The Horrific Death of Mary Sheeler

The building where Mary Sheeler met her tragic fate.

 

Since the earliest days of Pennsylvania history, there have been congregations of fundamentalist Christians which refuse to permit the sick and dying among them to seek the services of a physician. They instead prefer to leave the healing in the hands of Jesus, and, if for some reason, the sick or injured fail to recover, they view it as a consequence of their own lack of faith, or their own shortcomings as believers. Although it's no one's business to say what religious beliefs one should hold, it is understandable how a community can become outraged when the unfortunate victim of a failed faith healing happens to be an innocent child. Such was the case of Mary Elizabeth Sheeler, who died in Lebanon County in 1920.

Mary Elizabeth Sheeler was the seven-year-old daughter of George and Alice Sheeler, of 715 Mifflin Street in the city of Lebanon. The Sheelers were dedicated members of the Faith Tabernacle Church, which still stands today on North Ninth Street, just a few blocks from the Sheeler home. The church operated its own school, which Mary attended. The church, which many locals viewed as a cult, was a branch of the Faith Tabernacle Church of Philadelphia and began operating in the city of Lebanon in February of 1912, holding services at 739 Cumberland Street, with Reverend George Foster as the first pastor. Two years later they would move into the building where Mary Sheeler met a horrible fate.

At eleven o'clock on the Thursday morning of December 2, 1920, Mary Sheeler was writing on the school blackboard, which was right next to an open heating grate, above the spot where the church's gas burner was located. Mary was so preoccupied with her writing that she didn't notice how close to the grate she was standing-- until it was too late. As she took a tiny step toward the grate, the bottom of her dress caught fire; the child was immediately engulfed in flames. 

The sight of their classmate suddenly turning into a human torch struck terror into the hearts of the other children, who ran from the building screaming. The screams attracted the attention of neighbors, who went inside the Faith Tabernacle Church to investigate. For the rest of their lives, they were never able to erase from their memory the horrible sight which greeted them. Writhing in agony on a couch was a little girl covered in ash and cinders. The sickening smell of singed hair and burnt flesh filled the building. 

After regaining their composure, the concerned neighbors asked if anyone had called a doctor, but the schoolteacher replied, "We don't believe in doctors. The Man Above is our healer." One of the neighbors notified the police department, and Chief of Police Cyrus Nye and Sergeant Edward McLaughlin arrived shortly before noon. They demanded to know why a physician hadn't been summoned, and were given the same reply. A few moments later the child's father, George Sheeler, entered the church, after learning of Mary's unfortunate accident. He, too, refused to call for a doctor or send for an ambulance, even though the hospital was just a few blocks away.

Threatened with immediate arrest, George Sheeler reluctantly telephoned Dr. Lincoln Reigel Light, who raced to the church. By the time he arrived, it was clear that an ambulance would not be necessary. "It's too late," he declared in a solemn tone. "I'm afraid there is no hope of saving her life." Nevertheless, Dr. Light ordered Mary removed to Good Samaritan Hospital, believing that the few hours the little girl had left should be made as comfortable as possible. Mary Elizabeth Sheeler drew her final breath at 5:45 that evening.

The Coroner's Investigation

The county coroner, Dr. John Joseph Light, viewed Mary's remains at Undertaker Thompson's funeral parlor the following morning, where he rendered a verdict of accidental death. He said that even if a doctor had been called in a timely manner, saving the child's life would've been impossible. While this may have been true, it did not stop the public from turning on the Sheeler family or the leaders of the Faith Tabernacle Church for their refusal to take immediate action. Meanwhile, county officials argued whether George Sheeler should be charged with a crime or not.

On Friday evening, December 3, members of the city board of education met to discuss the tragic death of Mary Sheeler. it was pointed out that, under Pennsylvania law, any church may conduct its own school and public school officials had no authority to intervene. Bowing to intense pressure, District Attorney Dawson W. Light announced that same day that he would file charges of neglect and cruelty against George Sheeler, though no formal action would take place until after Mary's funeral.

Mary's grave at Covenant Greenwood Cemetery (photo by Bruce Speck)

 

On Saturday, December 4, the remains of Mary Elizabeth Sheeler were laid to rest at Ebenezer Cemetery (now known as Covenant Greenwood Cemetery) in a white casket, following services at the home of her parents on Mifflin Street, which were officiated by Reverend Angus W. Law of the Faith Tabernacle Church. Interestingly, when Rev. Law passed away five months later after failing to seek treatment for a hernia, the coroner listed the cause of death as "involuntary suicide". 

