The Healer: The Story of Francis Schlatter

In most generations there appears a person, usually a man, who has authenticated powers of healing and who acts, often, as a kind of messiah. This is a person who by his or her charisma and personal magnetism attracts a large following. Charlatan, miracle worker or deluded mystic? Few contemporaries can ever decide and history itself is not sure. Such a person was Francis Schlatter who arrived in Denver in 1892. He was a German immigrant shoemaker and a devout Catholic who was on a special mission for the “Father.” The mission required him to wander about the country and even to be thrown in jail in Arkansas. In the villages of New Mexico, he was known as El Sanador, “The Healer.” This is a collection of articles about Schlatter and his own story of the wandering. He finally disappeared from a ranch in New Mexico and his body and “miraculous” copper rod were later discovered in Mexico. NORMAN CLEAVELAND, born 1901 in California, came home to New Mexico at ten months of age. The son of Agnes Morley Cleaveland, he was educated in Silver City, New Mexico and in California. After receiving his degree at Stanford University, his professional career as a mining engineer was spent principally abroad, including twenty-two years in Southeast Asia. He is the author of two other books, “The Morleys” and “Bang Bang in Amphang.”