When Jehovah’s Witnesses first moved to Brooklyn back in 1909, the headquarters family was only about thirty in number.

Suiter explained that in October 1919 the organization began publishing the new magazine The Golden Age, now called Awake! And the following year, in a little place on Myrtle Avenue, the headquarters family began printing Bible literature on their own presses. Thus, Suiter noted, by the year 1921 the family had increased to 107 in number. In 1923, he said, five thousand books a day were being produced by them.

“In order for the preaching work to be done by these more than 2,000,000 workers,” Henschel observed, “there had to be equipment.” Who would provide it? Members of the headquarters family! “Back in 1950,” Henschel noted, “there were 355 family members.” But, he pointed out, as the demand for Bible literature grew so did the headquarters family​—to 512 in 1960, to 678 by 1965, to 1,228 by 1970, and to about 2,600 today.