Archive for October 31st, 2011

Sister Aimee, ca. 1920

When Aimee dived into the Pacific Ocean and emerged on the Mexican desert, thus performing a feat which will not be duplicated until babies grow on walnut trees, she reckoned that the rest of the world was as foolish as she. –San Diego Herald, July 29, 1926

The apparent drowning death of famed evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson off the coast of Santa Monica in 1926 shocked the world. Even more stunning was her reappearance weeks later in the Sonora desert. The sensational story she told of her kidnapping and miraculous escape spawned front-page news coverage that lasted for months. But for a fearless San Diego newspaper editor, the reporting of Aimee’s “ten days in a love shack,” meant Federal indictment and a lurid court trial.

The story of The Evangelist and the Muckraker.