The Booze Runners

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

I was just up to Wisconsin to visit family. We stayed at the old farm house that my aunt and uncle now reside. They are Nancy and Jerry Mankowski. My grandparents were dairy farmers there. You can read related posts called, "The escape from the Mob," and "FBI crackdown," "The Pistol."

My grandfather, Ed Mankowski, was a booze runner for the Capone crime family in Chicago.  He ran with his brother, Frank Mankowski. Frank was also an enforcer for the Capone's.

Other teams would smuggle the booze out of Canada, and bring it down to the north side of Chicago. The smugglers would deposit the booze at restaurants though out north Chicago, for safe keeping.

Ed and Frank would drive a truck to one of the restaurants, park and walk in and drink coffee and pie  Sometime during the evening, the manager would nod at them. That meant that their truck was loaded and ready to roll!

Ed did the driving and Frank was there with a tommy gun!  That's how he got the nickname of "Tommy Gun Frank!". They would transport the booze to Capone warehouses on the south side of Chicago. Other teams would then deliver it to the many secret casinos and speakeasy's on Chicago's south side.

William James Roop, M.A.B.S.

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FBI Crackdown

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

I flew up to Wautoma, Wisconsin, to visit my aunt and uncle. They are Jerry and Nancy Mankowski. While I was there, Jerry told me many stories, here's one. Also other related posts are, "The escape from the mob," and "The booze runner,"  "The Pistol."

My grandfather, Ed Mankowski, and his brother Frank, both work for the Al Capone crime family, in Chicago, Illinois, in the nineteen-thirties. Ed was a booze runner, and Frank was also a booze runner, but also an enforcer. They also had a sister who worked as a dance hall girl.

Running booze for the crime family was one thing, but being also an enforcer for the Capone's was another thing altogether! Frank did a lot of the dirty work for the Capone's.

Just after the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago, the Mayor called in the FBI to clean things up, due to the bad press. Everyone knew that they would soon have to lay low for awhile. 

After the massacre and before the FBI got settled in, a lot of score settling took place between the gangs of the city.  Frank got mixed up with that, and fled to California with his sister. Ed left in nineteen-forty-two to a farm in Wisconsin.

William James Roop, M.A.B.S.

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Testimony Of Healing

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This is a testimony of Mrs. May Evans, of her healing, and published in the newsletter of the Azusa Street Mission, in Los Angeles, California, in 1906.

Thirteen years ago, I was brought into the light of Divine healing, through the Word of God. I had never heard any teaching from man. But I had been for a long time very greatly afflicted and body. I had taken physicians and medicine until I became discouraged and continued to grow worse, till I decided to drop every remedy and take the Lord for my healer.

To this my people would not give consent. They thought I was losing my mind. One morning, through a nurse, I was chloroformed and taken out of my home to the hospital where they performed an operation. After the physicians had cut and slashed, and found that the seat of the trouble, was deeper than they anticipated, they lost courage and said it was impossible for me to recover.

It was only a question of a few hours that I could possibly live. My husband was away in God's work at the time, and my people became alarmed, and realized what they had done, and decided to take me back to my home to die. But, praise God, He had another plan in store for me.

I did not regain consciousness for many hours, I opened my eyes in my own room, and heard them praying around my bed. Then I realized my dreadful situation and in the most excruciating agony, I lifted my eyes to heaven and saw a light streaming down upon me. And in a moment, I heard the voice of Jesus telling me to trust Him, that he was my healer.

I said, "yes, Lord, I do trust thee and will trust thee, for thou hast healed me and healed me now." Then there was a wonderful joy that came into my very being, and I felt the Spirit and the healing power of Christ permeating my whole being, praise God. In three days time I was up and around my room, and in less than a week I was able to walk a mile. Never from that time have I doubted the healing power of Jesus. Since then, for thirteen years I have been in the Lord's work.

Well I wish to relate another instance of His healing power. While in Oakland, California, during last August, through an accident, God permitted the old trouble to come back, and from Saturday evening until Tuesday noon I suffered intensely. At noon time, we always held our workers' class there, and it was during the saints' meeting, I had a wonderful spirit of prayer, and I tried to say, "Jesus is here," and found I had no utterance, but he was present in my soul. The spirit of prayer continued on me until 2:30. Where the Lord permitted me to raise my eyes, I saw a vision of beautiful, rolling clouds, and Jesus suspended in the midst, and just then I realized that He was there for my healing.

Sister Crawford and Sister Junk who were with me also saw Jesus, and God revealed to them he had come to heal me. I felt the healing work of Jesus. Many of you loved ones have seen the mason lift up his trowel the mortar, and throw it up on the wall that he was building, and just so it seemed to me that the Great Physician was rebuilding the temple of my body. 

O Hallelujah! Praise His name.  O, I know that He is the only physician that can heal all our diseases. All the afternoon and evening, no matter which way I turned, the form of my Savior was suspended in front of me, and I wish ever to behold the smile of this countenance as I saw him on that day.  My healing was instantaneous, and today I rejoice in a perfect body.

Signed, Mrs. May Evans.

William James Roop, M.A.B.S.

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Visions Of Hell

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

This is a vision of hell that was told by Brother Thomas Junk, It was recorded by William J Seymour, and his newsletter of the Azusa Street Mission, in Los Angeles, California, in 1906.

