F. F. Bosworth

==Early years==

===Nebraska===
F. F. Bosworth was one of five children who grew up living on prairies in [[Nebraska]] in a devout Methodist home.  His father was a [[American Civil War|Civil War]] veteran (part of an Illinois company), who moved to Utica, Nebraska after the Civil War was over, but before F. F. Bosworth was born.  When F. F. Bosworth was about 8 or 9 years old, he accompanied his father to a soldier's reunion, where he first saw a [[cornet]] being played.  After Bosworth was given a baby pig by his uncle, he raised it, traded a couple of animals, and was eventually able to trade for a cornet.  He became a self-taught musician.  He began playing in a juvenile village band; then he played in the senior village band.  When Bosworth was around 10 or 11 years old, his parents moved from Utica to University Place, Nebraska (a places noted for higher education among Methodists in the region). He became a member of the local band and then played a leading part in the Nebraska state band and local literary societies.  In 1893, at age 16, he left home.<ref name = FredFrancisBosworth>{{cite book
  | last = Perkins
  | first = Eunice M.
  | authorlink = Eunice M. Perkins
  | title = Fred Francis (Joybringer) Bosworth - His Life Story
  | publisher = Bosworth
  | edition = 2
  | year = 1927}}</ref>

In late 1893 or early 1894, while at a visit in Omaha, he attended a revival meeting with female friend; she convinced him to become born again. He later described the experience as joyful.<ref name="LifeStory">{{cite book
  | last = Bosworth
  | first = F.F.
  | authorlink = F.F. Bosworth
  | title = Bosworth's Life Story - the Life Story of F.F. Bosworth
  | publisher = Alliance Book Room
  | date = c. 1920
  | location = Alliance Tabernacle, Toronto }}</ref> and the book "Fred Francis Bosworth - His Life Story"<ref name="FredFrancisBosworth"/>

===Health and healing===
Bosworth initially developed lung problems when he was 10 or 11 years old, shortly after his parents moved to University Place, Nebraska.  This occurred when he got overheated in a hot room helping with a friend's operation, then went to the cold outside and got a chill.  The lung problems continued for the next eight years,<ref name="FredFrancisBosworth"/><ref name="LifeStory"/><ref name="masshealing">{{cite book
  | last = Bosworth
  | first = Fred
  | title = "Mass Healing" (audio recording)
  | date = 1954-07-21 }}</ref> getting significantly worse when he was a young man (age 18 or 19), when the doctors diagnosed [[tuberculosis]] and  said that he would soon die.  Bosworth then went from Nebraska to his parents' new home in Fitzgerald Georgia for a last visit and arrived in a near-death state.  While there he attended a religious meeting and was approached by an older [[Methodist]] "Bible woman" who "used to walk the hills of [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]] and [[the Carolinas]] selling Bibles and preaching the [[gospel]]."  The account written by Bosworth's son in a later printing of "Christ the Healer" says: "She prayed for him, he got up, and he was instantly healed."<ref name="christthehealer">{{cite book
  | last = Bosworth
  | first = Fred
  | authorlink = F. F. Bosworth
  | title = Christ the Healer
  | publisher = Revell
  | date = 2001
  | orig-date = 1924
  | isbn = 0-8007-5739-4 }}</ref>
Another account, published many years earlier, adds further details to this healing.  It says "Miss Perry told him how lovingly ready God was to make him well ... and laying her hands on him she prayed that he might be healed.  From that self-same hour Fred began to mend, until, ere many days, his lung trouble was already a thing of the past."<ref name="FredFrancisBosworth"/>

===Fitzgerald, Georgia===
Around 1895, after Bosworth had left home, his parents moved from Nebraska to Fitzgerald, Georgia, where a Union Soldiers colony had been started.<ref>Barnes III, Roscoe (2007). Why F. F. Bosworth and His Family Moved to Fitzgerald, Ga.

https://www.academia.edu/2281739/Why_F._F._Bosworth_and_His_Family_Moved_to_Fitzgerald_Ga</ref>  In late 1895 or early 1896 Bosworth's health was rapidly growing worse and the lung problems, which began shortly after his family moved to University place (eight years before), were getting worse.  Doctors said he did not have long to live, so he took what he thought would be his final trip to see his parents.  His mother nurtured his health back to a point where he could get around, and he claimed to have been miraculously healed at a religious meeting in Fitzgerald.  According to ''Joybringer Bosworth'', after his healing Bosworth became an active member of the community in Fitzgerald, buying then operating a barber shop for some time, working assistant postmaster for over a year (less than two years), then he was elected as City Clerk (a position he held for two years).  In Fitzgerald he married at the age of 23 (his wife was the daughter of another Civil War veteran), and right after he was married he ran afoul of local politics by supporting someone else who was running on a prohibition platform, resulting in his not being re-elected as City Clerk at an election held shortly after his marriage.  After this he became a bookkeeper, then a teller, at the new bank in the city, then worked for a mercantile company owned by the bank.  In Fitzgerald, Bosworth had begun and directed a band, and had gained the respect of the band members to the extent that they tried to apply Bosworth's values to their lives.<ref name="FredFrancisBosworth"/><ref name="LifeStory"/>

===Zion, Illinois===
A year or so after they were married, after seeing copies of Dowie's newsletter, Bosworth and his wife moved to [[Zion, Illinois]] (then called Zion City), a theocratic, utopian town where modern medicine was banned and only faith healing was allowed.  When he went to Zion City, he began to play his cornet again, this time in [[John Alexander Dowie]]'s church, where he was soon made the band director.  It appears that he first met [[John G. Lake]] at Zion City, and they would be close friends for several years. During 1905-6 Dowie's empire collapsed as millions of dollars went missing and it ended up in bankruptcy under the control of the courts. With many of Dowie's frauds emerging in the face of lengthy court proceedings, Bosworth gave up hope in Dowie.<ref>Perkins, Life of Bosworth, 38.</ref>

In September 1906, though, Bosworth and his friend John G Lake were attracted to the Pentecostal message of [[Charles Parham]], who set up a large tent in Zion and tried to attract disaffected Dowieites.<ref>S. Parham, The Life of Charles F. Parham: Founder of the Apostolic Faith Movement (Baxter Springs, KS: Apostolic Faith bible College, 1930), 148-60, 171-7.</ref>  Bosworth was one of half a dozen people whose homes became meeting places for the early Pentecostal believers.<ref name="fieldswhite">{{cite book
  | last = Goff
  | first = James R.
  | authorlink = James R. Goff
  | title = Fields White Unto Harvest
  | publisher = [[University of Arkansas Press]]
  | year = 1988
  | isbn = 1-55728-025-8 }}</ref> Before long a number of the new "Parhamites" were speaking in tongues, and the group grew to several hundred strong. The group was led by an Azusa Street Revival transplant Tom Hezmalhalch and Lake. Despite being persecuted by Dowie's successor, W.G. Voliva, the Perhamites remained intact for about a year.

In the late 1900s, Parham was hampered by controversial allegations of Sodomy, said to have been stirred by his Zion city opponent W.G. Voliva. The case was later dismissed as lacking evidence.
According to Kenyon's daughter, Rose, Bosworth and Dowie met Kenyon during a trip to Chicago. Bosworth and Lake became acquaintances with Hezmalhalch when Lake was seeking baptism of the Holy Spirit. Thereafter, Lake and Hezmalhalch became ministry partners and embarked on a few years of successful ministry together. Before he went to Indiana, Lake had been led by the spirit of God to dispose his considerable estate to charitable trusts and to trust God for finances.