Aimee Semple McPherson

Aimee Semple McPherson
Born	Aimee Elizabeth Kennedy October 9, 1890(1890-10-09) Salford, Ontario
Died	September 27, 1944 (aged 53) Oakland, California
Cause of death	Barbiturate overdose
Resting place	Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery
Known for	International Church of the Foursquare Gospel
Spouse(s)	Robert James Semple (died 1910) Harold Stewart McPherson (divorced 1921) David Hutton (divorced 1931)
Children	Roberta Star Semple Rolf McPherson
Parents	James Morgan Kennedy Mildred Ona Pearce

Aimee Semple McPherson (October 9, 1890 – September 27, 1944), also called Sister Aimee, was a Canadian-born evangelist and media celebrity in the 1920s and 1930s. She founded the Foursquare Church.^[1] McPherson has been noted as a pioneer in the use of modern media, especially radio, which she drew upon through the growing appeal of popular entertainment in North America.

Early life

She was born Aimee Elizabeth Kennedy' on a farm near Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada.^[2] Her father James Kennedy was a farmer.^[3] Young Aimee got her early exposure to religion through her mother Mildred (known as Minnie), whose work with the Salvation Army feeding people through soup kitchens was echoed in her daughter's later work spreading the Gospel.

As a child she played "Salvation Army" with her classmates and at home would gather a congregation with her dolls and give them a sermon.^[4] As a teenager she strayed from her mother's teachings by reading novels and going to movies and dances, all of which were strongly disapproved by the Salvation Army. In high school she was taught about Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution^[5] and began to quiz local pastors about faith and science, but was unhappy with the lack of answers she got from them.^[6] She sent a letter to the Family Herald and Weekly Star (a national Canadian newspaper) asking why taxpayers supported public schools teaching evolution.^[7] While still in high school she began a crusade against evolution, beginning a life-long passion.

Career

Robert and Aimee Semple (1910)

In December 1907 she met Robert James Semple, a Pentecostal missionary from Ireland, while attending a revival meeting. After conversion and a short courtship, they were married on August 12, 1908. The two then embarked on an evangelistic tour, first to Europe and then to China, where they arrived in June 1910. Shortly after disembarking in Hong Kong both contracted malaria. Robert Semple died of the disease on August 19, 1910 and was buried in Hong Kong Cemetery. Aimee Semple recovered, gave birth to her daughter Roberta Star Semple on September 17, 1910 and returned to the United States.

Shortly after her recuperation in the states Semple joined her mother Minnie working with the Salvation Army and while in New York she met Harold Stewart McPherson, an accountant. They were married on May 5, 1912 and had a son, Rolf Potter Kennedy McPherson (born March 23, 1913 - died May 21, 2009, aged 96).

In 1913 she embarked upon a preaching career in Canada and the USA. In June 1915 she began evangelizing and holding tent revivals, first by traveling up and down the eastern United States, then going to other parts of the country.

Her revivals were often standing room only. One of these was held in a boxing ring, with the meeting before and after the match, throughout which she walked about with a sign reading "knock out the Devil." In San Diego, California the National Guard was brought in to control a crowd of over 30,000 people. McPherson had practiced speaking in tongues but rarely emphasized it. She was also known as a faith healer and there were claims of physical healing, although this became less important as her fame increased.

McPherson with her "Gospel car" (1918)

In 1916 with her mother Mildred she made a tour of the southern United States in her "Gospel Car," a 1912 Packard touring car emblazoned with religious slogans. Standing in the back seat of the convertible she gave sermons over a megaphone. On the road between sermons she sat in the back seat typing sermons and other religious materials. By 1917 she had started her own magazine, The Bridal Call, for which she wrote many articles about women’s roles in religion and the link she saw between Christians and Jesus as a marriage bond. The magazine contributed to the rising women’s movement, which McPherson may not have foreseen.

Although her husband made efforts to join her religious travels, by 1918 he had filed for separation. His petition for divorce, citing abandonment, was granted in 1921.

The battle between fundamentalists and modernists escalated after World War I, with many fundamentalists seeking less conservative religious faiths. Fundamentalists generally believed their religious faith should influence every aspect of their lives. McPherson sought to eradicate modernism and secularism in homes, churches, schools and communities and developed a strong following in the Four Square Gospel by blending contemporary culture with religious teachings.

