Aimee Semple McPherson

• Born: October 9, 1890
• Birthplace: Salford, Ontario, Canada
• Died: September 27, 1944
• Place of death: Oakland, California

American evangelist

Cause of notoriety: At the peak of her popularity, McPherson scandalized her base when she ran away with her lover, leaving everyone to think she had drowned; she explained her disappearance with a story of being kidnapped for ransom.

Active: 1926

Locale: Canada, California

Early Life

Aimee Semple McPherson (AY-mee SEHM-puhl muk-FURS-uhn) was the only child of Mildred Ona Pearce, a Salvation Army soldier, and James Morgan Kennedy, a farmer and devout Methodist. Mildred, known as Minnie, was hired to nurse James Kennedy’s first wife, Elizabeth. After Elizabeth’s death, Kennedy married the fifteen-year-old Minnie. She became a sergeant major in the Salvation Army and found joy in her service. She had taught her young daughter, Aimee, Scripture by the time she was five, considering the child a second opportunity to fulfill her own ambitions.

In December, 1907, Aimee met her first husband, Robert James Semple, a Pentecostal missionary, at a revival meeting. She converted to Pentecostalism, and after the couple married in August, 1908, they embarked on an evangelical tour of Europe and China. In Hong Kong they both contracted malaria, from which Robert died in August, 1910. Aimee, however, recovered, and her daughter, Roberta Star Semple, was born a month later. After returning to the United States with her baby, Aimee joined her mother in working for the Salvation Army. Accountant Harold Stewart McPherson became Aimee’s second husband; their son, Rolf Potter Kennedy McPherson, was born in March, 1913.

Religious Career

Soon after her son was born, McPherson had a near-death experience that renewed her dedication to full-time ministry. With her two children, she left her husband in 1915 and joined her mother in Canada. At a camp meeting the day after her arrival, she prayed, spoke in tongues, and found her life’s work. She soon became well known as an evangelist, receiving invitations to preach in the United States and abroad. After a successful tour through the American South in her “Gospel Car” with religious slogans painted on the sides, McPherson finally settled with her mother and children in Los Angeles and founded the Foursquare Gospel Church. The large dome built to house the church, the Angelus Temple, was finished in 1923. McPherson’s flamboyance and dramatic gifts drew crowds of converts and admirers. Her husband initially followed her in her religious travels but soon filed for divorce, which was granted in 1921.

In January, 1924, Sister Aimee, as she was then known, marked the temple’s first anniversary by throwing a party for fifty-five hundred people, where she delivered sermons on salvation, baptism, divine healing, and the Second Coming. Also in that year, McPherson became a pioneer in the new field of evangelical broadcasting and hired radio engineer Kenneth G. Ormiston to build a studio on the temple’s third floor. Her station, KFSG, opened on February 6, 1924. She was the first woman to be granted a broadcast license by the Federal Communications Commission.

Disappearance

On Tuesday, May 18, 1926, a crowd assembled in the Angelus Temple to watch McPherson’s slide show of a recent trip to the Holy Land. Minnie Kennedy appeared in her daughter’s stead to lead singing and narrate the show. At the end of the service, Kennedy officially announced that McPherson was missing and presumed drowned. The evangelist had gone to Ocean Beach with her secretary to swim earlier that day. For days, reporters and photographers vied with police to solve the mystery, and Kennedy preached to overflow crowds.

Ormiston, the engineer for KFSG, also disappeared around this time, but the connection went unobserved. A few months later, Kennedy received a ransom note signed “the Avengers,” demanding $500,000 for McPherson’s return. Los Angeles district attorney Asa Keyes investigated the case. Meanwhile, Ormiston fell under suspicion, but he arrived unexpectedly at temple headquarters on May 27 and professed no knowledge of McPherson’s whereabouts.

On June 23, McPherson showed up in Douglas, Arizona, claiming she had been kidnapped, held in a shack in Agua Prieta, Mexico, tortured, and drugged. She had finally escaped, she said, and walked through the desert. Reporters arrived from all over the United States, and McPherson gave them interviews, knowing they would get out her story. Suspicion arose, however, and when sheriffs, police, and ranch hands converged in Agua Prieta to find the shack, they searched in vain.

A grand jury met in the summer of 1926, reviewed testimony, and charged McPherson and her mother with obstruction of justice. In January, 1927, District Attorney Keyes dropped all charges, citing lack of evidence. In 1931, McPherson married again, to actor and musician David Hutton; they divorced in March, 1934. During the Depression, McPherson threw her energies into creating soup kitchens and free health care clinics. In September of 1944, she died of an overdose of prescription drugs, presumed an accident.

Impact

Aimee Semple McPherson thrived in the cultural ebullience of the 1920’s and became a symbol of that era, which adored celebrity, pageantry, and Protestantism. She had an instinctive sense of how to use the media, recognizing the possibilities of radio at a time when it was rapidly expanding, and set a precedent for the “televangelists” who now flood the airwaves. Vaudeville and Hollywood techniques helped spread her message. She practiced generic evangelical Christianity, holding credentials in such divergent branches as Assembly of God, Methodism, and Baptism. The Pentecostal Church she established did not shut out other denominations but united them. She rejected sectarianism and preached American revival ethics based on biblical Christianity mixed with a strong sense of patriotism.

McPherson’s personal problems reflect women’s struggle to find an outlet for their talents and ambitions. Her internal conflicts, troubled marriages, fierce devotion to her children, and drive for perfection reflect the stresses of a woman longing for personal fulfillment and determined to create a public presence. She exemplified many of the problems that would come to dominate public attention fifty years later, when American women in vast numbers rejected roles as housewives to find satisfaction in the public arena.

Bibliography

Bahr, Robert. Least of All Saints: The Story of Aimee Semple McPherson. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1979. A speculative and dramatic reenactment of McPherson’s life, with marvelous photos.

Blumhofer, Edith L. Aimee Semple McPherson: Everybody’s Sister. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1993. A carefully researched and detailed biography of the life of McPherson. Includes articles from her monthly magazine, Bridal Call.

Epstein, Daniel Mark. Sister Aimee: The Life of Aimee Semple McPherson. Florida: Harcourt Brace, 1993. An objective biography of McPherson.