Born: Oct 9, 1890, near Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada
Died: Sept 27, 1944, Oakland, California, U.S.
Aimee Semple McPherson was a controversial Canadian-born American evangelist and early radio preacher, who founded the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. Originally named Aimee Elizabeth Kennedy, she was born near Ingersoll, Ontario. Daughter of a Methodist farmer and a Salvation Army worker, McPherson married Robert Semple, a Pentecostal evangelist, in 1908 and accompanied him on a mission to Hong Kong, where he died in 1910. Returning to the U.S., she married Harold McPherson in 1912, but she soon left him to devote herself to preaching and faith healing. In 1923, she opened her 5000-seat Angelus Temple in Los Angeles. There, for the next 20 years McPherson preached sermons on the four roles of Jesus Christ: healer, baptizer, saviour, and returning king. She also established a radio station and a Bible school and edited a magazine.
In May 1926 McPherson disappeared while swimming in the Pacific Ocean. She was thought to have been drowned but then reappeared about five weeks later telling of her kidnapping and ransom. The incident led to a trial for perjury, a charge of which she was acquitted. McPherson’s writings include The Story of My Life, published posthumously in 1951.