True to his word, the district attorney swore out a warrant for George Sheeler's arrest on Monday morning, which was served by Constable John Kimmel. Sheeler was taken into custody without incident and held on $200 bail. His court date with Alderman Miller was set for Thursday afternoon. Ultimately, he was given a $25 fine. The case was closed and  Sheeler was sent on his way.

Coroner Light

Medicine for Me, but None for Thee

It's interesting to think about what might have been had the Sheelers placed their faith in men of science and medicine. While it's impossible to say whether or not Mary's life could have been saved, it's almost certain that the lives of three other Sheeler children might've been spared. Their son, Raymond, died at the age of seven in 1905. One daughter, Hilda, died at the age of four in 1912 from diphtheria, and yet another child of George and Alice Sheeler, an infant son named Titus, died of pneumonia in 1916, just four months after he was born. In 1915, eleven-year-old LeRoy Sheeler suffered a broken leg after being run over by a wagon loaded with three tons of fertilizer; although he would recover from this injury, the fact that the Sheelers denied their son medical treatment landed them on the front page of the Lebanon Daily News. 

However, it seems that their faith in faith healing must've wavered somewhere along the way. When George, who was a steelworker by trade, had his finger crushed between a rigger at the Bethlehem Steel plant, it was reported that the injury was treated not by God, but by Dr. John Walter. Yet when another church member, Paul Wilson, had his leg broken at the very same steel mill in 1925, he turned down medical treatment, even though his decision disqualified him from workmen's compensation.

After George Sheeler retired from the steelworking trade, he and his wife moved to Cleona to operate a small grocery store, and when his wife, Alice, began suffering from chest pains, George drove her not to church, but to the Good Samaritan Hospital, where she died from heart failure in 1944. The following year George was involved in a car accident and he left the treatment of his injuries to the medical professionals. When he died in 1957 at the age of 81, he drew his last breath not a Gospel revival meeting, but at the Lebanon County Hospital, where he had been a patient for several days. According to his obituary, George was still a member of the Faith Tabernacle Church right to the very end. After Mary's ghastly death in 1920, did he lose his faith? Or was it simply a case of "medicine for me, but none for thee"?

 

The Deadly Legacy of Faith Tabernacle

The death of Mary Elizabeth Sheeler was neither the first, nor the last, time that the Faith Tabernacle Church of Lebanon came under fire. In the spring of 1924, an outbreak of diphtheria infected the homes of several members of the congregation. Nine members died over a three-week period because they refused to seek medical attention, including four young children of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Roth and three members of the family of Mrs. Millie Wolf. The outbreak was kept in check only after the Board of Health stepped in, and when the smoke cleared, two teachers at the Faith Tabernacle school, Harriet Beidler and Rev. Edwin Winterbourne, were charged with nine counts each of admitting a student without a valid certificate of vaccination. The charges against Miss Beidler were eventually dropped, but Rev. Winterbourne was fined five dollars.

Faith Tabernacle spread to other Pennsylvania cities, where the public reaction was not too dissimilar to the reaction of Lebanon County residents. And, sometimes, the legal consequences of their theology were far more severe. In December of 1982, a high-profile case came out of Cambria County, when two members of the church, Linda and William Barnhart, were convicted of involuntary manslaughter after their son Jason died of a five-pound stomach tumor. That same year, Lebanon County officials investigated the death of a newborn at the home of two church members. The infant died of toxemia-- a condition easily prevented with regular prenatal care. The district attorney at the time, Robert Freeman, refused to file charges against the parents. This caused a police investigator to remark, "In the name of religion, we've allowed this baby to be sacrificed."

By this time, the public had seen enough. Ever since the 1970s, when a Faith Tabernacle couple from suburban Philadelphia buried five children before the age of two to untreated cystic fibrosis, concerned citizens began pushing for stronger laws protecting minors from the ravages of religious zealotry. Most of these attempts had failed, thanks in part to the efforts of the American Civil Liberties Union, whose attorneys defeated an unconstitutional Philadelphia County measure to create a registry chronicling the deaths of children due to a parent's refusal to seek medical treatment on religious grounds. 

In 1997, the Altoona branch of Faith Tabernacle came under fire from national media when Dennis Nixon as his wife Lorie stood trial after allowing a second child to die from an illness any doctor could have treated. Their 16-year-old daughter Shannon died the previous summer from diabetes, while her brother, Clayton, died in 1991 at the age of 8 from a simple inner ear infection. After Clayton's death, the Nixons were rewarded with probation and community service, while their church was rewarded with the words "Baby Killers" spray-painted on its walls by outraged residents. In their defense, the Nixons pointed out that they still had 11 other children, all of whom were in good health.

