Victor Paul Wierwille considers himself a pioneer in "the holy spirit field," stemming from the time he says he received holy spirit in Tulsa, Oklahoma on December 13, 1951. To make his story seem all the more miraculous to his followers, he claimed that he was snowbound in Tulsa. He said, "...there was a blizzard in Tulsa. All the planes were grounded. So I couldn't get a plane. I tried the trains-- they were all snowed in. The buses-- same thing. The city was snowbound. I just couldn't get out." (The Way-- Living in Love, p. 198).
However, Climatological Data for Oklahoma records that there was never a blizzard in Tulsa that whole month. There was a half inch of snow a week before and another half inch a week after Wierwille was there, but no snow whatsoever during the days he was there.
Wierwille's wife Dorothea recalled that week in a 1996 book of her memories of the Wierwilles' early years called Born Again to Serve. She also was in Tulsa that week and contradicts V.P. Wierwille. She never even implies that the planes, trains and buses were snowbound by a blizzard. Perhaps she couldn't bring herself to make a bald-faced lie as V.P. did. By this, she agrees that V. P. Was lying about the alleged blizzard.
But Mrs. Wierwille does suggest a scenario enough like V.P.'s to perhaps satisfy his followers who are all too ready to avoid seeing any faults in their "father in the Word." She suggests that there was snow in Chicago (700 miles from Tulsa!) and "sleet forecast in Tulsa by Thursday." (Born Again to Serve, p. 79)
However, the weather forecasts in the Tulsa Tribune newspaper contradict her, too! The high temperature for Dec. 12 (the day of the "blizzard") was 62 and the low 33-- absolutely preventing any snow. The forecast on the front page of the Tulsa Tribune predicted a high in the 40s on the 13th and no precipitation at all. This means that there was never any snow on the ground or in the air when the Wierwilles were in Tulsa. While Mrs. Wierwille's memory (or a ghost-writer's imagination) is a little closer to the truth than V. P.'s, it is still greatly in error.
V. P. Wierwille liked to mention "integrity" now and again. But blatant lies like this Tulsa snow fabrication shows that he placed inflation of his own image above respect for truth and fact. Mrs. Wierwille would have been wise to avoid mention of V. P.'s false claim about being "snowbound" rather than to become a party in the deception.
Copyright 1997, Dr. John P. Juedes, Highland CA
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