Biography
Dittemore was born in Indianapolis to Mary E. Cress Dittemore and John W. Dittemore. He attended Ohio Military Institute and Phillips Academy Andover. After graduating he became president of the Federal Packing Company and vice-president of the Van Camp Packing Company. [2]
Christian Science church involvement
Dittemore became known for his involvement with The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, the mother church and administrative headquarters of the Christian Science religion. As head of the church's Committee on Publication, Dittemore commissioned The Life of Mary Baker Eddy by Sibyl Wilbur, the first church-authorized biography of the religion's founder, Mary Baker Eddy, which was based on articles written by Wilbur for Human Life magazine. However, when he later became critical of Christian Science, he called the book unreliable. As part of his role in the church, he collected a significant amount of primary-source material about the church and Eddy. In 1909 he was named to the church's Board of Directors. [3]
Dittemore was removed from his position as a Director over a dispute regarding the Trustees of the Christian Science Publishing Society. [4] He had become increasingly bitter in the months of disagreement and opposed any effort by the Board of Directors to restore normal relations with the Trustees and to keep the church from being drawn into litigation with them. His bitterness was directed not only at the Trustees, but the other Directors, and, according to Norman Beasley, "his criticism was sharply personal, and openly contemptuous," leading to his dismissal in March 1919. [5] He was replaced by Annie M. Knott, the first woman Director of the church. [4] The resolution of dismissal also accused Dittemore of working independently and contrarily to the Board to exert personal control over the affairs of the church, violating multiple Manual by-laws, and acting in a threatening manner towards other members of the Board. In the same resolution he was told to "return to the Clerk of the Mother Church and Corresponding Secretary of [the] Board all letters, documents, papers, copies thereof, and other articles which he has taken or received as a member of this Board". [5]
On April 29, 1919, about six weeks after his dismissal, Dittemore sued the church to be reinstated; and although he was not successful, litigation went on for some time. [6] After failing twice in court, he set up his own organization which he later called an "opposition movement, opposed to the Cause of Christian Science, [and] to Mrs. Eddy and her teachings." [7]
According to Dittemore in the preface to The Truth and the Tradition, he came to the view in 1928 that Eddy's work had borrowed heavily from the unpublished manuscripts of New England "mental healer" Phineas Parkhurst Quimby. He also said he was concerned with the alleged church boycott of Charles Scribner's Sons for publishing a critical biography of Eddy, Edwin Dakin's Mrs. Eddy: The Biography of a Virginal Mind (1929). [3] Gill writes that the "alleged campaign... was... probably the single most important factor in assuring its long-term success" and Charles Scribner's Sons used it to advertise for the book, [9] including ads like one in the Los Angeles Times saying that booksellers across America were returning Dakin's book under pressure, and further that it was a "situation almost incredible in a free country." [10] Although the book was extremely successful, Gill write that its "wealth of factual errors" in addition to its commercial success, may have been motivating factors for Dittemore to write his own book. [9]
Mary Baker Eddy: The Truth and the Tradition
In 1932, Dittemore wrote his own biography of Eddy and history of the church, Mary Baker Eddy: The Truth and the Tradition, with Ernest Sutherland Bates, a teacher of English and philosophy at Oberlin College; a collaborate suggested by Allen Johnson, Professor of American History at Yale University. [3]
The book was largely based on the three trunks full of primary sources that Dittemore collected while working for the church, including 1,500 unpublished letters from Eddy; what he noted as "all the important part[s]" of the diary of Eddy's personal assistant Calvin Frye; the diary of James F. Gilman, who illustrated her work; letters from her brother and first two husbands; 500 letters from her students; and reminiscences from her close contacts. [3] Gillian Gill writes that Dittemore, when he broke with the church, in addition to taking many documents acquired over the years by the church, gained access to Frye's rooms in the hours after his death and removed sections of his diary, which Dittemore transcribed, photographed, and then burned; although he included extracts in his book. He later sold some of the materials back to the church for $10,000, after first allowing Gilbert Carpenter, another biographer, to copy them for $400. [9]