Los Angeles had become a popular vacation spot and instead of touring the United States to preach her sermons, she stayed in Los Angeles, drawing audiences from a population which had soared from 100,000 in 1900 to 575,000 people in 1920 and by 1940, 1.5 million.

McPherson preached a conservative gospel but in progressive ways, through radio, movies and stage acts. Advocacy for women's rights was on the rise (including women's suffrage through the 19th Amendment) and McPherson gained support from women associated with modernism, making for some contradiction in her preaching about the evils of modernity. By accepting and using these new media outlets she helped integrate them into people’s daily lives, which also happened to contradict her disapproval of them.

Aimee Semple Mcpherson Is "Discovered" in Baltimore

Aimee Semple Mcpherson from mid 1919-1922 created quite a fervor in cities such as Baltimore by way of her impassioned revivals that sometimes lasted as long as four weeks. In December 1919, she ascended on Baltimore’s Lyric Opera House to conduct seventeen days of meetings.^[8]. Her appearance caught the attention of the “Baltimore Sun,” which ran a thousand-word column on her in the December 6, 1919 issue^[9]. During the interview, The Sun reporter asked how she McPherson arrived at the conclusion that Baltimore needed a revival. “As soon as I entered the city I saw the need. Women were sitting in the dining room smoking with the men,” McPherson replied. “I took up the newspapers and I saw card parties and dances advertised in connection with the churches. There was a coldness. Card parties, dances, theaters, all represent agencies of the devil to distract the attention of men and women away from spirtuality. . .” While Aimee Semple Macpherson had traveled extensively in her evangelical work prior to arriving in Baltimore, she was first “discovered” by the newspapers while sitting with her mother in the red plush parlor of the Belvedere Hotel on December 5,1919 a day after conducting evangelistic services at the Lyric Opera House. ^[10]

International Church of the Foursquare Gospel

Angelus Temple in Echo Park, Los Angeles, with radio towers.

Weary of constant traveling and having no place to raise a family, McPherson had settled in Los Angeles, where she maintained both a home and a church. McPherson believed that by creating a church in Los Angeles, her audience would come to her from all over the country, she could plant the seed of the Foursquare gospel and tourists would take it home to their communities, thus taking the traveling out of her preaching, while still reaching the masses. For several years she continued to travel and raise money for the construction of a large, domed church building in the Echo Park area of Los Angeles, named Angelus Temple. She raised more than expected and altered the original plans to build a "megachurch" that would draw many followers throughout the years. The church was dedicated on January 1, 1923. It had a seating capacity of 5,300 people and was filled to capacity three times each day, seven days a week. At first McPherson preached every service, often in a dramatic scene she put together to attract audiences. The church eventually evolved into its own denomination, called the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, which focused on the nature of Christ's character, that he was savior, baptizer with the Holy Spirit, healer and coming king. There were four main beliefs, the first being Christ's ability to transform individuals' lives through the act of salvation. The second focused on a holy baptism, the third was divine healing and the fourth was gospel-oriented heed to the premillennial return of Christ.

McPherson often based her sermons around events that took place in her life and then acted them out on Sunday evening. In August 1925 McPherson decided to charter a plane so she wouldn't miss a Sunday sermon. Aware of the opportunity for publicity, she had at least two thousand followers and members of the press at the takeoff site. The plane failed after takeoff and the landing gear collapsed, sending the nose of the plane into the ground. McPherson boarded another plane the same day and used the experience as the narrative of an illustrated Sunday sermon called "The Heavenly Airplane." The stage in Angelus Temple was set up with two miniature planes and a skyline that looked like Los Angeles. In this sermon McPherson described how the first plane had the devil for the pilot, sin for the engine and temptation as the propeller. The other plane, however, was piloted by Jesus and would lead one to the Holy City (the skyline shown on stage). The temple was filled beyond capacity. On one occasion, she described being pulled over by a police officer, calling the sermon "Arrested for Speeding." McPherson employed a small group of artists, electricians, decorators and carpenters who built the sets for each Sunday's service. Religious music played by an orchestra. Biographer Matthew Avery Sutton wrote, "McPherson found no contradiction between her rejection of Hollywood values for her use of show business techniques. She would not hesitate to use the devil's tools to tear down the devil's house." Collections were taken at every meeting, often with the admonishment, "no coins, please."

