Narrative Summary
Interview with Susie Langenbartel by Aleksandra Kinlen
Susie Langebartel, a Jehovah’s Witness, was interviewed on November 15, 2010. Born in
the 1950s in Louisiana, Susie was 51 years old at the time of the interview. She has been living
in Missouri since the 1990s when she moved here from Mississippi. Her father was from Sicily
and her mother was from Mississippi. After living in Louisiana for the first few years of her life,
she moved to Michigan, then California, but eventually returned to Louisiana. Later she moved
to Mississippi, got married, and came to Missouri. Susie has five children—four girls and one
boy—as well as one granddaughter. She has traveled all around the United States and
surrounding areas for vacation and with her husband on business trips. She has been in each state
except for Alaska, and has also visited Jamaica, the Bahamas, and Victoria, Canada. She is
currently a customer service representative at a loan company, as well as a cosmetologist and
practicing Jehovah’s Witness.
From a young age, Susie was exposed to all kinds of Christian denominations. Her father
was Catholic and, according to Susie, her mother was a mix of Baptist and Pentecostal. Because
of her father’s religion, her parents enrolled Susie and her siblings in a Catholic school and the
family attended Catholic mass. She never really liked Catholicism because of the “standing and
kneeling and praying and chanting” and because the priests spoke Latin, so she never really
understood what they were saying. When her parents died, she went to live with her aunt, who
was a Jehovah’s Witness. Her aunt was of the same religion as her mother, but as Susie’s aunt
got older, she became more interested in practicing and raising her children (and Susie) as
Jehovah’s Witnesses. During this time, Susie began learning and understanding more about the
Bible and God. She liked the denomination in particular because she felt nobody was telling her
what to think, do, or pray for. Instead, she could read and reach for the scripture in order to
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follow what God says to do.
After getting married and having children, she passed on those same ideas to her
husband, son, and daughters. Over time with her children and a busy life, she has stopped going
to organized religious services at the local Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses. She says her
religion is based more on the internal thoughts and feelings of everyday life, rather than the
external physical side. She does not feel disadvantaged by her lack of congregational worship;
rather, she feels she believes in God thoroughly. She tries to follow him every day and reads the
Bible and other religious literature frequently.
As for women in Jehovah’s Witnesses, Susie feels that they have more opportunities to
participate in things like teaching and spreading God’s teachings. If their husbands are not
Jehovah’s Witnesses, it is the mother’s duty to teach her children those beliefs. Mothers in this
religious tradition understand how to treat their spouse and their families in order to get along
and help the family work together; this is an important role for them.
Susie has strong convictions regarding the future of the world and what will happen if
people continue to destroy it. She believes she has a purpose here on earth, and right now it
mostly consists of raising her children and praying to God. As for her children, she encourages
them to read the Bible and to search out a religion that teaches the Bible and teaches them to be
good people and do the right thing. It does not matter to her if they continue to be Jehovah’s
Witnesses, as long as they know there is a right way to live that includes following God’s laws
and listening to what he says.
In the future, she hopes never to give up her faith in God and to continue to instill that
same faith in her children. Susie will continue to live out her life according to the values,
traditions, and religion she has personally been practicing for years. She is an important
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contribution to this archive because, although she does not attend official congregational
services, she is an important religious mentor to her family and tries to live every day in God’s
vision.
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Fall 2010
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