About one week after Aimee Semple McPherson disappeared, the Los Angeles Times insinuated the name of Kenneth G. Ormiston into the mystery. Reporters dug up the story that at about the time the evangelist left for the Holy Land, Ormiston's wife Ruth filed a missing person's report concerning her husband. The newspaper erroneously reported that Ormiston disappeared from his Temple job as radio engineer about the time Mrs. McPherson sailed. He had taken other assignments almost two weeks before that January 11th date. Nevertheless, the story spread that Ormiston had traveled abroad with the evangelist. He didn't.
Near the end of January, Emma Schaeffer heard that a Hollywood gossip magazine planned to print an article charging that Mrs. McPherson was indeed traveling in Europe with Ormiston. Mrs. Kennedy immediately wired the Thomas Cook Travel Agency, in charge of her daughter's tour, requesting that they send a guard with Sister to scotch any such rumors. The travel agency complied. Meanwhile, the mother got word to Mrs. McPherson, who hurried back to Ireland where she had left daughter Roberta with her paternal grandparents. Thereafter, Roberta accompanied her mother in her travels, as an additional safeguard against innuendo. The gossip magazine never published the article.
Meanwhile, Ormiston’s meanderings on the West Coast during Mrs. McPherson's absence abroad came to be rather thoroughly documented. He had been using aliases for some time, he would later admit to police, because of his estrangement with his wife, who by this time had sailed back to Australia after reneging on threats to divorce him. And Ormiston traveled with female company. On February 20, 1926 he registered with a woman in a Venice Hotel, as “James Wallace and wife of Glendale.” Could this have been the notorious “Miss X” of the Carmel cottage three months later? Ormiston admitted he used the alias “James Wallace” “a lot.” It probably was only a coincidence that this was the name of Mrs. McPherson's long deceased half-brother, though some tried to make something of the matter. Whoever Ormiston’s companion was on February 20, it could not have been the evangelist who was then overseas. She did not return until April 24.
Ormiston turned up in Seattle on March 15, where he purchased a blue Chrysler automobile which would figure famously in the subsequent rumors. He registered this vehicle under his own name, disdaining aliases like George Mcintire, H.C. Cornell, Frank Gibson, Ralph Stringer, he had used or would use in addition to his favorite, James Wallace. How many other pseudonyms the radio man whelped will never be known.
Apparently he registered under his own name at the Waldorf Hotel in Venice on March 26, where he stayed until April 9. In checking out he announced he was returning to Seattle.
When the Times dragged Ormiston into the dis-appearance mystery, District Attorney Keyes hesitated to follow up the suggestion. He finally yielded to pressure because, as Lately Thomas put it, “Newspaper good will is important to an office holder” (p. 30, “Vanishing Evangelist”). On May 26th Keyes announced he wanted to question the radio man. The next day Kenneth Ormiston showed up at headquarters, explaining he'd read the evening before in San Francisco newspapers that he was wanted and immediately caught the train south to Los Angeles to comply. He telephoned Mother Kennedy and later was welcomed by her at the beach search headquarters. He told reporters there that the connection of his name with the evangelist was “a gross insult to a noble and sincere woman.” He denounced as erroneous reports and rumors that he had gone into hiding. And there he was, big as life.
Ormiston convinced police officials that he knew nothing about the disappearance of the evangelist. And Mrs. Kennedy issued a statement, carried in the Evening Express the same day, vigorously denying that her daughter and the radio man had ever been overfriendly. The mother protested, “Aimee led a spotless and blameless life, and all reports to the contrary are absurd and simply attempt to besmirch her reputation. My daughter was perfectly free to form any associations she wished as far as the law was concerned, but she did not have the desire. Her entire life was consecrated to her work in the Temple and the thought of any (romantic) associations such as insinuated were farthest from her thoughts.”
In “The Vanishing Evangelist” Lately Thomas reflects Mother Kennedy's attitude as expressed above. However, in “Storming Heaven” he pictures her as resenting alleged associations between her daughter and Ormiston. The earlier book represents the real facts. The evangelist was much too busy to have time to visit the radio room, as “Storming Heaven” alleges. Her schedule was a killer. Mrs. Kennedy did, in fact, make derogatory remarks about her daughter after their rift in 1927, but she changed her tune when she returned to the Temple management briefly a few years later. It is absolute fact that the evangelist and radio engineer had only business contacts during his employment at the Temple.
