Rheba Crawford

Crawford was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,[2] the daughter of Andrew Crawford and Isabella Clark Crawford. Both parents were active in the Salvation Army, a Christian denomination aligned with the Wesleyan-holiness movement.[3][4] Her mother died in 1903, and her father remarried. She was raised mainly in Georgia and California,[5] and she attended school in Sacramento.[6]

Roberta Semple, Aimee Semple McPherson, and Rheba Crawford in a 1935 parade

Crawford was briefly a reporter at the Atlanta Constitution as a young woman. In the 1920s, she edited the Salvation Army publication The Young Soldier, at the church's national headquarters in New York, and was called "the Angel of Broadway"[7] because she was a constant[8] and striking presence at prohibition and moral hygiene rallies in Times Square.[9] After she was arrested in 1922 for blocking traffic, she resigned from Salvation Army work.[1][4] The character of Sarah Brown in the 1950 musical Guys and Dolls is based in part on Crawford in these years.[6][10]

Crawford was appointed director of the California State Department of Social Welfare in 1931,[11][12] and held office until 1934,[13] when she became assistant pastor at the Angelus Temple.[3][14] She became a popular if controversial preacher from the Angelus pulpit,[15] and gave "reckless, explosive" political sermons on local radio broadcasts.[10] Her work supporting Angelus head pastor Aimee Semple McPherson soon became contentions, and by 1937 the pair exchanged multiple public accusations of libel, slander, blackmail and defamation,[16][17] in what Time magazine called "an ugly squabble".[18] McPherson settled with Crawford, out of court, for an undisclosed sum.[1][10] Crawford founded a new church in 1936, with plans for expansion.[19][20]

In her later years, Crawford worked with the Los Angeles County Department of Senior Citizens Affairs.[3]

Crawford married three times. Her first husband was a newspaper publisher, John Harold Sommers; they married in 1924[5] and divorced in 1928.[21] Her second husband was stockbroker Raymond Bachelder Splivalo; they married in 1930,[22] and he died in 1937. Her third husband was rancher Arthur Lawrence Lambertz; they married in 1948.[23] She died from meningitis in 1966, aged 67 years, in Los Angeles.[3] Her grave is in Inglewood Park Cemetery in California.

• "Evangelists Roberta Semple, Rheba Crawford, and Harriet Jordan awaiting pastor Aimee Semple McPherson of Angelus Temple, Los Angeles, 1936" (photograph), UCLA Library