Edward F. Smith

Edward F. Smith told an interviewer that the Azusa Street revival took place in 1006, the same year as the earthquake. Smith said, "God shook the earth and he shook religious world, all at the same time." Smith, himself, got saved in 1907. He had been a member of the Christian church which he described as "dead." After his conversion, he attended the Upper Room Mission pastored by Elmer Fisher. George Studd, brother to the famous missionary C. T. Studd, was an assistant at the Upper Room. Smith received the Holy Spirit baptism at the Upper Room in 1909 after many people had left Azusa to attend there.

Smith was employed by the Edison Company, but left there in 1943. He then pastored an Assemblies of God church in Los Angeles for almost 40 years.

Smith's wife was a cousin of A. G. Osterburg. She received her Holy Ghost baptism in Chicago on December 31, 1906.

Osterburg, a Los Angeles builder, helped prepare the mission for meetings. He later became a leader in the fledgling Assemblies of God in Southern California.

Smith described the Azusa meetings, "So, it was an open meeting. They’d come and when they got there they’d start singing and after a while more would come and they’d sing and sing. Then, the people would begin to be filled with the Holy Spirit. They had an upstairs. They’d pray. Some would be upstairs, maybe praying and being filled with the Holy Ghost upstairs…and the whole place. The whole yard was filled with criticizers; they’d come to see it. See. Many people had come to see the outpouring and to hear the heavenly music which I haven’t heard yet. I don’t know where you hear like that. It was without notes. There was heavenly music like Dr. Ebie tells that he heard in heaven. See. And that’s what they had was those heavenly anthems which was without words like Ebie heard later years. And so that’s the way they sang. They also sung ordinary songs, but that was one of the outstanding things. And then miracles were done. All kinds of healings…people saved from liquor and all those habits like opium and whatever was the matter with them…disease…they were saved and healed. And it was a regular Holy Ghost revival that got started as I say in April and it went on for a couple of years full speed you might say."

The ethnic diversity of the meetings was described by Smith, saying, "Then it was colored people, see? Now, that Seymour was a colored man and there was lots of colored people and lots of Germans, Swedes, Italians, Mexicans and well, various races. The Finish people, of course. Germans, I mentioned that. I can’t just off hand remember all their names. But…anyway, it was just from everywhere and from every kind of a church."

By the third year of the revival, Smith said, "Azusa still carried on in a very small way. Really most of the colored people that stayed with it. A lot of the colored people left and went other places, but it was still Seymour’s church." Smith insinuates that the African-Americans at the mission wanted more "authority" and that is why many left the mission.

Smith also mentions the controversy with Florence Crawford. Many say that Crawford crippled the mission when she moved to Portland, Oregon and took some of the Azusa mailing list. Smith says she went "north and took a printing press." If his recollection is correct, it adds very important information to this often debated issue.

Information for this bio is gleaned from an interview at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center in Springfield, Missouri. If you have any further information on Edward F. Smith, if you have a photograph, or if you are a descendent, please contact us at info@azusastreet.org.

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