Pentecostalism was not popular in the U.S. during the 1920s so she avoided the label, but made demonstrations of speaking-in-tongues and faith healing in sermons. She kept a museum of crutches, wheelchairs and other paraphernalia. McPherson was also influenced by the Salvation Army. In a campaign to spread the church nationwide she adopted a theme of "lighthouses" for the satellite churches, referring to the parent church as the "Salvation Navy." McPherson published the weekly Foursquare Crusader along with her monthly magazine Bridal Call. She began broadcasting on radio in the early 1920s. McPherson was the first woman to preach a radio sermon and with the opening of Foursquare Gospel-owned KFSG (now KTLK AM 1150) on February 6, 1924 she also became the first woman granted a broadcast license by the Federal Radio Commission (later the Federal Communications Commission).

McPherson integrated her tent meetings and church services. She broke down racial barriers such that once at Angelus Temple, Ku Klux Klan members were in attendance, but after the service hoods and robes were found on the ground in nearby Echo Park. She is also credited with helping many Hispanic ministries in Los Angeles.

In 1925, the license for KFSG was suspended by the Commerce Department for deviating from its assigned frequency. McPherson received several death threats in 1925 and an alleged plot to kidnap her was foiled in September of that year.

Politics and education

By early 1926 McPherson had become one of the most charismatic and influential persons of her time. According to Carey McWilliams she had become "more than just a household word: she was a folk hero and a civic institution; an honorary member of the fire and police departments; a patron saint of the service clubs; an official spokesman for the community on problems grave and frivolous."^[11] She was influential in many social, educational and political areas. McPherson made personal crusades against anything that she felt threatened her Christian ideals, including the drinking of alcohol and teaching evolution in schools.

McPherson became a strong supporter of William Jennings Bryan during the 1925 Scopes Trial, in which John Scopes was tried for illegally teaching evolution at a Dayton, Tennessee school. Bryan and McPherson had worked together in the Angelus Temple and they believed social Darwinism had undermined students' morality. According to McPherson, evolution "is the greatest triumph of Satanic intelligence in 5,931 years of devilish warfare, against the Hosts of Heaven. It is poisoning the minds of the children of the nation" She sent Bryan a telegram saying, "Ten thousand members of Angelus temple with her millions of radio church membership send grateful appreciation of your lion hearted championship of the Bible against evolution and throw our hats in the ring with you."^[12] She organized "an all night prayer service, a massive church meeting preceded by a Bible parade through Los Angeles."^[13]

Reported kidnapping

McPherson (about 1920)

On May 18, 1926, McPherson went with her secretary to Ocean Park Beach north of Venice Beach to swim. Soon after arriving, McPherson was nowhere to be found. It was thought she had drowned.

McPherson was scheduled to hold a service that day and her mother Minnie Kennedy preached the sermon instead, saying at the end, "Sister is with Jesus," sending parishioners into a tearful frenzy. Mourners crowded Venice Beach and the commotion sparked days-long media coverage fueled in part by William Randolph Hearst's Los Angeles Examiner and stirring a poem by Upton Sinclair to commemorate the tragedy. Daily updates appeared in newspapers across the country and parishioners held day-and-night seaside vigils. One parishioner drowned whilst searching for the body and a diver died from exposure.

Kenneth G. Ormiston, the engineer for KFSG, had also disappeared. Some believed McPherson and Ormiston, who was married, had developed a close friendship and run off together. After about a month her mother received a ransom note (signed by "The Avengers") which demanded a half million dollars, or else kidnappers would sell McPherson into "white slavery". Kennedy later said she tossed the letter away, believing her daughter was dead.

Shortly thereafter, on June 23, McPherson stumbled out of the desert in Agua Prieta, Sonora, a Mexican town across the border from Douglas, Arizona. She claimed she had been kidnapped, drugged, tortured and held for ransom in a shack, had escaped and walked through the desert for about 13 hours to freedom.

However, her shoes showed no hint of a 13-hour walk in the desert but rather, carried grass stains. The shack was not found. McPherson had shown up fully dressed but had vanished wearing a bathing suit and was wearing a wristwatch (a gift from her mother) which she had not taken on the swimming trip. A grand jury convened on July 8, 1926, but adjourned 12 days later citing lack of evidence to proceed.

Five witnesses claimed to have seen McPherson at a seaside cottage in Carmel-by-the-Sea. One claimed to have seen Mrs. McPherson at the cottage on May 5 (he later went to see her preach at Angelus Temple on August 8, to confirm she was the woman he had seen at Carmel). His story was confirmed by a neighbor who lived next door to the Carmel cottage, by a woman who rented the cottage to Ormiston (under the name "McIntyre"), by a grocery clerk and a Carmel fuel dealer who delivered wood to the cottage.

