Wife of Anal....er, Oral Roberts has croaked

http://www.ktul.com/news/stories/0505/225890.html

This interests me because their youngest son was a good friend of mine in high school...he committed suicide not long after we graduated and I'm certain I know why. :grr:

it opens with this insane marching band type sound and the young Roberts crooning "Gaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwd is a goooooooooooood gaaaaaaaaawd" in an incredibly ridiculous voice. Perfect "clear the room, get out of my house you hooligans" type of music.

Richard? Or was it Ralph... gotta check - he's got DEVO hair on the cover.

edit:

Oral Roberts paved the way for Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Jim Bakker and the rest of the religious charlatans.

Ronnie (my friend) was the only decent one in that family of criminal bastards.

Just curious to hear about the man behind the moronic voice i've been inflicting on friends at 3am for so many years...

I think he took over the ministry ala Franklin Graham...

They lived 2 blocks from us in those days (late 1950s) but moved when the BIG bucks started rollin' in...to a 35,000 sq. foot house by the country club. (that isn't a typo)

UNFUCKINGBELIEVABLE!

Love of money must trump love of Jesus.

money so that the Roberts's could live like royalty?

more than she could afford. I found this out in the early 60s and after I told her what a crooked sonofabitch he was, she never spoke to me again. She's probably dead now, I neither know nor care.

and I have no idea how much, but she couldn't afford it. It was a monthly amount. My mom would call their prayer tower occasionally too and send me their daily blessing magazine. My parents home was in such bad shape that it had to be torn down after they died..but yet instead of getting a decent place or fixing it up, they would send money to not only Oral Roberts but many other tv-evangelists.

I can remember going on vacations for the sole purpose of attending Oral Roberts healing meetings..

They were attempting to heal my sister..she had downs syndrome.

I began hating the money hungry lying bastards when I was about 7.

he needed in '87 or "The Lord will take me home" must have finally ran out. But Gawd decided he'd rather take his old lady.

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One of my friends worked there and they ALL were pissed because they hadn't had a raise in years.

:grr:

If not, then that's a pretty fucking rude thread title you've written.

I guess she wass. This bunch of Roberts criminal bastards are pretty fucking rude to begin with. Nyaa nyaa...

Did his son's suicide have something to do with his dad feeling he was "a sinner who was going to burn in hell?"

I'm not at all sure he even believed in hell (I never have and he knew that) but he did recognize that his old man was basically bamboozling people and he was ashamed for it.

I thought maybe his son was Gay.

Regardless, it's sad.

Ronnie had been arrested for writing fake prescriptions not long before his suicide. I also seem to recall that he was a Vietnam vet.

A sister was killed along with her husband in a plane crash.

Another sister is still living - and practicing law in Tulsa I believe.

And, of course, there is brother Richard who has benefited from the nepotism of his father to become president of the university and family evangelist.

Could be wrong. It has been awhile and I don't really follow the family that closely.

edit for spelling. Some day I will remember to use the spell check feature....

him after high school but I'm pretty sure he wasn't in Viet Nam and I never heard anything about prescriptions but it's possible I could have missed that, was extremely busy with college and part time work to pay for it...

From the book "Expect a Miracle" the autobiography of Oral Roberts, hardback edition copyright 1995 published by Thomas Nelson Publishers:

From page 203:

"After he {son Ronnie} left Stanford, he asked me to let him join the armed services.....After he volunteered, the military sent two officers to interview me. 'The army is considering placing your son in intelligence because of his linguistic abilities.'....."

The book goes on to say that he did join military intelligence during the Vietnam War and that he became fluent in at least six languages other than English. After leaving the military he married a Tulsa girl. He returned to college to pursue his Ph.d. but returned to Tulsa before completing it to teach in a public high school (Washington).

From page 207:

"A month later we learned he {son Ronnie} was getting heavily in debt at pharmacies in Tulsa. We also learned how he obtained the drugs. He used some of the doctors' prescription slips he had gotten on his visits to them and made out his own prescription for refills without the doctors' knowledge....."

From page 208:

"Richard explained (reporting brother Ronnie's death to his father Oral}, 'They found him at four o'clock this morning slumped over the steering wheel of his car on a country road. There was a gun on the seat. He had been shot to death. They think it was suicide....."

Oral devotes an entire chapter to each of his four children in the book.

edit for punctuation.

The pressure to be "good" had to be tremendous. He probably felt as an addict he could never measure up to what he thought was expected of him.

Doris Roberts. I'll say no more.

When I was a kid I saw him on TV. He was telling the story about how Jesus fed a thousand people with a loaf of bread and a fish. The he proceeded to tell people that they should send him their social security checks and not to worry because Jesus would provide for them like he did in the bible. I might have been 12years old and even then I could see what he was doing. It's all about the money:

Richard Roberts, speaking by phone from Newport Beach, said he had spoken to his mother by phone after her initial examination at the hospital.

"She was perfectly clear and cogent," he said, "but she was complaining that the hospital staff was focusing on her hip. She told me, 'Pray about my head. I have this strange feeling -- this strange pain in my head.' "

Already preparing for the lawsuit....

is a personal injury attorney. She also represents a number of religious organizations.