Ormiston, before entraining north, gave police a rather detailed description of his movements since May 18, volunteering that on the 19th or 20th he appeared in Salinas to pay a traffic fine, but evidently he made no mention of his residence in Carmel-by-the-Sea. He explained his troubles with his wife developed from incompatability of temperament and admitted she had been “insanely jealous,” even of Mrs. McPherson, “without reason,” Ormiston insisted.
The Times, however, seemed determined to keep his name in the case, whether because of “tips” or investigations or more sinister reasons. Somehow the Times got wind that Ormiston was driving south from the Bay Area with a woman on May 29th. The pair did in fact register at 6:15 a.m. at the Andrews Hotel in San Luis Obispo. Presumably the couple had driven all night from possibly Salinas. They signed in as “Mr. and Mrs. Frank Gibson.” The “Gibsons” checked out about 5:15 p.m. and headed south. Meanwhile, the Times phoned Marshall Selover, City Editor of the Santa Barbara Morning Press who acted as that city’s correspondent for the Los Angeles newspaper. The Times requested Selover to get a police officer or highway patrolman and intercept Ormiston’s Chrysler on the highway in order to identify the occupants.
Probably Marshall Selover ever thereafter kicked himself that he turned over the assignment to reporter Wallace Moore. At the time the City Editor thought it a strategic move, since he was committed to other work and Moore could identify Mrs. McPherson, if the woman were hg her, because he had covered her meetings in other cities.
Wallace Moore missed a golden opportunity to become a journalistic hero. Here was the chance of a lifetime for a scoop. He could either apprehend ‘a fugitive or squelch raw rumors on this Saturday when Mrs. McPherson had been “geen” also in San Francisco and Sacramento, both too many hours away to have reached Santa Barbara.
For some reason Moore did not pick up a policeman. He parked alone, a bit after 8:30 p.m., on Modoc Road, which joins the Coast Highway about three-and-one-half miles north of the then city limits of Santa Barbara. Just before 11 p.m. Ormiston’s Chrysler sped past. Moore recognized the license number, F-31052, and noted that a woman sat beside the man driver.
Moore taiied the Chrysler for some distance before he managed to pull it over at Bath and Pedrogosa Streets inside the city limits. He talked to “Frank Gibson” whom he was sure was Ormiston and studied the woman beside the driver, from whom he could not elicit a single word. “Gibson” volunteered that the pair were traveling to Los Angeles’ Alexandria Hotel.
Moore mentioned the reason for stopping the car as rumors that the woman was Mrs. McPherson. He told Ormiston finally that he realized the woman was not the evangelist, and let the couple go.
That was Moore's second mistake. His first was not getting an officer to accompany him on the quest. An officer could have insisted on seeing identification, indeed could have hailed the couple to headquarters. People are detained “on suspicion” for far less. Moore's second mistake was letting the couple get away, especially since he saw the driver careen down Bath Street and double back to the north. An ambitious newsman, you would think, would have tailed the Chrysler, or at least tried.
About the only explanation which could justify the reporter's neglect would be the circumstance that he was absolutely convinced the woman was someone other than the evangelist. Then the apparent flight would seem attributable to Ormiston’s desire not to have whoever else she might have been identified.
Wailace Moore went back to the Santa Barbara Morning Press after the encounter and reported his conclusion that the woman was not Aimee Semple McPherson. The newspaper carried the story in its morning edition, informing, “The woman did not resemble Mrs. McPherson except in generat build.”
Ormiston’s car was not noticed again until December, when it was discovered on the sixth of that month in plain sight in an Oakland, California garage. Hundreds of people had seen the vehicle in the interim but never noticed the license number F-31052, which had been broadcast to all parts of the United States once the search for Ormiston got underway in earnest when the Carmel confoundings erupted.
Minnie Kennedy snorted when she read a scribbled communication. “Mother, darling,” the note signed with her daughter's name exhorted, “pay the money.” As if she couldn't detect a forgery of Sister's handwriting! She showed the missive to reporters and registered her disgust.