The grand jury reconvened on August 3 and took further testimony along with documents from hotels, said to be in McPherson's handwriting. McPherson steadfastly stuck to her story, that she was approached by a young couple at the beach who had asked her to come over and pray for their sick child, that she was then shoved into a car and drugged with chloroform. However, when she was not forthcoming with answers regarding her relationship with Ormiston (now estranged from his wife), the judge charged McPherson and her mother with obstruction of justice. To combat the bad newspaper publicity, McPherson spoke freely about the court trials on her private radio station.

Theories and innuendo abounded, that she had run off with a lover, that she had gone off to have an abortion, taken time to heal from plastic surgery or had staged a publicity stunt. The Examiner newspaper then reported that Los Angeles district attorney Asa Keyes had dropped all charges, which he did on January 10, 1927.

The tale was later lampooned by Pete Seeger in a song called "The Ballad of Aimee McPherson," with lyrics claiming kidnapping had been unlikely because a hotel love nest revealed "the dents in the mattress fit Aimee's caboose."

Milton Berle's claim

In Milton Berle: An Autobiography, Milton Berle claimed he had a brief affair with McPherson in 1930, saying he met McPherson at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles where both were doing a charity show. Upon seeing her for the first time Berle recalled, "I was both impressed and very curious... She was all dignity and class when it came her turn. The house went wild when she walked out into the lights." Backstage, she invited him to see the Angelus Temple. Instead, Berle wrote, the two of them went to lunch in Santa Monica, then to an apartment of hers where McPherson changed into something "cooler [...] a very thin, pale blue negligee." Berle said he could see she was wearing nothing underneath and that she only said, "Come in." Berle said they met for the second and last time at the same apartment a few days later, writing, "This time, she just sent the chauffeur for me to bring me straight to the apartment. We didn't even bother with lunch. When I was dressing to leave, she stuck out her hand. 'Good luck with your show, Milton.' What the hell. I couldn't resist it. 'Good luck with yours, Aimee.' I never saw or heard from Aimee Semple McPherson again. But whenever I hear 'Yes, Sir, That's My Baby,' I remember her."^[14] Biographer Matthew Avery Sutton commented, “Berle, a notorious womanizer whose many tales of scandalous affairs were not always true, claimed to have had sex with McPherson on this and one other occasion” both during a year when McPherson was often ill and bedridden. Nor are Berle's details concerning the crucifix in her bedroom at all consistent with the coolness of Pentecostal/Catholic relations during that era. ^[15]

Later life and career

McPherson (left) prepares Christmas food baskets (about 1935)

McPherson carried on with her ministry but fell out of favor with the press. She became caught up in power struggles for the church with her mother and daughter and suffered a nervous breakdown in August 1930.

On September 13, 1931 McPherson married again, to actor and musician David Hutton. The marriage got off to a rocky start. Two days after the wedding Hutton was sued for alienation of affection by Hazel St. Pierre (Hutton claimed he had never met her). He eventually settled the case by paying St. Pierre $5,000. While McPherson was away in Europe she was angered to learn Hutton was billing himself as "Aimee's man" in his cabaret singing act. The marriage also caused an uproar within the church: The tenets of Foursquare Gospel, as put forth by McPherson herself, held that one should not remarry while their previous spouse was still alive and McPherson's indeed was. McPherson and Hutton separated in 1933 and divorced on March 1, 1934.

Drawing from her childhood experience with the Salvation Army, in 1936 McPherson opened the temple commissary 24 hours a day, seven days a week and became more active in creating soup kitchens, free clinics and other charitable activities as the Great Depression wore on. With the later outbreak of World War II she became involved in war bond rallies, with sermons linking the church and Americanism.^[16]

Death

On September 26, 1944 McPherson went to Oakland, California for a series of revivals, planning to preach her popular "Story of My Life" sermon. When McPherson's son went to her hotel room at 10:00 the next morning he found her unconscious with pills and a half-empty bottle of capsules nearby. She was dead by 11:15.

The autopsy did not conclusively determine the cause of death. She had been taking sleeping pills following sundry health problems (including "tropical fever") in the 1940s. The pills found in the hotel room were Seconal, a strong sedative which had not been prescribed for her and how she obtained them was unknown.

