Reuben Whitaker (1835-1918) was born in Muskingum County, Ohio, and died in Los Angeles, California. After he moved with his family to Iowa in the 1850s he worked in a sawmill and a drugstore before enlisting in the Union Army in 1862 where he served in the infantry and then as a hospital steward until the end of the conflict in 1865. After the war, he returned to the drug store in Iowa and in 1866 married Harriet "Hattie" L. Shriver. In 1878, Whitaker went into business with Hattie's older brother, Levi P. Shriver, starting Whitaker & Shriver, a booksellers, stationers, and wall paper dealers in Oskaloosa, Iowa. The business was dissolved in 1887 and Whitaker seems to have gone solo. Letters from Whitaker in the second half of 1887 are on Whitaker & Shriver letterhead with Shriver struck out and by late 1888 the letterhead is from Reuben Whitaker, Book Seller, Stationer and Wall Paper Dealer with no mention of Shriver. Whitaker's first contact with Christian Science came through Hattie being treated by Jennie B. Fenn of Omaha. Whitaker was sufficiently impressed by Hattie's experience that, in 1886, he wrote to Mary Baker Eddy to ask for copies of her books to sell at his company, and asking whether he and Hattie could take classes with Eddy. Eddy replied that they should attend and she would make him an agent for her books. Correspondence over the next few years shows him ordering and selling her books. The Whitakers took the Primary Class with Fenn around 1886 and wrote in 1887 asking to take the Normal Class with Eddy. Instead, in 1888, the couple took the Primary Class with Eddy. That same year they joined the Christian Scientist Association and had a brief personal meeting with Eddy. The couple worked together as practitioners and were listed in The Christian Science Journal from 1887 until their respective deaths. Reuben proposed starting a Christian Science Academy with Harriet S. Cowan, who had taken the Primary Class at the same time as the couple. In 1892, the couple moved to Los Angeles, California, and were instrumental in setting up a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, there. Both were granted the degree of C.S.D. in 1905. He was admitted to the Pacific Branch of the National Home for Volunteer Soldiers in 1918, and died there later that same year.

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