EVANGELIST MYSTERY

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 163, 11 June 1926, Page 10

EVANGELIST MYSTERY

RADIO MAN’S ROVINGS. LOS ANGELES. May 27. Kenneth Ormiston, who installed and operated the radio apparatus atMrs Aimee McPherson’s temple, and who disappeared the day before she did, turned up to-day at an open-air prayer meeting on Venice Beach. Ormiston’s father-in-law took his. daughter (Mrs Ormiston) and her family back to Australia in February last. In January Ormiston’s wife reported him missing. Later his abandoned motor car was,found at Pasadena, where he became a car salesman. He was reported to have returned to Los Angeles two weeks ago, and to have disappeared again the day before Mrs McPherson did. AMAZING CAREER. Mrs McPherson was born at Ingersoll (Ontario) 35 years ago. She lived her early years in comparative poverty, and made two unfortunate marriages. Her ’first husband died, and she divorced Harold McPherson for desertion. Her first marked success as “■ an evangelist came in 1916, during wartime revivals, in Eastern Canada, and during the next four years she conducted sensational revivals, terminating her career as a travelling evangelist in Denver, with many demonstrations of healing. Meantime she had toured Australia, and when sho returned to Los Angeles it was alleged that she healed scores by a singlo touch. So huge were her financial gains that several official bodies investigated her affairs, but found everything perfectly legal. Tho Los Angeles District Attorney, Mr Asa Keyes, said to-day that he had information that Ormiston was absent from LO3 Angeles while Mrs McPherson visited the Holy Land last winter.

Sir Keyes to-day interrogated -Miss Emma' Schaffer, the evangelist’s secretary, who still evidently firmly believes that Sirs SlcPlierson has been drowned. The police search of the beaches has virtually been abandoned. Before Ormiston was found, it was reported that Sirs SlcPlierson and Ormiston had crossed the boundary into Slexico last Sunday.