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FREEDOMWAYS
FOURTH QUARTER 1966

The public was sympathetic. Money, in Reeb's memory, flowed in to civil rights organizations. Memorial services in many cities were thronged.

It is essential that a man's memory and the cause for which he died should be recorded. Duncan Howlett, minister of All Souls Unitarian-Universalist Church in Washington, where Reeb once served, has performed an impressive labor of love. This book deserves to be read, and royalties from it will accrue to Mrs. Reeb and the children.

James Reeb was born in Wichita, Kansas, to working-class parent of strict biblical fundamentalist persuasion. Influenza, rheumatic fever and whooping cough endangered his young life. Crossed eyes required glasses at eighteen months. His schooling had to be delayed. Yet parental determination nursed him through to health, an operation corrected his vision, and special tutoring bridged the educational gap. When improved financial circumstances saw the family move to Casper, Wyoming, young Reeb entered the Natrona County High School, did well, made friends, was appointed commander of the school cadet corps, and finally graduated with honor. His extracurricular activities centered around the First Presbyterian Church and the organization of the North Casper Boys Clubs.

In June 1945, World War II was approaching its climax. Reeb enlisted in the Army and was sent to Fort Roberts in California. Training to kill proved abhorrent and he declined a chance to go to Officers' Training School., When he was assigned to Fort Richardson in Anchorage, he was relieved. Learning photography, he spent his spare time recording the mountains of Alaska, so reminiscent of the Grand Tetons.

Under the G.I. Bill of Rights, upon leaving the Army at Christmas, 1946, he went to Casper Junior College and then St. Olaf's-a conservative Lutheran institution at Northfield, Minnesota, where he graduated in two-and-a-half years. A lovely girl, Marie Deason, whom he had met in high school, followed him to St. Olaf's. Upon his graduation with honors, they were married.

Inclining towards the Christian ministry, he was persuaded by the Casper Presbyterian minister to go East to the Princeton Theological Seminary. An enquiring mind, with rigid standards of moral and intellectual integrity, he began a process of absorption, change and growth that was to confront him with difficult decisions. The biblical and doctrinal courses at the Seminary he found abstract and sterile. What really involved him was a clinical training course at the

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