On May 18, 1926, evangelist and founder of the Foursquare Gospel Church Reverend Aimee Semple McPherson disappeared, last seen on a beach in Venice, California. For over a month, the Foursquare community mourned her drowning.
There was an extra reason for the Foursquare Gospel Church to mourn that fateful day, because it was the same day that Kenneth Ormiston, the engineer for KFSG, the church's radio station, also disappeared mysteriously. For thirty-five days, nobody put twosquare and twosquare together.
On June 23, a not-that-exhausted looking McPherson stumbled out of the desert in Agua Prieta, Mexico, with grass stains on her shoes and wearing a watch that she had supposedly left at home before going to the beach. What followed was a series of not very well planned out alibis in which McPherson claimed before a jury that she had been chloroformed and dragged into the desert. Soon after the case to track down her abductors was dropped due to lack of evidence.
Folk songwriter Pete Seeger was prompted to pen the following in response, titled "The Ballad of Aimee Semple McPherson":
Did you ever hear the story of Aimee McPherson?
Aimee McPherson, that wonderful person,
She weight a hundred eighty and her hair was red
And preached a wicked sermon, so the papers said.
cho: Hi dee hi dee hi dee hi
Ho dee ho dee ho dee ho.
Aimee built herself a radio station
To broadcast her prraching to the nation.
She found a man named Armistead who knew enough
To run the radio while Aimee did her stuff.
Shc held a camp meeting out at Ocean Park
Preached from early morning 'til after dark.
Said the benediction, folded up her tent,
And nobody knew where Aimee went.
When Aimee McPherson got back from this journey,
Shc told her tale to the district attorney.
Said she'd been kidnapped on a lonely trail.
In spite of all the questions, she stuck to her tale.
Well, the Grand Jury started an investigation,
Uncovered a lot of spicy information.
Found out about a love nest down at Carmel-by-the-Sea,
Where the liquor was expensive and the loving was free.
They found a cottage with a breakfast nook,
A folding bed with a worn-out look.
The slats were busted and the springs were loose,
And the dents in the mattress fitted Aimee's caboose.
Well they took poor Aimee and they threw her in jail.
Last I heard she was out on bail.
They'll send her up for a stretch, I guess,
She worked herself up into an awful mess
Now Radio Ray is a going hound;
He's going yet and he ain't been found.
They got his description, but they got it too late.
Since they got it, he's lost a lot of weight.
Now I'll end my story in the usual way,
About this lady preacher's holiday.
If you don't get the moral then you're the gal for me
Cause they got a lot of cottages down at Carmel-by-the-Sea.
The reminder of this tale, one of my favorites in American religious history, has prompted us here at Apoloblogology to begin a new series, called "Aimee Semple McPherson Speaks." Her first message:
"“You have no business being sick-every one of you should get well and get up and go to work, huh? Get up and go to work and earn some money and help send the gospel out! Amen!”
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