I don't remember where I got this. I have had it for a while in a file. It explains a lot on how Herbert worked and why he did what he did.
Herbert was raised a Quaker by a very strict and dominating father, which had a profound effect on his life. Eager to get away from a bullying and brutal father he left school after the eighth grade and tried to make his own way in the world.
Having been told that he would amount to nothing and often beaten and verbally abused he developed a deep personal sense of inferiority which manifested itself in an imperative need to be a success and prove his father wrong.
This inferiority complex had a much greater down side, making him suseptible to flatterer’s. Herbert loved to be flattered, especially by men he looked up to, or regarded as successful. This proved to be his undoing in his later life as Satan always attacks us on our most vulnerable weaknesses.
At the same time his father’s bullying attitude was reproduced in Herbert; first because that was his primary influence, and second because he was determined to always take a dominant position and to never be bullied himself again.
This dominant personality trait seems to have run in the family because his cousin and wife Loma was no slouch herself. She was known for keeping her husband in line, sometimes even shouting from the pews during services “Don’t you dare talk to God’s people like that”. Their marriage was presented as perfect as they could to the brethren; when much of the time it was a perfect storm. Loma worked hard at protecting him from his tendency to succumb to flatteries and from his more extreme domination tendencies; which efforts were often resented by her husband.
