Nita Kay Shoemake was born in Okmulgee, Oklahoma on Jan 14, 1942. Her father, Elder Voar Shoemake and his wife Blanche Kilgore Shoemake pastored a church in the nearby city of Morris, Oklahoma.
When Nita was ten years old, the family moved to San Jose, California. Nita graduated from Campbell High School in 1960. Soon she met the extraordinary evangelist, Rev. Verbal Bean, and two years later they were married.
Theresa Shomberg DeMerchant was born in Steven’s Point, WI in December 1935. Her father was a carpenter and her mother helped take care of the farm with her siblings. She had four brothers and two sisters. Her family was Catholic….
Thetus Tenney was born on December 22, 1934. She has been involved in ministry for many years, starting in her early teens organizing a children’s backyard Bible club, conducting vacation Bible schools, and teaching Sunday school.
On a cold evening in December 1932 in East Texas—in a very large and mostly empty farm house—a young, sixteen-year-old mother-to-be awaited delivery of her first child. The only heat was from a fireplace and a wood stove. The doctor, elderly and patient, slow and not to be rushed, delivered a loud and healthy child, Bobbye Jean Blizzard.
Joy Leanette McDonald was born April 8, 1942, to T.R. and Margaret McDonald. They received the Holy Ghost and were baptized in Jesus’ name in 1945 when he returned home from serving in the US Navy in World War II. They became sold out to God, and they raised their children on prayer and Bible reading, getting them up at 6:00 AM every morning. This habit has stayed with her, her entire life.
Janet Trout has pastored churches, co-pastored churches, been an appointed missionary, set up non-profit organizations to help people in emotional and crisis times of life, and established Bible colleges via video curriculum all around the world, including Israel. She has served on boards in businesses, including chair on the board of trustees of Urshan Graduate School of Theology and Urshan College.
My parents and grandparents received the Holy Ghost in 1917-1918 under an Assembly of God evangelist, Johnny Higgenbotham. He remained their “circuit rider” pastor for several months in a small community called Union, some ten or fifteen miles southeast of Tupelo, Mississippi.
An Interview with LaJoyce Martin
Q: Sister Martin, would you mind telling us how old you are?
A: Not at all! I’m 69.95 plus tax. And the tax is getting rather steep!
Q: Would you say your childhood was quite normal?
A: For one year it was. Then my dad got called to preach..
Earlene Carnley, who was born in Texas in 1930, and married at age fifteen in 1946, began her ministry as the singer/piano player complementing her husband’s evangelistic ministry. She did not feel the call to the pulpit ministry as a young bride, but she did feel the call to do whatever was needed to get the gospel out to whoever would listen.
How do you describe a legend? How do you capture with words the magnificence of spirit that is Vesta Layne Mangun? Our best attempts always seem to fall short.
She was born into the family of R. D. Gibson, a pioneer of the Gospel in East Texas, as was his father before him.
Loretta Artigue was not raised Pentecostal. Her father was French and Catholic, and her mother was of Irish-German descent and Baptist. Edward Artigue was expelled from his family for marrying a Protestant and left the family home to set down roots near Port Allen, Louisiana. He passed away when Loretta was eleven years of age.
Catherine Chambers has often been introduced to audiences as the Queen Mother of the United Pentecostal Church. Indeed she is a lady of royalty. She carries herself with great dignity and beauty at the age of eighty-nine. Her love for people and her love for her church make her the queen that she is.