A ransom letter indeed had arrived at Angelus Tempie. Someone mailed it in San Francisco on May 25. Minnie Kennedy scoffed at it as a fraud. Dated May 24, the missive addressed to Angelus Tempte demanded $500,000 in currency to be paid at once for the return of the evangelist who, the letter charged, had injured the senders and consequently must pay in money or in blood. The communication directed that a Temple representative, wearing a badge on the lapel of his coat, bring the money and take a seat on Saturday (May 29) in the lobby of the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. One of the kidnappers would then approach the representative and tell him what to do. The note purportedly advised, “Get busy at once. We mean business. Saturday at 11 o'clock,” and was signed, “Revengers.” say “purportedly” because when a newspaper later printed what it represented to be the “Revengers” letter, Mother Kennedy doubted that it was the original, indeed, suspected it was a facsimile. She charged that the published photostat was in quite legible handwriting, while the original letter she received had been difficult to decipher.
No one could dispute Mrs. Kennedy on the matter because the original note was nowhere to be found. Mother turned it over to Los Angeles Police Detective Herman Cline, insisting that it was a fraud. Later the letter was discovered to have disappeared from the locked secret files of the police detective bureau! Whodunit? Nobody even offered a guess! This wasn’t by any means the only hanky-panky involving police and the district attorney's office in the case!
Captain Cline agreed with Minnie Kennedy that the “Revengers” letter likely represented a hoax. But he didn't take any chances. He communicated details to the San Francisco police when Mother refused to send a Temple representative to the Palace Hotel. The San Francisco police ran in a ringer — rather two ringers, both beribboned with Temple badges. The men took seats in the hotel! lobby sometime before the hour specified. But no one attempted to make contact. Cline sighed that the kidnapping theory might now de-escalate. But it didn't.
Ablind Long Beach attorney, R.A. McKinley, startled the Southland with the claim that two men claiming to be the kidnappers of Aimee Semple McPherson contacted him at about 9 a.m. on Monday, May 31, the legal Memorial Day holiday or Decoration Day as it was usually called then, since May 30 fell on Sunday in 1926. The men gave the names of Wilson and Miller and said they accosted McKinley, a cousin of William McKinley, the twenty-fifth President of the United States, because he would not be able to identify them. They knew his habit of working alone in the office on holidays and said they watched him leave his home that morning in a taxicab. They ascertained that his secretary was not present before confiding to the lawyer.
The details which follow differ somewhat from those given by Lately Thomas in “The Vanishing Evangelist,” though no major contradiction appears. Primary source for the information is the sworn testimony by Long Beach Police Detective Captain J.A. Worley and Lieutenant Ralph L. Alyea, as recorded in Volume 39 of the transcript of the preliminary hearing. Both officers testified as defense witnesses.
When Wilson and Miller left, McKinley telephoned the police. The two men told him he could and expected he would. Worley and Alyea hurried over to the Pacific Southwest Bank Building where the blind attorney occupied an office on the second floor. McKinley shook hands with Worley who asked the lawyer, “Do you know Lieutenant Alyea?” McKinley said that he did, then shook hands with the lieutenant and asked the officers to be seated. Then the attorney said, “Captain Worley, you know i get more information from the underworld than any man in Long Beach.” Worley conceded that point. McKinley proceeded, “i had a funny experience a few minutes before called you. had just arrived at my office when there was a rap at the door. opened the door and two men came in who introduced themselves as Miller and Wilson. Mr. Miller did the talking.”
The attorney had listened carefully to his visitors and reported that Miller “had a hesitation in his voice, as though he stuttered at something.” He had trouble in starting off, but after stammering a bit he would get going.
Mckinley quoted Miller as claiming, We have Aimee McPherson. We have her bound and gagged. She cannot get away. No one can get to her.” He asked the lawyer to contact Angelus Temple and extort $25,000 — the amount of the reward still being offered. McKinley's fee for services would be $5,000, Miller offered. He continued, “If you assure us that you have the $25,000, you will hear from us Wednesday, and we will liberate Mrs. McPherson on the street at 8 o'clock Wednesday night.”
McKinley told the detectives he protested to the visitors, “| don't like to have anything to do with a case of this kind. It would not look very good, me being an attorney and entering into a kidnapping plot.” His visitors likely laughed up their sleeves at that profession, for the underworld used McKinley for unsavory cases, including many involving bootlegging.
Miller warned McKinley to do exactly as directed. Four times, he said, the professed kidnapper cautioned, “If you try to trick us or double-cross us or Catch us, your life isn't worth a damn.”
Alyea pressed, “Do you think Mrs. McPherson is really alive? Everyone in the Country thinks she was drowned. The Papers are all full of it.”
