Zella McPherson

Zella McPherson would tell you, “I’m looking for his soon coming!” Her eyes sparkled as she said, “I give glory to God for His keeping power and for His hand that has been over me for so many years.”

That is no small statement for Mrs. Zella McPherson to make, who became one hundred years old on May 2, 1983. And what a wonderful testimony she has! Her cheerful spirit, her faithful prayers that encircle the globe—every aspect of her life—are a living proof of the promise given in Proverbs 3:1, 2: “Let thine heart keep my commandments: For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.”

Over one hundred years ago, Isaiah Hoople brought his family of seven children from Canada to Wisconsin and settled on a farm. It was there that Zella was born.

In another community, not far from the Hooples, the William McPhersons from Scotland also set up farming. As a young girl, Zella would go over to a Ladies Boarding House in this community to help watch the children of the woman in charge of the boarding house. One day she met Alan McPherson, the young son of the McPherson family. They were just children at the time, but a few years later Zella’s older sister married Alan’s brother. Close ties were established between the two families.

All I had to offer God was a broken heart and life, but praise God, I made the surrender.

Shortly after this, however, the McPherson family sold their farmland and moved to Canada. While in Canada, Alan went with his brother and Zella’s sister to hear a circuit-riding Methodist preacher who was traveling through their community. After attending one of his meetings, Alan was wonderfully saved. Of his conversion, he said, “The preacher had been saved only a little while but he had reality. His face shone as he told it. I had been going to church since a small child, but I had never heard a story like that. My heart was longing for just such victory. I saw my two sisters and aunt get this salvation, and they told me about their victory. All I had to offer God was a broken heart and life, but praise God, I made the surrender.

“I cried to God day and night for about a week. One night I knelt in my sister’s kitchen, and God saved my soul. I was on my knees only a few minutes when God answered, and forgave every sin I had committed. I stood up and said ‘You do not need to pray for me anymore, for the work is done.’ Jesus had broken the fetters and set me free.” Not long after this experience, when he was just 18 years old, he began preaching the Gospel.

During the time the McPherson family was in Canada, Isaiah Hoople in Wisconsin was becoming very much dissatisfied with the church he was attending, and began to search for a people who preached the whole Word of God. About the same time, Alan McPherson, along with Zella’s sister and her husband, decided to form a small evangelistic group. They felt the Lord calling them to return to Wisconsin to hold cottage meetings, telling of the wonderful things God had been doing for them since they had been saved in Canada.

One night, Zella, then 20, attended one of the little cottage meetings. After the service, she knelt and prayed, and was truly born again. The experience was real, and right from the first, Zella had no hesitation in telling what God had done for her. “When I told one of my school mates I had received a wonderful experience from the Lord, she laughed in my face,” Zella recounted later. “She told me it was impossible to live without sin. But I told her that the Lord had done this for me; that I had a real experience in my heart, and there was no doubt about it.”

Zella began traveling with her sister and husband and Alan McPherson, holding cottage meetings in different homes throughout the state of Nebraska. About a year later, Alan asked Zella to become his wife. She accepted, and they were married on a Saturday morning at 11 o’clock.

A simple luncheon followed the wedding ceremony, and then the new couple started out for Hastings, Nebraska, to hold a street meeting. On the way, a terrible storm came up. “That storm was so bad,” Zella relates with a chuckle, “that we had to drive our double buggy and our two horses into a farmer’s barn to wait out the storm.” When the storm ended, they continued on their way to Hastings and held their street meeting that night.

Jesus had broken the fetters and set me free.

Alan and Zella McPherson traveled extensively after their marriage, never staying long in one place. He played his mandolin and sang and preached—she sang duets with him and testified and played the street organ.

In 1907, Alan felt the need to attend a Christian Bible school. There was one in the community in Oklahoma where they were living, and Alan got acquainted with the man in charge of the college, a Mr. Alexander. He had attended the 1906 Azusa Street outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and told the McPherson’s about Florence Crawford and the baptism of the Holy Ghost. When the altar call was given at the end of the next service, Alan prayed and received his baptism. What a thrill that was to Zella! Several years before, she had received a like experience, but until that night she hadn’t known what she had received.

In 1909, Zella’s parents, the Hooples, moved to a small farm in Woodburn, Oregon. While they were there, some people came from the Apostolic Faith Church in Portland, where Mrs. Crawford had established a congregation, and pitched a tent in which to hold some Gospel meetings. Inspired by the testimonies and dedication of those people, the Hooples wrote to Zella and told her about it.

When they received this news, Alan and Zella sold their home and belongings to go to Portland, Oregon. They got as far as Trinidad, Colorado, when their finances ran out. Alan found work: he painted a house, and that gave them enough for train fare to Portland. They arrived in 1910, and the first Apostolic Faith service they attended was at a camp meeting.

During the next few years, Alan McPherson traveled to outside meetings with people from the Apostolic Faith Church—short evangelistic trips to different towns, and began to preach. While he was taking evangelistic trips and preaching, Zella—now the mother of three children—became the piano player for the Sunday school and also a teacher.

The doctors said it was a miracle for anyone 98 years of age to have her bones heal to where she could walk again.

Through the years, the McPhersons pastored a number of churches on the West Coast. When he died in 1964, she sold their home and moved to the Bay area of San Francisco where she is still (in 1983) a much-loved member of the congregation.

“The Lord has been so good to me and has taken care of me through these many years,” she says with a smile. “In the matter of health, I have had some wonderful healings. One time the Lord healed me when I was suffering with a painful attack of shingles. At another time, when I was in my 80’s, I took sick in the night and didn’t know what was wrong with me. I told our minister, ‘I don’t believe I will be out to church today as I am not feeling very well.’ It turned out to be a stroke, and later I was clear out—didn’t know a thing. I was taken to a hospital, and they had a hard time bringing me to. But God undertook. I have had no bad effects from that stroke.”

“Another time I fell in my apartment in San Francisco and broke my hip. The Lord undertook again and healed me. The doctors said it was a miracle for anyone 98 years of age to have her bones heal to where she could walk again. But I walk to church even now.”

And above all, she has the blessed hope of seeing Jesus: “I’m assured He will keep me until the end of my journey here on earth. I am looking for His soon coming, and want to be ready in that moment when the Trumpet sounds!”

What a testimony to the power of God to lead and direct in a life fully consecrated to Him! What an inspiration to others!