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'P' is for Perry, Maddie Elmina (1868-1957)

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"P" is for Perry, Maddie Elmina (1868 to 1957). Healing Evangelist, a native of Oconee County. Perry grew up in Greenville and Spartanburg Counties. At age 12, she was converted at the Bethel camp meeting and dedicated herself to God. She began working at the 12 mile campground in Pickens, praying and working for those seeking salvation. After completing studies at Williamston Female College, she applied to the Methodist Church to do city missionary work. The Methodist Board of Commissions then turned down her application to be a missionary in China, so she began to hold revivals with various holiness evangelists around South Carolina and Georgia. Perry recorded meetings in Columbia, Dillon, Latta, Brownsville, and McCall, as well as elsewhere across the country. From 1898 to 1926, Maddie Elmina Perry ran the El Hanahan Orphanage for Poor Children in Marion, North Carolina.

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Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.