Some Little Known Court Cases Involving The Watchtower

TEXAS v. JACK WALLACE was a 1956 Texas criminal court case which involved one of the WatchTower Society's "District Sales Managers". In February 1956, a WatchTower Society "Circuit Servant", named Jack Wallace, 41, was arrested in Kerrville, Texas, on charges of "Indecent Exposure". A local married woman swore that Wallace had accosted her from his car on a downtown street. The woman first reported the incident to her husband, who then made the report to local police.
Jack Wallace was arrested and jailed for three days until his court appearance. Wallace evidently pleaded guilty, and paid a $50.00 fine. The local newspaper reported that Wallace's "attractive" wife awaited his release. The WatchTower Society representatives reportedly promised the Kerrville Police Chief that they would immediately leave town.
An internet search discloses that "a" Jack Wallace was from a large Jehovah's Witness family of 11 children in Kingsport, Tennessee. "That" Jack Wallace played a well publicized role in a 1943 "anti-JW incident" in which his "travel trailer" was wrecked. "That" Jack Wallace also was a "Congregation Servant" in Kingsport in the early 1950s, and possibly Memphis, Tennessee, in the 1960s. Donald Wallace, a brother to "this" Jack Wallace, also was a "Circuit Servant".
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IOWA v. BOURNE was a 1942 Iowa criminal court case which involved one of the WatchTower Society's "District Sales Managers". In September 1942, a WatchTower Society "Zone Servant", named Reginald A. Bourne, 30, was arrested in Des Moines, Iowa, while performing duties as Chairman at the then ongoing WatchTower Convention.
Reginald Bourne was thereafter convicted of "Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor". There was possibly even more to the following story. Readers really need to look at a map to see what I am talking about. First, Bourne parked his travel trailer at Indianola, Iowa. The case revolved around a 16 year-old boy named Wayne Emmons, whose home was in Iowa City. Emmons was allegedly attracted to the Jehovah's Witnesses, against his parent's wishes, through relatives (possibly paternal grandparents) living in What Cheer, Iowa.
Despite the fact that Bourne initially denied knowing anything about Emmon's disappearance, Bourne eventually confessed to giving money to the 16 year-old so that, puzzlingly, he could travel out-of-state to Madison, Wisconsin, to attend a JW Convention that was going on the exact same time as was the convention in Des Moines. Bourne even drove Emmons from either Iowa City or What Cheer to a bus station in Ames, Iowa, of all places?
Interestingly, references to a JW leader named "Reginald A. Bourne" disappear after this conviction. However, there is "an" Allen Bourne who was baptized around 1936, and who "pioneered" until 1946, when he was selected to attend Gilead (WatchTower's Missionary School), and who then was sent to Honduras for only four years, before returning to the U.S., and settling in Ohio in the 1950s. There is also "a" Dean Bourne, who was baptized around 1939, and who served as a "District Overseer" in Wisconsin and Iowa in the 1960s, after first also attending Gilead and also being sent to Honduras.
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ILLINOIS v. ATWOOD and OHIO v. ATWOOD were two 1924 criminal court cases which involved a prominent Jehovah's Witness, named Barlow Atwood, who served the WatchTower Society in various capacities from the 1910s until his death circa 1980s.
In a 1970s press conference, arranged in conjunction with a WatchTower District Convention, Barlow Atwood claimed to have worked at the WatchTower Society's world headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, in the early 1910s. Atwood claimed that he was the Bethelite who devised the way to syncronize the sound supplied by the phonograph with the silent film used in the WatchTower Society's PHOTO-DRAMA OF CREATION film. Once produced, Atwood also traveled in the Midwest and showed the PHOTO-DRAMA to audiences. In succeeding decades, Atwood claimed to have traveled throughout the Midwest as a Pioneer, and possibly in higher capacities, for the WatchTower Society, before retiring to the Charleston, West Virginia area in the 1960s. The Convention-related newspaper article "interestingly" stated: Atwood said he was not often arrested, although he knew police were looking for him. "Often after we would visit a home, a local minister would be called who then called the police. "We made no attempt to elude the police, but we worked for six months in one area without being caught. We were always a step ahead of them."
Of their harassment, both men said "We were hated, just as Jesus was, for telling the truth."
At some point after working at WatchTower headquarters, Barlow Atwood apparently married a woman in Marion, Ohio, and they had at least one child; a daughter named Gloria May Atwood. Many details are missing, but in January 1924, Barlow Atwood was being held in an Illinois jail. It is not known whether Atwood's arrest was in connection with the Ohio charge, or whether he had been arrested on some other charge. In any event, the State of Ohio requested that the State of Illinois extradite Atwood back to Ohio to face criminal charges relating to his failure to provide for his daughter, who had been placed in the Marion County Children's Home. It is not known why such desperate measures were required on the daughter's behalf, but apparently there was much more to the story as to what was going on between Atwood and his estranged wife.
The "we" in the above newspaper excerpt was a second prominent Jehovah's Witness, named George Grosse, who also had a long history and lengthy resume of performing traveling work for the WatchTower Society. Interestingly, Grosse stated in the interview that Atwood and he met for the first time in the exact same small town in Illinois from which Atwood was extradited back to Ohio in 1924. "We were hated, just as Jesus was, for telling the truth." (Jehovah's Witnesses love being hated!)