The work also makes use of two books that Dittemore says were suppressed by the church: Mrs. Eddy as I Knew Her in 1870 (1923) by Samuel Putnam Bancroft, a student of Eddy's, and Mrs. Eddy and the Late Suit in Equity (1908) by Michael Meehan. The latter is about a lawsuit in which Eddy was involved toward the end of her life, when her relatives sought unsuccessfully to have her declared unable to manage her affairs. [3] Meehan was a journalist who wrote favorably of Eddy, and she initially approved the publication but later asked the author not to release it, although he ended up self-publishing it. [3] [11]
Historian Ralph Henry Gabriel wrote in 1933 that, because of the amount of primary-source material to which Dittemore had access, the book "comes very close to being a definitive history of a strangely paradoxical woman". Gill writes that by publishing previously unpublished material and correcting many of the inaccuracies in Milmine and Dakin's books, Bates and Dittemore "improves upon all earlier works and becomes invaluable source material for later biographers in its accounts of the last five or so years of Mrs. Eddy's life" in particular, although she notes there are still "factual inaccuracies" in the book. [9] Later, the church bought the copyright and publisher's plates of the book from A. A. Knopf, but has never reissued it, leading to accusations of suppression. [12]
Apology
On March 23, 1937, shortly before his death, Dittemore wrote a letter to the Board of Directors of the Mother Church expressing repentance for his actions:
Gentlemen:
As the result of experience over a period of years and a great deal of serious study devoted to the science of government, I have come to the humble conclusion that I made a great mistake in allowing personal differences of opinion and the feelings that developed therefrom, to influence me to the extent which they evidently did after Mrs. Eddy passed on.
We were all greatly affected by her demise and held divergent views regarding the policies to be pursued when she was no longer here to direct us. And while I acted upon convictions which I regarded as right at the time, I have since been led to see, and am anxious to go on record as admitting it, that I was wrong in letting personal opinion and matters of policy induce me to depart from Principle.
God's law does not divide and separate men; it unites them, enabling them to work together and perpetuates this unity. Personal differences that appear irreconcilable disappear as we grow in the understanding of His law and the ability to demonstrate it. Man is properly self-governed only as he enthrones this mighty law in his heart and mind. It annihilates everything unlike itself and I find it has destroyed all sense of personal animosity, all desire to justify self, and brought instead the sincere desire to acknowledge my mistake in organizing what was naturally regarded as an opposition movement, opposed to the Cause of Christian Science, to Mrs. Eddy and her teachings.
I recognize and revere her as having restored to humanity primitive Christian healing and acknowledge The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., as the first church in history to stand for the spiritual and the scientific significance of the life of Christ.
I am happy to forward you this letter to use as you may see fit and to sincerely announce as my fervent desire that the Cause which you represent may continue to grow and prosper under your direction.
Yours in Truth,
John V. Dittemore.
[13] 
Phineas Parkhurst Quimby was an American clockmaker, mentalist and mesmerist. His work is widely recognized as foundational to the New Thought spiritual movement.
Along with the Bible, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures is the central text of the Christian Science religion. Mary Baker Eddy described it as her "most important work." She began writing it in February 1872 and the first edition was published in 1875. However, she would continue working on it and making changes for the rest of her life.
Mary Baker Eddy was an American religious leader and author who founded The Church of Christ, Scientist, in New England in 1879. She also founded The Christian Science Monitor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning secular newspaper, in 1908, and three religious magazines: the Christian Science Sentinel, The Christian Science Journal and The Herald of Christian Science. She wrote numerous books and articles, the most notable of which was Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures which had sold over nine million copies as of 2001.
