Freemasons For Dummies: Bro. Brother’s Journal

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Bro. Brother’s Journal

Allegedly discovered at a country auction, Bro. Brother’s Journal contains the personal reminiscences, the earliest dating from 1893, of Hiram H. Brother (1872 – 1970), a prominent Freemason from Kansas City. Published serially in the Scottish Rite Journal from 2007-2010 and 'edited' by Brother Michael Halleran, the complete collection (to date) will be available in January 2012 in paperback including all stories previously published plus several new adventures, with original illustrations by Ted Bastien (of "Bugsport" fame).

Keep checking the Brother Brother's Journal website for updates. It will be published by Macoy Publishing.

This mulligatawny soupçon of tales from Bro. B’s diary will provide many an evening of happy diversion. For those disposed to the observation of the passing parade, they will fondly encounter famous brethren, as well as an affable assemblage of seditious secretaries, timid tilers, pesky prompters, grim Grand Masters, rakes, rotters, bounders and ear benders, who are, dare I say it, not dissimilar from the lovable fellows who inhabit our own lodges today.

Michael Halleran is also the author of The Better Nature of Our Angels, an outstanding book about Freemasonry during the American Civil War.

Also follow Bro. Brother's Facebook page here.

2 comments:

AnonymousThu Dec 22, 07:07:00 AM 2011
My greatest thrill so far as editor of The Scottish Rite Journal has been publishing these heretofore lost Masonic reminiscences. Bro. Brother is a real *character," something of a Forrest Gump for his times. His diary stories of lodge events and happenstance encounters with well known Masons of his day cannot help but bring a smill to the lips of readers. In editing Bro. Brother's journals, Bro. Halleran must feel the same satisfaction that Bro. Arthur Conan Doyle felt as he edited Dr. John Watson's recollections of Sherlock Holmes. Enjoy!
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DavidGMon Jan 02, 02:20:00 PM 2012
Its good to see Bro. Bastien's work out there again.
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Replies

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Legendary brotherhood
With a mythic past
And a visionary future.

Freemasonry is the largest, oldest and best-known gentleman's fraternity in the world. Historically, it is based on the Medieval stonemason guilds who built the great castles and cathedrals of Europe. Mythologically it is founded upon the building of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, as told in the Old Testament of the Bible.

Modern Freemasons likewise use the tools, traditions and terminology of those Biblical stonemasons as allegories for building Temples in the hearts of men, using Solomon as our ideal example of wisdom, justice and faith.

At its core, Freemasonry is simply an attempt to make the world a better place, one man at a time. For each man, it can become as simple or as complicated as he himself desires.

It's said that we are a secret society. We do indeed have secrets—secrets that each individual man has to discover for and about himself.

It's not for everybody. It never has been, and was never meant to be. That's the point.

Maybe it's for you.

Christopher L. Hodapp is the author of Freemasons For Dummies, the international, best-selling introduction to the Masonic fraternity; and Solomon's Builders: Freemasons, Founding Fathers and the Secrets of Washington D.C..

Prior to joining the Masons and becoming an author, Chris spent 23 years as a commercial filmmaker with Dean Crow Productions in Indianapolis.

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As a Freemason, Chris is a Past Master of Broad Ripple Lodge No. 643 and of Lodge Vitruvian No. 767 under the Grand Lodge F&AM of Indiana; he is a member of Indiana's Schofield Lodge 1818 U.D.; and of Internet Lodge No. 9659 in the Province of East Lancashire of the United Grand Lodge of England. Most recently, he served as the Worshipful Master of the Dwight L. Smith Lodge of Research U.D. in Indiana for 2019-21.

In 2018 he was awarded the Caleb B. Smith Medal of Honor by the Grand Lodge F&AM of Indiana for his "distinguished service to Freemasonry in Indiana and worldwide."

Chris is a 33° Mason in the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite (NMJ), Indianapolis Valley. He is a Past Sovereign Master of Imhotep Council No. 434 of the Allied Masonic Degrees. He is a founding member of Levant Preceptory, a medieval Knights Templar period recreation degree team in the York Rite, and he is an officer of the Indiana College of the Societas Rosicruciana in Civitatibus Foederatis. He belongs to numerous other Masonic appendant organizations.

As a Masonic author, in 2012 he was named as Friar No. 101 in the Society of Blue Friars. Chris was a Founding Fellow of The Masonic Society, and was the founding Editor in Chief of The Journal of The Masonic Society. He was the editor and a contributor in 2004-5 to "Laudable Pursuit: A 21st Century Response to Dwight Smith" by the Knights of the North, a Masonic leadership think-tank focusing on modern lodge solutions. He has written for Indianapolis Monthly, Heredom, Masonic Magazine, Templar History, the Scottish Rite Journal, the Knight Templar Magazine, the Indiana Freemason , the Phylaxis, and numerous other publications.

His most recent Masonic book, Heritage Endures, was published in January 2018 as part of the 200th anniversary of Indiana's Grand Lodge.

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