“| know she is alive,” the lawyer responded.
“How do you know that?” Alyea asked.
“Well, there are certain things happened that will not tell you, that cannot tell you, and will not tell you, but now you know the story just what happened,” the lawyer evaded.
The two detectives left McKinley's office and walked down the stairway, but found the gate closed and locked. They climbed back.to the second floor and took the elevator down. Worley asked the elevator operator if he recalled taking two men up in the elevator that morning. The boy tried to be cagey, but after some hesitation admitted he did. First, he asked Worley, “Did one have on a gray suit and a gray hat?” “Yes,” answered the detective, though how he could have confirmed the man's dress is questionable since McKinley, being blind, could not have described it. The operator then declared that one man was taller than the other. “Do you know what floor you left them off at?” Worley wondered. The boy informed, “The second floor.” “Who were they?” Worley pressed. The Operator responded, “I don't know, never saw them before. They were strangers to me.” He added that he had not brought them down, that the other elevator operator must have done so.
The next morning (Tuesday, June 1) McKinley, Worley, and Alyea told their story in Los Angeles to District Attorney Keyes and Captain Cline. Fhe police captain blurted, “1 will catch these men. We can set a trap and catch them!” McKinley raised the roof. “No, no,” he protested, “At my instigation you will never get any trap and attempt to catch pe eel My life has been threatened by these men, and am blind and have no protection. am not afraid of any man, but I do not have my eyesight. They could bump me off at any time. You will not enter into any trickery with me in hing any kidnappers.” ae Cline ipaevel the approach by the men asa hoax. “There is nothing to it,” he insisted. “Her body is in the mae in contradicted, “Don’t you think this story is at least worth investigating?!t would be a terrible thing not to investigate and try to apprehend the criminals and get her om them,” at i." remained adamant. “There is nothing to it,” he ted.
bit later District Attorney Keyes told the Long Beach visitors to go ahead as they thought best. If the Temple would put up the $25,000 and secure Mrs. McPherson 's release through the blind attorney, it was all right with him. co
“The Temple will never put up the money,” Cline protested. Keyes reflected then that the matter should be investigated. He told Cline that, but the officer persisted, “There is nothing to it. am positive of that.
Worley told Cline that he had heard Mrs. McPherson had been kidnapped once before. Cline fumed, “She never was, and is not kidnapped at the present time. Her body is over in bd The testimony is conflicting as to who made the suggestion which the authorities followed. Bernice Morris swore it was McKinley, but she was not present at the time. Alyea attributed it to Captain Worley. The suggestion was that Mrs. Kennedy could send a message via the blind lawyer to Mrs. McPherson, and if Miller and Wilson could bring back the right answers to questions submitted which only the evangelist could know,then they could determine whether or not she was alive.
an.”
Cline didn't know whether Mrs. Kenned Len She was more certain than he that her as tas But Cline agreed to put through a phone call
An apparent conflict in the testimony here c chronology. Worley seemed to eoniteniet Viensak ihe preliminary hearing, indicating that Mother Kennedy appeared at his office on Monday, May 31, at 4 p.m. witha list of four questions to be forwarded through McKinley. Worley made a notation on the bottom of the list of questions, “Mrs Kennedy and Mr. Guthrie called at my office on May 31 st 4 P.m. 1926” (sic). But it was not until the next day that Cline phoned for the questions, Further testimony by Worley, and also by Alyea, suggests the officers went out to the Temple on Tuesday afternoon and picked up the questions from Mother Kennedy, who did not believe anything would come of the project, but professed she would do anything to squeich the avalanche of “wicked rumors.”
The questions, as read into the preliminary hearing transcript On page 3194, were: “1. Deacite erie home in Canada and where it was. 2. Describe my dog at home on farm and give name. 3. Describe dining room Stove at home. 4. Who was Wallace at our house?”
The Long Beach detectives made copies of Mrs. McPherson's mother’s penciled queries, kept the original, and aa apie to McKinley and Keyes.
n the meantime, McKinley's “eyes” — his Secretary, Bernice Morris — had been seriaed ofthe igus. Ms ape ede exhilarated her. She urged her boss to permit er to deliver in person, to Mrs. Ki i kidnappers might bring back. nae From that date on McKinley would wait alone in his Office every night until Mrs. McPherson’s reappearance, in order to give Wilson and Miller Opportunity 'to approach him furtively.