A sister who has been baptized with the Holy Ghost, was at a church where the evangelist denounced the works of Grace, the baptism with the Holy Ghost and the gift of tongues. That evening she says the Lord showed her a vision of an open hill just back of the pulpit, with the awful, lurid flames coming up, and people sitting around the altar with their feet hanging over into the open hell, unconscious of their condition.

Brother Thomas Junk, while in Oakland, had a vision of hell. He seemed to leave his body and was taken to the top of Knob Hill, in the midst of the ruins of San Francisco. The Savior commanded him, "Son of man, speak." As soon as he spoke, the ground at his feet parted and moved from him, disclosing a liquid fire, like molten iron, with demons and men and women in flames. 

He says there came to him an awful fume of burning sulfur and he heard the screams of the damned, which were heart-rending. All around the edges of the great opening, people were walking, unconscious of the open pit, and a continual stream of them were falling into the lake of fire. He beheld them splashing into the fire, and heard the laugh of demons as each struck the fire.

While beholding all this, he saw a woman he had known for some time, a professor of holiness and one who took a prominent part in testimony in prayer, running towards the opening, looking too high to see it. She dashed right over into the flames, and a shout went up from the demons, with such roars of laughter as he had never heard before.

Brother Junk had been an infidel, and since his conversion could not believe the scripture statements concerning hell, and had been teaching that the sufferings of the lost would be remorse and spiritual distress, but not fire. As he looked on the scene, Jesus Christ told him to preach a hell of fire, just as it is in the Word of God and he promised to do so.

But next Sabbath that professor of holiness was in the meeting as an opposer, insisting that she was filled with the Holy Ghost, but that his work was the work of seducing spirits and of the doctrine of devils.

The above incidents are taken from the Household of God, and many will remember Brother Junk, who was with us in Los Angeles.

William James Roop, M.A.B.S. 

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Editors Receive The Pentecost

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

This is a testimony recorded by William J Seymour, and his newsletter of the Azusa Street Mission, in Los Angeles, California, in 1906.

Rev. T. G. Attebury, pastor of the People's Church, Sixth and Mateo streets, Los Angeles, and who has for years been the publisher of The Evangelist, has received his Pentecost. His wife and a number of his congregation have also received the Holy Ghost, and the church is a center of fire. He says:

"Perhaps no religious movement in the history of this coast has proved of greater interest to the Christian world than that begun and carried on by the Azusa Street Mission of this city under the leadership of Reverend W. J. Seymour.  The special manifestations of the Spirit in the meetings conducted there have deeply interested the Christian workers of all denominations, so that great crowds throng the building at every service to hear and see the things that are being done.

The leaders of this movement teach that all the gifts of the Spirit, as enumerated by the Apostle Paul in the twelfth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthian church, are for the church today that these gifts are in the Holy Spirit and that when He comes to dwell in his fullness in a human heart he brings all these gifts with him. They contend that only lack of faith will hinder the Spirit from manifesting all of these gifts through every life that is wholly surrendered to the will of God.

Another teaching peculiar to this movement is that the scriptural evidence that one has been baptized with the Holy Spirit is the gift of tongues, such as the church in Jerusalem receive in the day of Pentecost. That large numbers in this mission, and also in other missions and churches of this city and vicinity, have received the gift of tongues cannot be doubted."

William James Roop, M.A.B.S.

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The Faith Way

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

This is a short story about walking in faith, told by William J Seymour, in his newsletter of the Azusa Street Mission, published in Los Angeles, California, 1906.

While Sister Crawford was praying for money to send workers to Oakland, the Lord gave her a vision of three bills she would receive and she received three five dollar bills. Then when praying about her fair to Salem, Oregon, she saw three gold pieces and sure enough she received the gold pieces.

The Pentecostal Way is to make your request known to God, and to God alone, and truly it is a safe way, as we have tested and proved it. It is a way that honors God, It is the Bible way, It is the only safe way to go out, that is to walk with the Lord by the Light of His Word.

William James Roop, M.A.B.S.

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Brother Ryan Receives His Pentecost

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

This testimony was published by the Azusa Street Mission newsletter, in November of 1906, by William J Seymour. It is the testimony of M. L. Ryan.

Rev. M. L. Ryan, a holiness evangelist and editor of Light, Salem, Oregon, hearing the good news from Los Angeles, suddenly dropped in at the Azusa Street publishing office. After a few words of greeting, he went into the upper room meeting and in about two hours after he arrived, he was baptized with the Holy Ghost and spoke and sang in the power of the Spirit. He has returned to Salem and a band of Spirit-filled workers have gone to Salem to help in a Pentecostal meeting there. Brother Ryan says:

"Little did I think that God had such a rich experience for so unworthy a person as myself. When I arrived in Los Angeles I had my mind made up that I must seek for the Pentecostal baptism at least one week before receiving it. To my unutterable surprise and joy the power fell upon me at once. The Holy Ghost prayed and spoke through me in tongues. One of the blessed privileges that conferred upon me was a place in that heavenly choir, The songs of which defy all power of human to imitate. Hallelujah for His unspeakable gift."

Signed, M. L. Ryan.

William James Roop, M.A.B.S.

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