From Saigon to Boston

Last December, The Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity welcomed two very special visitors: the great-great-great-grandson of Mary Baker Eddy, George Washington Glover VI, and his wife, Holly Glover, who had come to Boston for the first time to see The Mother Church and find out about George's ancestry. George's great-great-great-grandfather, George Washington Glover, was Mary Baker Eddy's first husband, who died within the first year of their marriage.

I sat down with George and Holly to talk about the winding path that brought them from Shanghai, China, to Boston, and to the Library that honors the life and work of his famous progenitor. As might be expected, I began by asking where George was born.

George Glover: Saigon, Viet Nam, on November 23, 1969. My dad was in the army there and met my mom during one of his tours. He later came back as a civilian to work for a marine transportation company. He married my mom, and I was born. About a year later, we moved to Singapore.

I went to a British school in Singapore until '78. After that we moved to Tucson, Arizona, while my dad continued to work overseas. My parents divorced when I was in college, and they have both since remarried and live in Tucson.

Marilyn Jones: How did you meet Holly?

George: After graduating from the University of Arizona, I worked for an Australian company for a year in San Francisco. They sent me to Mali, West Africa, to work at a gold mine. While I was there, I met Holly, who was a Peace Corps volunteer. A couple of years later, we moved back to San Francisco and got married in 1996.

Marilyn: Holly, how did you get to Mali?

Holly Glover: I graduated from college with degrees in political science and French. I looked at different programs—missionary-type things. And the Peace Corps seemed like the best fit for me. About 15 months after my college graduation, I was on a plane to Philadelphia and then on to Mali.

Marilyn: And there you met George Washington Glover VI. What did you think of "the Sixth" on the end of his name?

Holly: It was a while before we even talked about that. But I do remember in Mali his telling us he was a descendant of Mary Baker Eddy. I didn't know too much about who she was, so we just always kidded him about his middle name being Washington.

George: Just as I had been kidded my entire life. The first thing people ask me when I tell them my full name is, "Are you related to George Washington?" I say, "No, I don't think so. But I am related to Mary Baker Eddy." But to be honest, until recently I really didn't know exactly who she was.

It wasn't until my grandmother—my dad's mom—did some research about the Glovers, tracing the relationship all the way back to Mary Baker Eddy. And [that's when] my grandmother found out that her grandson was the sixth. Up until the time I met Holly, I just knew that Mary Baker Eddy founded the Christian Science religion.

Marilyn: Did you know anything about Christian Science?

George: No. Growing up, we weren't very religious. I was baptized a Methodist. My mom is Buddhist, but she didn't try to persuade my brother or me to go into Buddhism. The only times I remember going to church were when we visited my grandparents. They're Methodists, so we went to a Methodist church.

Marilyn: Did you ever feel a connection when you saw a Christian Science church?

George: Not as much as I do now. But whenever we'd drive by a church or a Christian Science Reading Room, I'd think, "My great-great-great-grandmother founded that. Cool." And that was about it.

Marilyn: You're now living in Shanghai. Tell us how you wound up there.

George: After Holly and I got married, we moved to Sacramento, California, and lived there for three years. I was still working for the same Australian company. By this time I had moved over from the mining division to the steel division. We were then sent to Australia, where we lived for 11 months. They then transferred us to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We spent two years and nine months there. And in August 2002, our son was born in Kuala Lumpur.

Next, my boss said, "Now we want you to go to China." It didn't take us long to decide. We thought it would be great.

Marilyn: You mentioned your son was born in Kuala Lumpur. What's his name?

George: George Washington Glover VII. The minute we found out we were going to have a boy, we knew exactly what the name was going to be. I was proud to give this name to my son.

Marilyn: You had become more aware of the name's significance by the time he was born?

George: More aware of the history. And also more aware of what Mary Baker Eddy had done—her achievements. Holly's mom did some research and would call us up and say, "Do you realize what your great-great-great-grandmother accomplished?" And I'd say, "Well, she founded the Christian Science Church." But she told us, "There's a lot more." I'll let Holly tell you about how we learned about the Library.

Holly: We were living in Kuala Lumpur. One day I was watching Larry King Live, and I saw Virginia Harris [Chairman, The Christian Science Board of Directors] on the show. She was talking about the plans for [the building of] the Library and exactly what would be housed in it. George and I had no idea that Mary Baker Eddy was such a prolific writer. I remember Virginia saying that the Library would be the largest [library] in the country dedicated to an American woman. Those words really gave us an idea of how important Mary Baker Eddy was.