: The kidnappers did not keep their appointed rendezvous with McKinley, and Mrs. McPherson was not liberated on the street at 8 o'clock on Wednesday night. Here “The Vanishing Evangelist” disagrees with Alyea’s testimony. The kidnappers did not get the questions from the blind lawyer in his office “late that night, between 10 and 10:30 o'clock” (op. cit., p.44), but rather at an encounter on Thursday night on a street outside the restaurant where McKinley had taken dinner. The lawyer recognized a voice which called, “Mack.” Miller asked, “Did you get the money?" “No,” the attorney admitted. “Why the hell haven't you got it?” Miller snorted. “I can get the money,” McKinley professed. Miller then pressed, “Why haven't you got it if you can get it?”
McKinley fished a piece of paper out of his pocket and announced, “If you can answer these questions can get the money.” He asked Miller to read the questions. The men had to walk down the sidewalk to find sufficient light. It turned out that Wilson was there too. The men conferred and one (McKinley didn’t state who) protested, “Well, Jesus Christ, it would be Monday night before we could get an answer. That's the best we could do.”
The lawyer summoned Ralph Alyea to his office the next morning and related the encounter. The Long Beach Police Lieutenant asked if Wilson and Miller had contacted him by phone since the initial meeting Monday. Probably this was a question to test the lawyer's good faith, for Alyea already knew the answer. McKinley's phone had been bugged by the police. There had been no calls.
On Saturday, however, a call did come. McKinley told Judge Carlos Hardy of the Superior Court — a confidant of the Temple leadership who would shortly have detectives commence to tail the blind attorney — that within an hour from the time the newspapers were on the streets in Long Beach reporting that Mrs. McPherson had been found in Edmonton, Canada, Miller phoned and said, “Don't be concerned, McKinley, about the newspapers. It is a lie. We have got her.”
The professed kidnappers did not show up with the answers to the four questions on Monday. But two of the questions were answered in a ransom letter signed “Avengers” which a postman delivered to Angelus Temple on Saturday, June 19. Feverish preparations were then under way for an elaborate Memorial Service for Mrs. McPherson on the following day, and Temple officials swore the letter was not opened until Monday or Tuesday following.
By this time the Los Angeles authorities professed to be Convinced the evangelist had drowned. They had investigated all other theories and found the rumors groundless. District Attorney Keyes and Captain Cline came out with a statement that they believed Sister to be dead. Cline evaluated the other alternatives, including kidnapping, and dismissed them as without merit. After these conclusions by County officials, the Temple proceeded to conduct a Memorial Service.
The press would subsequently report that a huge Collection was raised on June 20 for a monument to Mrs. McPherson. Newspapers stated the figure as upwards of $40,000 and implied that much cash came in. Actually, only about one-tenth of that amount of cash came in, but pledges from the several departments of the church promised future payment of about $29,000. However, this was not for a monument. The money was to finish the Bible School building next door to the Temple. in the Memorial Service there was no high-pressure plea for contributions from the Congregation. The pledges had been received previously from personnel in the several departments, like the Sunday School, City Sisters Office, Bible School, radio and other departments. A representative from each announced his group's goal.
Considerable criticism lashed the Temple because the Memorial Service was conducted the day after the “Avengers” ransom letter arrived. Much ado followed discovery that the special delivery stamp had disappeared off the envelope. Mrs. Kennedy claimed the stamp was gone when she first saw the missive. She suspected that someone in the office where mail was received wanted it for a stamp collection and helped himself. At any rate, Mother swore that she did not know about the letter until a day or two after the Memorial Service. She protested, moreover, “If had received this letter on Saturday it would have made no difference in our plans. had the firmest conviction that my daughter was gone to the other world and we would have gone right ahead” with the Memorial Service.
Because — on the prosecution theory — Mrs. Kennedy was accused of conspiring with her daughter, Ormiston, and others to fabricate a tale of a fake disappearance, here might be a good place to insert testimony from those associated with Mother during the period Mrs. McPherson was gone.
Churchilla Bartling signed a statement reporting her observation. This graduate nurse asserted, “| have naturally been with many people who have lost their loved ones and therefore feel that am a fairly good judge as to how average persons react to the deaths of their nearest and dearest.”
