C.F. Willard Writes about Judge and Tingley

C.F. Willard Writes about Judge and Tingley

[Excerpted from an article titled "Some Old Boston Bones" by Cyrus Field Willard,
The Canadian Theosophist, pp. 301-302, December 15, 1939.]

[To Albert E.S. Smythe, editor of The Canadian Theosophist:]

Now I happen to have been at that Boston [Theosophical Society] Convention [of April 1895], as you will remember. I was there in the capacity of a member of the Boston Branch and as a friend and pupil of Wm. Q. Judge since 1886, as well as a representative of the Boston Globe on which I held an editorial position. . . .

It was George Ayers [of the Boston Branch] who suggested the historical sketch of the Theosophical Society from data he turned up in preparing his legal opinion. . . . It was Ayers, after Judge called the convention to order, who nominated Buchman as temporary chairman. . . . It was Louis Wade of Malden branch of which Ayers had been President who was put on the important Committee on resolutions, whose report with legal opinion of George Ayers, was the all-important business of that convention, that caused the convention to declare its autonomy [from the Adyar T.S.] and the election of Judge as President for life, that unhappily was only to be for one year more.

At that [1895] convention Mrs. Tingley was present and you no doubt rubbed shoulders with her. Brother Fussell started to introduce her to me but was cut short by Judge sternly reminding him he had instructed him not to introduce her to anybody. . . .

It was on George Ayers who was faithful to Mrs. Tingley till his death, that Judge depended. It was Ayers who knew more about Mrs. Tingley than I or anyone in Boston who spoke of her to me in a manner that showed me later he knew her relation to Judge as his successor. . . .

Return to Table of Contents of H.N. Stoke's
"William Q. Judge and Katherine Tingley" series of articles