TRANSCRIPTION MACHINES ON TRICYCLES

The brothers constructed two portable transcription machines. At Liège one of these machines, bought with the savings of Brothers Smets and Poelmans, was set up on a tricycle, which, with all its accessories and the battery, weighed 55 kilograms (120 lb). They would tour the marketplaces or stand in front of churches. The recorded talk could be heard several hundred feet away. Because of its weight, two brothers pulled the tricycle on which they would sometimes seat one or two of their children. They always kept an eye on the machine because at Visé some Catholic youths surrounded it, trying to topple it. In 1935 the brothers spent 27 days of 10 hours each doing this work. They distributed 369 booklets, 79 copies of The Golden Age, 7 books and one Bible among their 3,595 listeners.

At that time Brother Schutz was the only Witness in this city of more than 300,000 inhabitants, although this territory had already been partially worked by Brother Poelmans and the English sisters Nancy Berry and Jessie Whitmore.