A. D. Beittel

When I get together with Sue B., we talk and talk.  About New Haven.  How her family knew my mother's family.  How she worked with and for my mother at girl scout camps.  She brings out family history things and tells stories about her father.

This time she brought out materials about her father in law A. D. Beittel.  Who I knew as Grandfather Beittel.  In fact he married Dennis and I in 1976.  I remember some times listening to him and thinking that he was the most interesting older person I had ever met.  At that time, I didn't find anybody in my parents generation worth much.  More scowling on my part.

Sue brought out some envelopes full of his writing letters and sermons.  He served as president of several Historically Black colleges and supported, even participated in some of the protests and sit-ins during the civil rights movement.  This did cause him to lose his job.

Sue gave me this picture.

I featured a picture I found showing him present at a lunch counter sit-in with the angry white folks pouring syrup on the protesters.  A. D. Beittel is at the end.  Nobody is pouring syrup on him.

He's younger in my new picture.  I do not know what he's doing, where it's taken or who the other man in the picture is.  That's the Encyclopedia Americana in the background.

A very interesting man; Dennis 38 years later says that he's happy to be associated with him.