Dr. Frank C. Laubach

We'll start with Dr. Frank Charles Laubach with his father John Brittain Laubach, a dentist, and his mother, Harriet L. Laubach.

John B. Laubach, was born in Sugarloaf Township January 8, 1849, a son of Andrew and Nancy (Britton) Laubach. Frederick Laubach was Andrew's father. Frederick's father was John Christian Laubach, the first settler of his line in the Benton area and one of the founding members of St. Gabriel's Church. John Christian's father, John George, came as a boy from Buedingen, Germany, landing in Philadelphia in 1738.

John Brittain worked on his parent's farm until he was 20, then went to Batavia, NY, and worked for two years with Dr. J. Larish, then moved to Muir, Michigan. He returned to Benton from 1873 until 1876, then moved to Stanardsville, VA, where he remained two years. In 1878 he returned to Benton as a dentist. On January 1, 1872, he married Alvaretta McHenry, a daughter of Benjamin McHenry. She died December 10, 1881, and John Brittain married his second wife, Hattie Derr, Hughesville. The couple had two children: Frank, born September 2, 1884, and Emma Bertelle Laubach Steele. John Brittain practiced his dentistry in the former Horace Harrison grocery store, on the second floor, in the back of the building.

Frank Laubach was born in the Main Street house now occupied by John and Zane Unbewust.

Frank studied at Bloomsburg and at other schools, then enrolled in the State Normal School, Bloomsburg, in 1901. He was a student at the Perkiomen Seminary from 1904 to 1905 and received his bachelor of arts degree at Princeton University in 1909 where he received the McLean prize from Princeton President Woodrow Wilson for a speech on peace among nations. Dr. Laubach studied at the Student Union Theological Seminary from 1911 to 1913 while earning a M.A. degree in sociology from Columbia University and later earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the same university in 1915. He married a local girl, Effa Seely on May 15, 1912. He was later awarded a doctor of philanthropy degree in 1952 and a doctor of Hebrew literature from Wooster College in 1950.

He was commissioned by Union Congregational Church as a missionary in the Philippines and for 15 years he ministered and educated Philippine Christians. From 1935-54, he brought "Each One Teach One" literacy programs to Philippine communities and to Southeast Asia, India, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. At Mahatma Gandhi's request, he started an Indian national literacy campaign. He was instrumental in the founding of World Literacy Committee, Committee on World Literacy and Christian Literature, and World Literacy, Inc. (later called World Education). He founded the Laubach Literacy and Mission Fund, later called Laubach Literacy. He continued world literacy tours during the last years of his life, and spoke throughout the U.S. on poverty and illiteracy as impediments to justice and peace. With his son Robert S. Laubach, they founded the New Readers Press to publish instructional materials for the U.S. literacy movement. In 1968, Dr. Laubach created the National Association for Literacy Advance, later called Laubach Literacy Action, to bring volunteer literacy efforts together in the United States.

Thousands of youngsters and adults worked for four years to convince the U.S. Postal Service that Dr. Frank C. Laubach, Benton's "favorite son," deserved recognition for combining church missionary work with his system of teaching people to read their own language.

He introduced his method in the Philippine Islands in 1930 with hostile Muslim Moros, who did not have a written language. He transposed the 16 sounds in the Maranao dialect to 16 Roman letters, and within six weeks had compiled 1,300 Mariao words. In 1915, Dr. Laubach with his wife Effie went to the Philippines as missionaries for the Congregational Church. Fifteen years later, Laubach introduced his teaching method to tribesmen on Mindanao, the second-largest and the most southerly island in the Philippines. A variety of Muslim ethnic groups live on the island, and in preparation Dr. Laubach studied the Koran very extensively. He trained others to teach his system.

Dr. Laubach, wrote more than 200 primers for 300 languages and was at least partly responsible for helping 100 million people learn to read; in case you missed it, we repeat that "100 million" people were at least partially influenced to read by Dr. Frank Laubach. He minimized his achievements, saying once "I haven't even kept up with the birth rate, and besides, about 20 million or more who've learned to read have lapsed back into illiteracy for lack of reading materials."

The depression years forced a drastic cutback in missionary funds, and Laubach was unable to pay teachers to continue his literacy program. Undaunted, a Maranao chief ordered his people who had learned the system to teach others under the decree, "Each one teach one or die." The "die" part of the program was dropped by Dr. Laubach.

With the outbreak of World War II, Laubach and his wife left the Philippines, and they traveled throughout Central and South America, Africa and Asia, teaching millions of illiterate people.

Dr. Laubach retired from missionary work in 1955, returning to the United States and organizing the Laubach Literacy International. The Syracuse organization was made up of 40,000 volunteers who promote the "Each one teach one" literacy program. Son, Dr. Robert Laubach, was board chairman of the organization.

Dr. Laubach was honored on a 30-cent stamp that was issued Back Home in Benton, PA, his birthplace, September 2, 1984. The stamp was part of the Great American Series. First day ceremonies were held at the Benton Junior-Senior High School and then-Postmaster General William Bolger as the principal speaker.

Benton resident Ken McCahan, a retired management analyst for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources, documented everything about Dr. Laubach and sent letters to newspapers, churches, women's organizations and teachers asking children to write to the stamp committee. Mr. McCahan appealed to tutors, teachers and schoolchildren to help and help they did! Thousands of letters were written to Washington congressmen and senators. The Postal Service got the message, and the Laubach stamp was added to the stamp program.

The stamp depicted a full-face sketch of Laubach based on several photographs. The stamp was printed in green, 100 stamps per pane, with a single-digit plate number. The last printing date of a stamp is never announced, and the Laubach is no longer printed. The stamp is known as "The Laubach," is Scott number 1864, issued September 2, 1984, in a denomination of 30¢. The Scott Number is the main American identifier for the Laubach stamp. Any stamp dealer or collector would easily know the stamp by that reference number. The definition is a picture of the stamp. Scott currently values it at 55¢ and a generous stamp store in Arlington, VA that we contacted offered to pay us 18¢ for each 30¢ stamp we would like to sell to them, a concept that is somewhat akin to the "greater fool theory." That stamp store, however, did contribute a first day cover of the stamp to the Northern Columbia Community and Cultural Center, for which we are most grateful.

We checked on eBay in February, 2004, and found the stamp currently offered for $5. For the Laubach to sell for $5, it had to have been a Cachet (artwork) hand painted on a first day of issue envelope (cover). The value was for the art, not the stamp. We frequently smile at the prices people are willing to pay for something on eBay. As an example, one person put up a one cent National Park stamp, selling normally at 25¢. The bidding went to $12. The seller turned the offer down saying that was not enough.

If you would like to start collecting stamps, go to http://shop.usps.com/cgi-bin/vsbv/postal_store_non_ssl/home.jsp to see what the United States Postal Service is putting out.

Dr. Laubach died June 11, 1970, at age of 85. His wife Effa Laubach died March 28, 1973. They are buried in Benton cemetery under the inscription: "World Missionaries."

In September, 2004, Dr. Bob Laubach donated a plaque to mark the location of his father's birth. John and Zane Unbewust display the eventualy location of the marker on the outside of their Main Street home.