I love mysteries. Was she? Or, wasn’t she? Ninety years ago today, on the evening of May 18, 1926, Minnie spoke those words to a grief-stricken congregation in the Angelus Temple. Minnie was Mildred Ona Pearce Kennedy and the mother of Aimee Semple McPherson, a renowned evangelist. Earlier that day, Aimee had gone swimming at Ocean Park Beach just north of Venice Beach in present day Los Angeles, California. She had been dropped off there by her secretary, and when the secretary returned, Aimee could not be found. The reasonable assumption was that she had drowned even though she was a very good swimmer.
Members of her church, the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel and other individuals searched for Aimee. At least two people drowned in efforts to recover her body despite a Coast Guard cutter patrolling the waters. As the days turned to weeks McPherson’s body remained missing despite the best efforts of police and the California Fish and Game Commission. And then the rumors started. She was having an abortion. She disappeared with a lover for an extramarital affair. There had been attempts to kidnap and harm her before, but when letters arrived from alleged kidnappers the family threw them away as they were certain Aimee had drowned. One of those letters demanded a half million dollars or Aimee would be sold into white slavery.
A private detective who was based in San Francisco claimed he had spotted her at a railway station there. Newspaper headlines from around the country reported sightings of her in numerous cities. Some of her followers held firmly to the belief that she was dead; as this allowed them to believe that she would be resurrected.
And then, 32 days after Aimee Semple McPherson disappeared, she appeared in the small Mexican town of Agua Prieta, Sonora. This town is just south of Douglas, Arizona and 600 miles from Los Angeles. She was taken to a hospital, where she told the staff that she had been kidnapped, drugged, and held prisoner in a tiny shack. She stated that she had escaped by sawing through the ropes that restrained her and then walking twenty miles across the burning sands in the barren desert to where she was found. Aimee appeared to be exhausted and disheveled, but otherwise healthy.
The hospital staff called Aimee’s mother who confirmed her identity through a scar on her finger and asking the name of her pet pigeon. After she had recovered from her exhaustion she gave a bedside interview to the press. She stated that she had been kidnapped by three Americans at Ocean Park Beach including a couple named Steve and Rose. Aimee stated that they were holding her for a ransom of half a million dollars.
When Aimee returned to Los Angeles she was greeted by a crowd of 50,000 worshipers including city officials and other dignitaries. Los Angeles District Attorney Asa Keyes was not an admirer, and called for an investigation into the evangelist’s account of the alleged kidnapping. A grand jury was convened, and within weeks Aimee voluntarily appeared before them. There were accusations of fraud as newspapers continued to report sightings during the period Aimee had been missing. One notable accusation was that she had an affair with Kenneth Ormiston who was spotted with an unknown woman at a cottage at Carmel-by-the-Sea during that period. Mr. Ormiston was married and admitted to having an extramarital affair, but not with Aimee. Police could find no fingerprints of Aimee in the cottage.
Evidence was gathered and compiled against Aimee over the next several months as the gossip and headlines continued. A judge set a date for a jury trial in January of 1927. Eventually District Attorney Keyes decided to drop the charges. Both supporters and detractors thought McPherson should have insisted on a trial to clear her name. She instead gave her account of the kidnapping in her book, “In the Service of the King: The Story of My Life © 1927.”
While she was derided, her popularity soared. She was more renowned than the president. At the time of her death in 1944, the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel was worth millions of dollars.

Doc Halliday can be contacted at doc@dochalliday.us

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