents over such a decision, being Witnesses would come first. Only state intervention could allow such a transfusion to take place.
David and Bryan, and later Erik, were left on their own. Scripture became their one true salvation.
By the time David and Bryan were eight, they knew the scripture verses cold. Bryan took after his father: he was so smart that even at eight, he could give a Bible talk for six minutes and have the Elders spellbound.
Dennis and Brenda loved their children. They were raising them as they had been raised, under the organization’s wing. They would grow up to do good works, to minister as adults from door to door.
Their further schooling after high school would be discouraged, as it had been discouraged for Witnesses for generations. The idea that education leads to a more substantive place in the economic hierarchy of society, or simply that with education you can make a better living, is anathema to the Witnesses. Only nonbelievers believe that, and besides, they’re going to be destroyed by Jehovah at Armageddon regardless of their education, so further schooling is unnecessary.
As to their more formal religious education, when Witnesses attend Kingdom Hall, it is for the purpose of discussing Watchtower-produced publications, be it passages from the Watchtower version of the Bible or sections of the Watchtower annual yearbooks.
The 1974 Jehovah’s Witnesses yearbook must have been especially interesting to Bryan and David, because it put a revisionist spin on the Watchtower’s anti-Semitic record under the Hitler regime. The yearbook recalls that on or around September 1936, prior to an international convention of the Witnesses held in Lucerne, Switzerland, Joseph Rutherford and his eventual successor, Nathan Knorr, “… had come to Germany … in order to see what could be done to ensure the safety of the Society’s property, and had prepared a declaration.”
Rutherford, who had made anti-Semitic rants in the past, wrote a document known as the “Declaration of Fact.” It was a protest against the meddling of the Hitler governmental into the preaching work we w-ere doing,” the ’74 yearbook states.
But the “Declaration of Fact” did not read like an anti-Nazi document.
“It was the commercial Jews” who had “built up and carried on big business as a means of exploiting and oppressing the peoples of many nations,” the declaration read in part.
At the convention itself, a large number of Witnesses refused to adopt it, perhaps because of the brown-nosing to the brown shirts and revulsion at the document’s anti-Semitism. But adopt it they did.
“The conventioneers took 2,100,000 copies of the declaration home with them, however, and distributed them to numerous persons in positions of responsibility. The copy sent to Hitler was accompanied by a letter that, read, in part:
“The Brooklyn presidency of the Watchtower Society is and, always has been exceed friendly to Germany. In 1918, the president of the Society and seven and seven members of the Board of Directors in America were sentenced to 80 years imprisonment for the reason that the president refused to let two magazines in America, which he edited, be used in war propaganda against Germany.”
Because at the time the Witnesses officially refused to renounce religious meetings, Bible evenings, and the recruitment of new members, they would later claim, as the Freemans were taught, an honorable record in opposing the Nazis. Yet there is no evidence of concrete action on their part against the Nazi regime in those early days of Hitler’s power when he was the most vulnerable.
The Freeman brothers must have listened fascinated as the Elders told them how it was only when the Witnesses refused to make the “Heil Hitler” salute in 1935, or refused to serve in the army, that the sect’s officials and a large part of its membership adopted a clear posture of opposition to the regime. That led to the first wave of Witnesses’ arrests in 1936 and 1937, and their imprisonment in concentration camps.
After the outbreak of the war, more large-scale arrests occurred, and again in 1944. However the number of Witnesses in the concentration camps were relatively small, staying to themselves in close, com
pact groups. They were conspicuous for the order, cleanliness, and discipline that they maintained in their barracks. Since they refused, because of their religious beliefs, to cooperate with “illegal” political groups and to escape from the camps or offer active resistance to the SS, the SS came to exploit them for its own purposes.
On the orders of SS head Heinrich Himmler, the Witnesses were used to gather mushrooms and fruit outside the camps because there was no danger of their trying to escape or attacking the SS. As a result of that change in SS policy, the situation for most of the Witnesses in the concentration camps improved, and most survived until liberation.
At best, it was a checkered record, but the Witnesses in their prayer meetings extolled the virtues of nonintervention with the Germans. If someone of another religion died, it was not their place to intervene. Bryan and David may have wondered about this dichotomy: how can you sanctify one life but not another because of religious belief?
Maybe the Jews deserved to die because they had not embraced God in the right way. It was perplexing. But questions were not encouraged; obedience was. While Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe in formal government, they try to be model citizens who are encouraged to obey the laws of the land in which they live.
Regardless of any judgment one may make about the Freemans as parents, one thing can be said of them in absolute truth, and that is that they never broke the laws of the land. The same, however, could not be said about Brenda’s brother.
Nelson Birdwell II has been in and out of trouble with the law for years. His crimes ranged from burglary to receiving stolen property. In this respect, he was not a good role model for his son, Nelson Birdwell III, whom everyone called “Ben.”