Just coincidentally at that time, I made a friend in Kuala Lumpur, from Australia, who had been raised as a Christian Scientist. She lent me some of her books and talked with me about what the religion is all about. George was also good friends with my friend and her husband.

My friend and I would have very deep conversations about spirituality in general and about what she had learned growing up. Then the following year, my mother gave us a short biography of Mary Baker Eddy. She wrote an inscription on the inside that says, "Dear George, your grandmother was truly a woman ahead of her time."

We shared the book with George's father and his mother. And from that point on, it's just been a continuation of learning. Once we moved to China, we began talking about what we could do for a bit of a vacation. And just recently I said, "You know, we should go to Boston; we keep talking about going; let's just go."

George: So Holly sent an e-mail saying, "My husband and I would like to come to the Library to do a little research on Mary Baker Eddy and her family line." Holly just mentioned that her husband's name is George Washington Glover VI. She didn't say that there was any connection. And the response back was a simple response. They told us when the archive room would be open, and when we could go and do some research.

Then we got an e-mail from Lesley Pitts, Manager of the Archives, asking if we were related to Mary Baker Eddy. And I said, "Well, as a matter of fact, I think I am." And I explained to her what I knew. Then, all of a sudden here comes this itinerary—this is what we have planned for you. And I was like, Wow! So the irony of the whole story is that we thought we would just come and do a little research—but I think we've spent all but 15 minutes [researching] in the archive rooms since we've been here.

Marilyn: What are your impressions now?

George: Speechless, actually. I thought, Maybe there was this little church; a small library. I was honored to be able to meet the Board of Directors. I thought it was great that they were very down-to-earth people. And they were so pleased to have met me. They shared some of their stories of how they got involved with Christian Science. And I'm sitting there thinking, Wow, this is something that my great-great-great-grandmother has done. And it's changed so many people's lives. And you know, it just took me by surprise.

I just began to realize the magnitude of what Mary Baker Eddy had done. At first I thought, OK, she founded the Christian Science religion, wrote a few books, and that was probably about it. But, no. I mean, it's changed me, definitely. It's changed my perception of Christian Science. It's not the preconceptions that everyone gets, where it's only about healing and you're not supposed to go to doctors and take medicine. It's really about a spiritual journey and connecting spirituality with God. How everything fits into place.

And what's interesting is that we've actually started our own spiritual journey through reading books by Deepak Chopra and things like that. Now I'm starting to see how this can all connect to Christian Science. And that it's nothing new. That's what just amazes me. I just can't imagine sitting down and writing and reading and doing as much as she did over 100 years ago, in a time when it was difficult for women to convey their thoughts to the public, much less the world.

Marilyn: Have you read Science and Health?

George: No. But we finally have a copy that was given to us by the Library. The only thing that I've ever read about Mary Baker Eddy was the book that Holly's mother gave us. And now we own more books, which were given to us by the Library. Again, I was honored that they would give us these books. I will do a lot more reading, that's for sure.

Marilyn: You have begun your spiritual journey. What about your religious backgrounds?

George: I always believed that there is a God. But I didn't have any direction. Now I think I do. I was saying to Holly a couple of nights ago that even though I always believed in God, I hadn't thought I needed any religion, because I hadn't really been exposed to it. And I said, "Some day I think I'll find God and religion." And then just the other night I said, "I think maybe I have found it."

Marilyn: Holly, how about your spiritual journey?

Holly: I was raised Catholic, and I think being overseas, living away from my family, has probably made me feel a bit more of a longing for a connection. Maybe affected my feeling that there is something more. I'm on kind of a path as a seeker. So through some suggestions from my older sister and one of my cousins, I started reading a couple of different authors like Gary Zukov and Deepak Chopra.

And the more I learned, through my friend from Australia, about Christian Science, the more I was able to say, "Wait a minute. These recent guys are talking about very similar ideas to what Mary Baker Eddy was saying 100 years ago." So these [concepts] are not original—these are things that started with her: the idea of being able to heal yourself through God. Of being grounded in God. And the idea that Jesus came here to show us how to heal—how to heal ourselves. That was a very inspirational moment. Sort of a revelation.

Now, having spent a few days here at the Library, speaking with the people who work here, who are so dedicated to bringing Mary Baker Eddy the attention that she is due—for being the originator of a lot of these philosophies—has been so inspiring for both of us. We're actually kind of physically tired. The information that we've gotten has been not just factual and historical—we're also starting to feel the spiritual connection—it's really something. It's almost like you can touch it.