 

But this time, officials weren't about to let the Nixons get off with a slap on the wrist. The Nixons were convicted of involuntary manslaughter under aggravated circumstances by a Blair County jury, and although they begged the judge for leniency, they were handed a sentence which actually exceeded the maximum guidelines. Judge Norman Callan sentenced the Nixons to two-and-a-half to five years in state prison. Although attorneys for the Nixons appealed their conviction, the state Supreme Court upheld the conviction by a unanimous 7-0 decision.

More recently, the Philadelphia Faith Tabernacle faced renewed scrutiny from city officials after the 2002 New Year's Eve death of nine-year-old Benjamin Reinert, whose mother died the previous summer from an infection after a miscarriage. When the Philadelphia Daily News sought a statement from the boy's aunt, Lorraine Troutman, she told reporters, "Cursed be the man who trusts in man. You serve Satan if you go to a doctor." The medical examiner's office ruled that Benjamin died from lymphoblastic leukemia, a disease most children survive with early detection and treatment.

Benjamin's death followed in the wake of another Philadelphia Faith Tabernacle case in which Dean and Susan Heilman were sentenced to 17 months probation after their two-year-old son bled to death after cutting his foot on a piece of glass. In 1998, Daniel and Anne Marie Foster were sentenced to 14 years probation for failing to seek treatment for their young son's tumor. Thankfully, the Philadelphia courts intervened and ordered surgery; the child survived.

But the biggest rash of deaths among Philadelphia church members was the measles epidemic of 1991, which played out in an eerily similar fashion to the Lebanon County diphtheria outbreak of 1924. Six children from the Philadelphia congregation died.

But where does religious freedom end and religious persecution begin? Americans have been arguing over this question since the earliest days of our history, and, in recent years, the judicial system has taken the bold move of not only going after the parents who deny medical care to their children, but their pastors as well-- even if it means crossing county lines.

In February of 2017, after 2-year-old Ella Foster died from an easily treatable case of pneumonia, Berks County District Attorney John T. Adams filed charges against Ella's parents, as well as against their pastor, Reverend Rowland Foster, of the Lebanon Faith Tabernacle, the very same church where Mary Elizabeth Sheeler burned to death. While the parents lived in Upper Tulpehocken Township in Berks County, Reverend Foster (who was also the victim's grandfather) was a resident of Lebanon County.

 

But since Lebanon County officials had no interest in pursuing charges against what the Lebanon Daily News referred to as "a cult hiding in plain sight", Berks County intervened, charging the reverend with failure to report child abuse-- a third-degree felony. As one might expect, the charges against Reverend Foster were later dropped, but a Berks County jury found Ella's parents guilty of involuntary manslaughter and they were sentenced to five years' probation.

Despite dozens of preventable deaths among the Lebanon Faith Tabernacle's congregation over the past century, the church continues to operate, unfazed by the negative publicity, and unchallenged by county authorities. To date, the harshest punishment handed out by a Lebanon County judge was the twenty-five dollar fine levied against the father of Mary Elizabeth Sheeler. Depending on your point of view, this suggests that either Lebanon County is a national leader in the protection of religious freedom, or that the value of human life is dirt cheap in Lebanon County.  




Sources:

Lebanon Daily News. May 4, 1912.
Lebanon Daily News. Sept. 21, 1915.
Lebanon Evening Report. Dec. 3, 1920.
Lebanon Daily News. Dec. 3, 1920.
Lebanon Evening Report. Dec. 4, 1920.
Lebanon Evening Report. Dec. 6, 1920.
Lebanon Evening Report. Dec. 7, 1920.
Lebanon Evening Report. Dec. 9, 1920.
Lebanon Daily News. May 12, 1921.
Lebanon Semi-Weekly News. May 5, 1924.
Lebanon Evening Report. June 4, 1924.
Lebanon Daily News. July 10, 1957.
Lebanon Daily News. June 26, 1983.
Lebanon Daily News. April 21, 1997.
Tyrone Daily Herald. June 11, 1997.
Philadelphia Daily News. Jan. 23, 2003.
Harrisburg Patriot News. Jan. 23, 2003.
Lebanon Daily News. March 12, 2017.
Lebanon Daily News. April 26, 2018.