Jack Smith The Big Orange Ward Ritchie Press: Pasadena, CA, 1976. 252 pp.
Sister Aimee's Temple
"Angelus Temple Aimee Semple McPherson Founder Church of the Foursquare Gospel"
"Gaudy and notorious she was, but Sister Aimee was also adored by tens of thousands of her followers as the personal handmaiden of God. As an evangelist she was bold, inventive, tireless and courageous, and these were qualities that served her with abundance in the great crisis of her life.
"Sister Aimee was born in rural Canada . . ." p.42
"" I sometimes look back upon those years with amazement, and wonder just how the Lord enabled me to go into new cities, without even an invitation or any earthly backing, search out a piece of vacant land, erect a tabernacle, swing the sledge hammer, drive the stakes, tie the ropes, build the seats, erect the platform, distribute handbills on the streets and paste posters in the windows, hold several street meetings each day and conduct two or three tent services, play the piano and lead my own singing between each testimony, lead in prayer, preach the Gospel, give the altar call, pray for the converts, dismiss them, put out the lights, put the babies to bed and cook our own late supper over the campfire . . . " p. 43 quote from Aimee"
"If it was this tranquility that drew Sister Aimee to Echo Park, she was soon enough to shatter it. Here, in 1922, she built her temple, with seats for five thousand, and added a Bible school and the chateau and started radio station KFSG (Kall Four Square Gospel) with the third radio license ever issued in Los Angeles. . . . services . . . featured Sousa's band, a Wagnerian opera and the burning of Joan of Arc.
"Angels descended. Cardboard waves crashed against cardboard lighthouses. The Devil appeared in person. Heaven and Hell were rolled in from the wings. And the singing, wrote a contemporary critic, was 'stupendous, cataclysmic, overwhelming.'" p.43