Maria Woodworth-Etter (1844-1924) started holding meetings

Maria Woodworth-Etter (1844-1924) started holding meetings in Ohio at the age of 35, and people flocked to these meetings. The Lord also called her to preach for the sick and that more people would come and be saved if she did. She did and became known as an healing evangelist and was licensed to preach in 1884.

Her husband became hostile to her work and started seducing the women attending Maria’s meetings. He also started drinking heavily. As a result of this, and an adulterous affair, Maria divorced him in 1891. He quickly remarried, but died of typhoid fever within a year and Maria conducted his funeral.

Years later, in 1902, Maria Woodworth would meet and marry a good christian man named Samuel Etter. In her latter years he would build the Maria Woodworth Tabernacle in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Maria traveled across America her whole life. She is being remembered for her healing miracles and preaching under a tent that she purchased in 1889 and that could seat 8000 people (but it was still too small for the crowds who could reach 25,000 some days).

She could preach for two hours straight and then minister healing. She became dubbed “the trance preacher” because of her trances and visions.

She would also have Spirit Baptisms attested by the evidence of Speaking in Tongues from the 1880s onward.

She was also arrested for preaching and ministering healing without a medical license but she was released after the testimonies of the souls that were healed under her ministry. Local psychiatrists said she was insane. An half-drunk armed mob surrounded her tent once but she simply commanded them to listen with the authority she had in Christ. The fear of the Lord fell upon the multitudes and they all listened to her.

In 1912, at the age of 68, her famous 5-month Dallas meeting with F. F Bosworth took place and she preached 3 times a day.

In 1914, Maria was present in Hot Springs during the organizing of the Assemblies of God.

She opened the Woodworth-Etter tabernacle in Indianapolis in 1918 and kept preaching until her death on September 16, 1924.