I was a young JW in the 1950s living in the west Los Angeles area and our family would always watch your mother’s TV show when it was on. When my mother studied with JWs in 1952, she was told by several fellow JWs that your mother was a Witness (or possibly had been).

This rumor has continued to be passed around for many years. Until now, as far as I am aware, no one has ever taken issue with those rumors.

In fact, for many years your mother’s name, along with that of Mickey Spillane, was often mentioned in conversations that involved the subject of famous JWs. Many LA area JWs had stated that they had seen her or met her at an area Witness assembly. Perhaps her name came up so often that everyone just assumed it to be a fact and then embellished the story a bit.

One specific reference to your mother being a JW can be found on page 277 of M. James Penton’s book, “Apocalypse Delayed: The Story of Jehovah’s Witnesses.” I know that Mr. Penton, a very credible expert on Jehovah’s Witness history, is still around and may even visit this website from time to time – so if he sees this exchange perhaps he can respond as to how and where he got his information for his book.

I will go ahead and leave your mother’s segment of the article up for now, but I will post it as being disputed and reference your comment. Perhaps in the near future someone will step forward and clear up how and why this rumor began over sixty years ago.

If anyone reading this exchange has more information about Miss Arden being a JW at one time, or perhaps studying or associating with the Witnesses for a short period back in the 1940s-1950s, please email me at editor@ex-jw.com.

Thank you again, Mr. West, for giving us some “new light’ on your mother’s life and religious affiliation at the time of her passing. I’m sure that our readers will agree that whether she was ever a Jehovah’s Witness or not, she was still a most attractive and very talented lady.