I have been asked by several people to write an account of my time in the work,

and a little about my life.

Therefore, I will try to do so. 

I realized early that I went into the work for the wrong reasons but fear kept me in.

November 28, 2000

This is to let others know our story. Mine began in 1977, where I made a start in the cult group of the 2x2 ways and beliefs. I had a sister and one uncle involved before me. My sister had influenced me as  a young man. I was raised in a dysfunctional family. There were many hardships in my life growing up which caused me to want peace. I thought I had found that in the 2x2 way.

I professed in 1977 under two sister workers. I mainly went to the Sunday morning meeting for about 6 months before they came around with meetings. They were coming for my younger brother who  had spent the summer with my sister in Oklahoma. My sister worked for some of the friends there. My brother wanted to go to the meetings and I offered to take him. I learned about the -what’s- and -how to’s- from a set of friends there in Licking, Missouri near my home town. I spent most Sunday afternoons talking with them and a younger boy about my same age group. I started out doing what they did  not, understanding the doctrine of the 2x2's.

My sister was like a mother hen to us boys as she was 4 ½ years older than me. She really never had much to do with me growing up. She mainly tolerated me around the house. But when I professed  she was so happy and wanted to help me. She offered a place in Oklahoma for me to come stay with her. I wanted to do the right thing and try to change my life around so I agreed to move in with her in Chickasha, Oklahoma. There were some nice people there and a nice meeting place.

Liberation by Exodus

for the Swedish Massey family 2001

Note the underlined links in the text

Charles Swartz on left

Click on picture to open in Gallery for viewing

I am Charles Edgar Swartz of Scottsburg, Indiana.

As a young man in the late 1930's, I was quite worried about my soul's salvation; however I had only discussed this with the Lord in praying and asking as only I knew how. Just before Thanksgiving of 1936 when I was 20 years old, two women came into the small town of Dogwood, Indiana, and got the use of the little one-room schoolhouse and started holding gospel meetings. My sisters came home from school telling about them and the way they were dressed AND about their black stockings. Everyone was calling them the "tramp preachers." They were able to board with our next door neighbors who lived about 1-1/2 miles from the school.

Written by George Roszell,

August 7, 1955

Admin. Note: George was an excommunicated worker…….he would have been in the work as early as 1908 or 1909 ………how long he was in the work is unknown at this time. When George had a slight nervous breakdown, some of the "friends" put him up on a homestead on "Rattlesnake Ridge" east of Pueblo, Colorado. It was totally undeveloped, but he was supposed to "develop the land." He lived in a cave - no electricity - only light from the opening. He even lived there in the wintertime and was caught out in a blizzard once - luckily, he found the fence and followed it back to the cave. It was during this time that he did a lot of his really good Bible studies while stuck alone in the cave.

Years later, the article below, written by George on August 7, 1955, became known to Eddie Cornock, Overseer of Colorado, and other small-minded workers ……….they were FURIOUS and wanted this article burned.

George was extremely intelligent and as someone who knew him put it,

My mother's grandmother (my great grandmother) was the first to "profess" 2&2ism as the

ONLY

way of salvation and the workers to be God's

ONLY

true servants in my family on either side.

She had raised her children to believe in God.

She and her children were poor and not at all well educated.

Paternal grandparents professed in 1922 when Will and Frank Wilkie (workers) came through Colorado from Nebraska. My grandparents were from a Dutch community in Iowa where they had practiced the Dutch reform version of Christianity. The Wilkies brought a poverty mentality which my grandparents practiced until they died.