Christian Science is a set of beliefs and practices belonging to the metaphysical family of new religious movements. It was developed in 19th-century New England by Mary Baker Eddy, who argued in her 1875 book Science and Health that sickness is an illusion that can be corrected by prayer alone. The book became Christian Science's central text, along with the Bible, and by 2001 had sold over nine million copies.
Bliss Knapp, the son of Ira O. and Flavia S. Knapp, students of Mary Baker Eddy, was an early Christian Science lecturer, practitioner, teacher and the author of The Destiny of the Mother Church.
Robert Arthur Peel was a Christian Science historian and writer on religious and ecumenical topics. A Christian Scientist for over 70 years, Peel wrote editorials for the Christian Science Monitor, a publication owned by the Church of Christ, Scientist. He was also a counsellor for the church's Committee on Publication, set up by Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910), the religion's founder, to protect her own and the church's reputation.
Christian Science is a 1907 book by the American writer Mark Twain (1835–1910). The book is a collection of essays Twain wrote about Christian Science, beginning with an article that was published in Cosmopolitan in 1899. Although Twain was interested in mental healing and the ideas behind Christian Science, he was hostile towards its founder, Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910).
Lyman Pierson Powell was an American Episcopal clergyman and college president.
The Massachusetts Metaphysical College was founded in 1881 by Mary Baker Eddy in Boston, Massachusetts, to teach her school of Christian Science metaphysical healing that she named Christian Science. Eddy records in the preface of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, her chief work on Scientific Christian healing, p. xi, that the college was opened, "under the seal of the Commonwealth, of Massachusetts, a law relative to colleges having been passed which enabled her to get this institution chartered for medical purposes." and it was located at 571 Columbus Avenue, Boston. USA. After teaching for almost seven years, Eddy closed this college in 1889 in order to devote herself to the revision of her book, Science and Health, but retained her charter and reopened the College in 1899 as an auxiliary to her Church.
Augusta Emma Stetson was an American religious leader. Known for her impressive oratory skills and magnetic personality, she attracted a large following in New York City. However, her increasingly radical theories, conflicts with other church members including a well-known rivalry with Laura Lathrop, and attempts to supplant Mary Baker Eddy as the leader of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, led to her eventually being excommunicated from the church on charges of insubordination and of false teaching. Afterwards she began preaching and publishing various works on her theories which she named the "Church Triumphant," and started a controversial radio station to advance her cause.
Ernest Sutherland Bates was an American academic and writer. He taught English and philosophy at Oberlin College from 1903 to 1905, the University of Arizona until 1915, and the University of Oregon from then until 1925.
The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science (1909) is a highly critical account of the life of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, and the early history of the Christian Science church in 19th-century New England. Largely ghostwritten by the novelist Willa Cather, it was published as a book in November 1909 in New York by Doubleday, Page & Company. The original byline was that of a journalist, Georgine Milmine, but it later emerged that Cather was the principal author.
Rev. Irving Clinton Tomlinson was an American Universalist minister who converted to Christian Science, becoming a practitioner and teacher. For a time, he lived as one of the workers in the household of church founder, Mary Baker Eddy, later writing a book about his experiences called Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy.
Calvin Augustine Frye was the personal assistant of Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910), the founder of Christian Science.
James Henry Wiggin was a Unitarian minister. He also worked as an editor and proofreader.
Edwin Franden Dakin was an American advertising executive and author.
Sibyl Wilbur O'Brien Stone, best known as Sibyl Wilbur, was an American journalist, suffragist, and author of a biography of Mary Baker Eddy. She was a San Diego Branch Member of the National League of American Pen Women and a member of the New England Woman's Press Association.
Samuel Putnam Bancroft, also known as Samuel P. Bancroft, was an American Christian Scientist.
Adam Herbert Dickey, was an author, member of the Board of Directors of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and a secretary to Mary Baker Eddy.
Mary Baker Eddy: The Truth and the Tradition (1932) is a book by Ernest Sutherland Bates, the American academic, and John V. Dittemore, a former director of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, the Christian Science mother church in Boston.
