Seth Cook Rees

[1] The following August, Rees commenced his career as an evangelical preacher, giving his first sermon atop a mound of dirt.

The following year, in November 1899, Rees married 17-year-old, Swedish-born, Frida Marie Stromberg of Providence, Rhode Island.

[2] In 1905, while still in Chicago, Rees published Miracles in the Slums, a book intended to inspire young women to rise above prostitution.

The house exhibits typical Arts and Crafts features including clapboard siding on the first floor and wood-shingle wall cladding on the second floor and gables; wood double-hung and casement windows with divided lights; a wide wood front door with a large oval window; Arroyo-stone foundation, porch, columns and chimney; vented gables; exposed rafters on the horizontal portions of the roof and triangular braces on the sloping roofs.

According to a newspaper account, "[w]hen the boy awoke he was frightened and began to scream lustily, but the door was locked and his rescue was delayed."

In January 1914, Rees called a "judgment day meeting" at the University, exhorting students to prepare by confessing to one another as if Christ's return were imminent.

[11] However, a deep rift developed between Reese and Wiley, on a group of faculty members, led by Professor A. J. Ramsay and A. O. Hendricks, who opposed the "freedom of the spirit.

When ecclesiastical charges that had been routinely quashed by Bresee were renewed against Rees in May 1916, protocol was followed and a “trial” was set for May 29 at the First Church of the Nazarene, then located at Sixth and Wall Streets in Los Angeles.

The throng caused such a commotion that the trial committee agreed to admit the crowd to the auditorium; however, they were not allowed access to the proceedings, and Rees "walked out" in protest.

[1][14] In a formal letter, the district superintendent claimed that the move was required due to "intolerable conditions" within the church.

[2] In 1925, Rees began a lengthy tour of the world, visiting Europe, the Holy Land, China and Japan, and chronicling his journey with dispatches to his followers.

[1][2] Rees died at home, in the presence of his son, the pastor Paul S. Rees, in the early morning hours of May 22, 1933, whispering the words "I'm almost home" and "pass[ing] from peace to greater peace" "[j]ust as the day was beginning to break cloudlessly over the mountains of which he was so untiringly fond.