The Rutherfords in Monrovia

In 1954 there was a little human interest story on the front page of the Daily News and Monrovia Daily News for June 8, 1954. An old lady named Mrs J F Rutherford was pictured with the mailman, “Buck” Bailey, who had been delivering for about thirty years. It was claimed he’d done the equivalent of walking around the world four times in that time.

Reproduced with permission from newspapers.com

This photograph and news story has an interesting link to Watch Tower history because the old lady was Mary, widow of Joseph F Rutherford, who was then living at 159 Stedman Place. The suggestion in the newspaper was that the postie had been delivering to her for thirty years. In fact, according to the Monrovia-News-Post for July 15, 1935, the Stedman Place property only had a planning permit that year.

However, a check of Google maps shows that immediately backing onto the 159 Stedman Place plot was 160 North Primrose Avenue. And this is where Mary had been for most of the 1920s, one assumes on Bailey’s postal round. And it could well be that the original plot for the North Primrose Avenue address had been extensive enough to allow the construction of a brand new property on it in 1935, fronting onto the parallel road.

Mary’s address was given as 160 North Primrose in a number of trade and street directories throughout the 1920s. One example below listed all the existing numbers in the street in 1928. Here you can see Mary at number 160.

It is noted that some numbers are missing. This is likely because the properties were either not constructed or occupied at this time, as the whole area was under development. Mary’s home, number 160, was constructed in 1922 so it is likely she moved into a new property that year or shortly thereafter.

Interestingly the same year as the above directory entry, 1928, the address was featured in advertisements as a contact address for IBSA publications.

Files of all the street directories are not all accessible, but this one below from 1925 is of particular interest. We note that there are two people living at 160 North Primrose.

So the occupant is Jos F Rutherford and his wife Mary. If any doubt that this could be our JFR, check out this cutting from March 9, 1925.

Rutherford is classed as a resident and his given address is 160 North Primrose. This information was repeated over several years. A brief look takes us up to at least 1928, where the August 6, 1928 newspaper gives his address as 180 North Primrose, which I would suggest is just a typo. Sometimes the paper calls him a Monrovian. From a 1927 newspaper:

So it was accepted locally that JFR was a resident, living 160 North Primrose Avenue. We might assume this was just winter months, but there were other times of year noted as well. Note here a visit made in August 1925.

This wasn’t a big secret. It was supported by the Golden Age magazine for March 25, 1925, pages 407-409. This reproduces two letters written by JFR in February 1925 over the George Fisher situation. One letter is a copy of what was sent directly to Fisher, and the other was written to Clayton J Woodworth, editor of Golden Age. The contents are not our subject here, although anyone with access to Golden Age can check it out, but here is the start and finish of Woodworth’s letter.

So JFR writes from Monrovia. The actual address is omitted, which was probably wise in view of the Golden Age’s wide circulation.

As was common with all Watch Tower officials (apart from perhaps CTR and Maria) their personal family affairs were kept private. But it can be reasonably established that, while Mary Rutherford lived in Monrovia and her son Malcom lived nearly, JFR also spent part of his year there throughout the 1920s. It may be that the increasing workload and the need for extra staff like stenographers contributed to the move to the larger Beth-Sarim in the 1930s. A May 27, 1942, Consolation magazine article referred to JFR and what it called his “office force” using the property at Beth-Sarim.

The family’s continued contact also shows up in May 1938 when Malcom and his wife Pauline shared part of an ocean voyage with JFR and some of his staff.

JFR died at Beth-Sarim, San Diego, in 1942. There were issues about his burial as discussed in the above mentioned Consolation magazine. One of the headlines reporting the situation still claimed JFR as an old Monrovian.

The story mentioned that Mary Rutherford “still resides here at 159 Stedman Place.”

After JFR’s death, his son Malcom with wife Pauline lived with Mary for a short time in the 1940s. They are listed as with her at the Stedman Place property in the Monrovia Street directory for 1944. When Mary died in 1962, Malcom inherited the property and he and his second wife Eleanor lived there until at least 1970.