The coroner said she most likely died of an accidental overdose compounded by kidney failure. Seconal has a hypnotizing effect which can make a person forgetful about how much medication has been taken and lead to an overdose.^[17] There was some conjecture of suicide but most sources generally agree the overdose was accidental as put forth in the coroner's report.^[18]

McPherson is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. The Foursquare Gospel church was led by her son Rolf McPherson for 44 years after her death and claims over eight million members worldwide.^[19]

Works about McPherson

Books, periodicals, film

• The character Sharon Falconer in Sinclair Lewis' Elmer Gantry (1926) was based on McPherson. (Lingeman, p. 283)
• Upton Sinclair was fascinated with her history. After writing a poem about her dubious abduction, he wrote her into his 1927 novel, Oil!, in the character of Eli Watkins, a corrupt small-town minister. That character is called Eli Sunday in the 2007 film, There Will Be Blood.^[20]
• Vanity Fair published a satirical cutout paper doll based on her.^[21]
• Aimee Semple McPherson appeared in The Voice of Hollywood No. 9 (1930), one in a series of popular documentaries released by Tiffany Studios.^[22]
• Frank Capra's film The Miracle Woman (1931), starring Barbara Stanwyck, was based on John Meehan's play Bless You, Sister which was reportedly inspired by McPherson's life.
• A television film about the events surrounding her 1926 disappearance, The Disappearance of Aimee (1976) starred Faye Dunaway as McPherson and Bette Davis as her mother.
• A film adaptation of the story of her life, entitled Aimee Semple McPherson (2006) was directed by Richard Rossi. The same director filmed a short film Saving Sister Aimee in 2001. (The film was retitled "Sister Aimee: The Aimee Semple McPherson Story" and released on DVD April 22, 2008.)
• A documentary about McPherson, entitled Sister Aimee, made for the PBS series American Experience, premiered 2 April 2007.^[23]
• Several biographies have been written about McPherson.^[20]
• In the alternate history novel Back in the USSA, she appears as the Secretary of Manpower Resources under President Al Capone.
• Escape from Hell (fiction novel) by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (Tor, 2009), features "Sister Aimee" in Hell after her death, in a supporting role as a guide and saint who is teaching the damned about Dante's route out of Hell.

Theater

A production of the musical Saving Aimee, with a book and lyrics by Kathie Lee Gifford and music by David Pomeranz and David Friedman, debuted at the White Plains Performing Arts Center in October 2005 was staged at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA in April-May 2007.^{[citation needed]}

In 2003, a play entitled Spit Shine Glisten, loosely based on the life of McPherson, was performed at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California. Written and directed by experimental theatre artist Susan Simpson, the play used life-sized wooden puppets, human beings and fractured and warped video projection.^{[citation needed]}

Aimee's Castle

Aimee's Castle is a Middle-Eastern inspired mansion built by McPherson.^[24] The Foursquare Church had built her a home near Angelus Temple in Los Angeles but McPherson built herself this mansion in Lake Elsinore, California as a retreat. McPherson convalesced there after an injury in 1932.^[25]

See also

• Christian evangelist scandals

References

Richard R. Lingeman, Sinclair Lewis: Rebel from Main Street, Minnesota Historical Society Press, June 2005, ISBN 9780873515412.

External links

• Foursquare Gospel church
• Aimee Semple McPherson biography
• Biography from Liberty Harbor Foursquare Gospel Church
• Song about the McPherson kidnapping scandal, dating from when it was a current news story. Pete Seeger recorded this on the 1961 album Story Songs.
• Woman Thou Art God: Female Empowerment, Spirituality & a biography on Aimee.
• The Ballad of Aimee McPherson.
• Aimee Semple McPherson on The California Museum's California Legacy Trails
• Aimee Semple McPherson at the Internet Movie Database

Publications

• Aimee Semple McPherson (1921). The Second Coming of Christ. A. McPherson. http://books.google.com/books?id=_VaFGAAACAAJ&dq.  (1921)
• The Service of the King (1927)
• The Story of My Life (1951)
• This is That (revised 1923)
• Give Me My Own God (1936)

Further reading

• Blumhofer, Edith L. Aimee Semple McPherson: Everybody's Sister.
• Epstein, Daniel Mark. Sister Aimee: The Life of Aimee Semple McPherson .
• Morris, James. The Preachers. ISBN 0-900997-41-9
• Sutton, Matthew Avery. Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America.
• Lately, Thomas. Storming Heaven: The Lives and Turmoil of Minnie Kennedy and Aimee Semple McPherson. New York: Morrow, 1970.