The Vanishing Messiah - The Life and Resurrections of Francis SCHL
The Vanishing Messiah - The Life and Resurrections of Francis SCHL
The Vanishing Messiah - The Life and Resurrections of Francis SCHL
ISSN 0003-4827
Copyright © 2017 State Historical Society of Iowa. This article is posted here for personal use,
not for redistribution.
Recommended Citation
Folk, Holly. "The Vanishing Messiah: The Life and Resurrections of Francis Schlatter."
The Annals of Iowa 76 (2017), 355-357.
Available at: https://doi.org/10.17077/0003-4827.12415
Hosted by Iowa Research Online
Book Reviews and Notices 355
Midwest, at the same time transcends the region with its strong trans-
national focus. The book is local, state, regional, and international history.
In evaluating Good Seeds, one begins with the title, which suggests
seed-based agriculture. This perspective is certainly accurate for corn,
but one might recall that potatoes, although they produce seeds, are
usually propagated by “eyes.” The emphasis on seeds likewise accords
with the wild rice that was important to the diets of the Menominee into
the twentieth century. Of course, the emphasis on wild rice extends
treatment beyond the cultivated species of Africa and Asia.
Good Seeds provides an important study of foodways in the upper
Midwest, treatment that others might well extend to Iowa and other
parts of the Midwest. Indeed, remarking about his residence in Kansas,
Weso trains his eye on foodways of the lower Midwest so that a balanced
treatment emerges. Given the centrality of the potato and corn to the di-
ets of the Menominee, one wonders whether similar patterns emerge in
Iowa and other parts of the Midwest. In these ways, Good Seeds should
command the attention of many scholars.
The social marginality of lay healers has often cast twin shadows—of
charlatanry and altruistic spirituality—on their social presentations.
The Vanishing Messiah challenges readers by blending these categories.
David N. Wetzel’s biography of Frances Schlatter, a Progressive Era faith
healer, charts the author’s travel to archives and historic sites that reveal
Schlatter’s story. Wetzel’s narrative journey beautifully depicts the expe-
rience of historic research. His proposed alternative ending for Schlatter’s
story chronicles what Wetzel believes was Schlatter’s later life, offering
interesting speculations about the healer’s character, and thereby the
nature of religious healing.
An Alsatian immigrant, Francis Schlatter arrived in Colorado in 1892.
In the fall of 1895 he held nationally publicized healing crusades in Al-
buquerque and Denver that delivered healing blessings to tens of thou-
sands of people. Because of his physical appearance, refusal to accept
payment for healing blessings, and claim that healing came “from the
Father,” Schlatter came to be seen as a Christ-like figure.
356 THE ANNALS OF IOWA
stand. Finally, two photos that Wetzel believes are actually of the same
person are reprinted in his book. Readers can draw their own conclu-
sions, but to me the two men do not look remotely like each other.
In the late nineteenth century, people could still disappear for months
and even years. Despite the proliferation of newspapers and government
records, there is often limited information for reconstructing biographies,
with available sources often containing inaccuracies. Add to this delib-
erate disambiguation, as many people changed important details in their
identities. Ambiguities in Schlatter’s biography resemble those sur-
rounding chiropractic’s founder, Daniel David Palmer, whose life also
presents a tantalizing but broken paper trail. In fact, several aspects of
Schlatter’s story resonate with the early chiropractic movement, where
boosters of the profession interwove themes of health, commerce, and
entertainment.
I enjoyed reading The Vanishing Messiah, for the narrative style is
engaging. And, in fact, I enjoyed the interpretive questions presented
by the task of reviewing it. Although he probably has not definitively
solved the Schlatter mystery, David Wetzel effectively shares the joy of
intellectual discovery.