The Vanishing Messiah: The Life and Resurrections of Francis Schlatter by David N. Wetzel

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Vanishing Messiah: The Life and Resurrections of Francis Schlatter by David N. Wetzel Susanne Bloomfield KEY WORDS Francis Schlatter, 19th century, 20th century, U. S. history, resurrection, healing practices, healing, biography, spiritualism, messianism, imposters david n. wetzel. The Vanishing Messiah: The Life and Resurrections of Francis Schlatter. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2016. Pp. xiv+280. I first became interested in Francis Schlatter while researching the 1890 writings of Elia Peattie, journalist for the Omaha World Herald. News of his amazing healing powers in Denver filled the Nebraska newspapers, especially when a Union Pacific supervisor from Omaha was “cured” and offered free railroad passes to all of his employees and their immediate families. I wish David N. Wetzel’s biography, The Vanishing Messiah: The Life & Resurrections of Francis Schlatter had been available when I was doing my own research, as a resource as well as a model of good biography. As a biographer of nineteenth-century subjects myself, I am greatly impressed by The Vanishing Messiah on many levels. First, a good biography must have a subject who has made an impact on the world in some way and is a unique individual in his or her own right. Schlatter, the Alsatian immigrant who arrived in America in 1884 and worked as a shoemaker in New York, became one of the most sensational healers in United States history. A Messiah, a miracle worker, or simply a conman, his life is intrinsically intriguing. Next, a biographer must undertake wide-ranging research. Wetzel has unearthed little-known information about Schlatter’s adolescence in Alsace, Paris, and London, and especially his early connections in New York. Once Schlatter became famous, information about him was widespread and prolific, and Wetzel had to sort through newspaper and magazine articles that ranged from the 1890s through the 1940s as well as analyze contemporary and modern books about his life and writings. His research is meticulous. In fact, in addition to extensive endnotes and illustrations, Wetzel has added a “Survey of Prior Works,” an informal annotated bibliography. He explains, “the body of work about him warrants documentation if only because it reveals wide differences in how historians and biographers approach a legendary subject” (265). However, discovering and researching all of this material, sifting through and evaluating it, selecting what to include in the biography, and then deciding how to organize it is a monumental task, but Wetzel excels here, too. [End Page 481] Wetzel has divided Schlatter’s biography into two parts. Part One documents the known facts about the life and wanderings of Schlatter until his mysterious disappearance from Denver on March 13, 1895. While in Denver, he treated thousands of people a day with some reports claiming he treated seven to twenty thousand total who came from all across the West and Midwest. Amazingly, he charged nothing for his healing and would not even take donations. After his departure, he was sighted in several small towns where he healed people as he headed south. He eventually ended up at the Datil, New Mexico, ranch of Ada Morley, who became an avid disciple, and who compiled and edited his book, The Life of the Harp in the Hands of the Harper. He spent the winter with her, and then on March 29, 1896, he headed south into Mexico. Nothing was heard about him until the announcement of his death in June 1897. A Mormon cowboy supposedly found his skeleton and possessions at the top of Tinaja Canyon. Morley never accepted his death, for he had told her, “They will find my clothes . . .but they will not find me” (123). She even went to Mexico to examine the skull but declared that it was not his since it had a full set of teeth. Besides, he had promised her that he would return in three years. Part One ends as Wetzel himself travels to the site of Schlatter’s presumed death and begins his own wanderings in search of the truth of what happened to the famous healer. Part Two is a “Biographical Quest” as Wetzel runs down leads into what might have happened to Schlatter. Did he really die, or was that...