Churchilla, who had known Sister and Mother for five years, reported, “The first time saw Mother Kennedy after Mrs. McPherson was reported lost was on Wednesday evening, May 19, after the service. Mother was down among the audience shaking hands with the people, not seeming to know just what she was doing, and the tears were streaming down her face. took her by the hand and said, “Mother, think we had better go up to the house now.”
As the nurse helped Minnie Kennedy up the rampart she realized that the Mother really didn’t realize who was assisting her. “She seemed dazed and she sighed deep sighs as she walked. She was very pale and looked as if she had not slept.”
The next morning Churchilla Bartling came to the parsonage and learned that neither Mother nor Emma Schaeffer had eaten anything since Tuesday afternoon when Sister vanished. Churchilla managed to get Emma to have some tea and toast, but “Mother ate nothing.”
Mrs. Bartling revealed that the Temple's official board felt no one but Mrs. Kennedy could handle the Temple services for the next few days after May 18 and persuaded her against her will to take Sister's place in the regular schedule of meetings. “This was very difficult for her to do, but Mother felt that she was a soldier of the cross and that it was her duty to do as she believed God and Sister would have her do.” Her Salvation Army training served her well in this ordeal.
A week after the presumed drowning, Churchilla reported Mrs. Kennedy's appearance when she came for the first time to the beach.patrol headquarters at Ocean Park. “Her face was gray and she showed her lack of sleep and food. She appeared to have lost at least ten pounds and her breath was foul as a person's always is when suffering from sickness or deep sorrow and not eating properly.” Not until the second Thursday or Friday (Churchilla couldn't be sure which day) after the disappearance could the nurse persuade Mother to take her first real meal.
The beach patrol had devised a signal for the airplanes overhead in case they spotted the body of Mrs. McPherson. A plane was to fly in and circle the shore three times, Churchilla Bartling was there when an aircraft commenced the signal. To her dismay Mrs. Kennedy arrived then, “Just in time to see it.” Mother asked, “isn't that the signal?” Churchilla tried to Convince Mother that it was probably a mistake, which it did turn out to be. But Mother would not be misled. She recognized the signal and “broke down and cried heartbreakingly.” She paced and wrung her hands and wept, sobbing, “Oh, my God, my God, can’t stand that.! can't stand that!"
The object the airplane sighted, on closer examination, turned out to be a floating fog.
Mrs, Bartling recalled, “Each time Mother came down to the beach she looked paler, thinner, and the lines were more deeply sunk in her face.”
Mrs. Bartling gives a somewhat different account of Mrs. Kennedy's reaction to the report of the badly decomposed body which washed ashore in mid-June at Coos Bay, Oregon. Lately Thomas and the press imply she rejected the possibility from the first that it was her daughter. But Churchilla insisted it shook up Mother. She was “so completely broken up over this that she was forced to go to bed. Mother couldn't stand to think of Sister's body being decomposed and didn’t feel that she could stand the shock of finding the body decomposed and in the condition it naturally would be in after being in the water for so long a time.” The nurse concluded, “As time went on and the body was not found and we were forced to give up practically all hope of ever finding it, mother continued to fail in strength and we began to fear that she would eventually collapse.” The only thing which kept her from collapsing, Churchilla assessed, was her determination to carry on the Temple work.
But by the afternoon of Tuesday, June 22nd, Mrs. Kennedy feared she was nearer the breaking point. At a meeting of Temple workers in the Council Chamber at 1:30 p.m., just preceding the 2:30 Divine Healing Service, she confided that she felt most keenly the weight of the burden which had been laid on her shoulders since Mrs. McPherson had been taken away, a load which threatened to increase because Dr. Shreve had to leave shortly. “If ever needed prayer,” she said, “I need it now. Pray for me that the Lord will give me strength. find my burdens becoming heavier each day instead of lighter as hoped they would be after the Memorial Services.”
Mrs. Kennedy then told the workers, several of whom signed a statement later describing the proceedings, that she had received another letter from the purported kidnappers of Sister McPherson in which they had enclosed a lock of hair supposed to be her daughter's and stated they would cut off the finger with the scar and send it to prove that Sister was actually alive and that they had, her in captivity.
For some reason the statement concludes, “On this afternoon when Mother Kennedy came and told us of having received this (“Avengers”) letter, Mrs. Lillian Martin was not in the room. Neither was she in the council room meeting that day at all.”
The Temple workers gathered around Minnie Kennedy and prayed for God to give her strength.
The next day Mother had a better answer to prayer than that. She got her daughter back alive.