The Singing Twins: Reatha and Leatha Morris

Reatha and Leatha Morris, twin evangelist sisters known as “the singing twins,” are buried together at Highland Cemetery in Wichita beneath this double gravestone.

Their grave was not marked until 2013, when Reatha’s daughter Glenna Wilson was “led by the Holy Ghost” to locate her mother’s grave, and she found it unmarked. Glenna personally paid for this gravestone after reaching out for help and receiving none. Thanks to Glenna, visitors to Highland can learn part of the story of these two amazing women.

Mother Leatha Herndon Chapman Tucker was an “evangelist leader and organizer of the Department of Women” with the Church of God in Christ “under the leadership of her brother Bishop Ernest Frederick Morris,” who was the founder of the Full Gospel Pentecostal Missionary Association, and is buried nearby. Unfortunately I could not find many personal details about Leatha, but she died at age 76 in Los Angeles.

Evangelist Dr. Reatha D. Herndon was the first and longest-serving elect lady in the Church of God in Christ. After Leatha’s death, Reatha continued to evangelize and teach. Her daughter said she was “the essence of Matthew 25:35: When I was hungered, ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison and ye came unto me.”

Reatha neglected her own health to serve the church, and until the day she died she helped others, with housing, food, money, clothing, and even visiting the imprisoned. Reatha lived to be 104 and died debt free.

Mother Reatha Herndon. Source

They Planted Congregations and Grew Churches

Reatha Dora and Leatha Cora were the youngest of twelve children born to Sarah Robinson and Rev. John Henry Morris, both of whom were born into slavery. The couple met one another and married in 1870 and moved to Kingfisher, Oklahoma sometime in the 1890s. Reatha and Leatha, who went by Dora and Cora as children, were born in 1900.

Back row L to R: Lula, Lizzie, Tennie, Eugene, Johnny, Ernest. Bottom row L to R: Unknown, Willie, Dad, Mom, Thomas, Claborne. Front: Reatha and Leatha.

The twins’ father, Rev. John Morris, helped establish the first church for the Pentecostal Church of God in Christ (COGIC), near Enid in 1910. COGIC is an international Holiness–Pentecostal Christian denomination with a predominantly Black membership, and it gained legs in 1915 after winning legal rights to its name. Church leaders asked Reatha and Leatha to travel the Midwest and use their talents to recruit more members and help establish more COGIC churches.

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When Reatha was just 17, around the time she claimed to receive the gift of interpreting scripture, she started a tent revival with one of her brothers, probably Earnest. This would be the first in a years-long series of revivals that the Morris family participated in with COGIC during the late 1910’s and early 1920’s.

Reatha and her brother Earnest.

In Kansas, Reatha and Leatha were very popular in local revival circles. The sisters entertained Wichitans in multi-day revivals by preaching “soul-saving messages,” using their dynamic singing voices, and showcasing their musical talents. The Morris family liked Wichita; one of their brothers founded the Morris Memorial Full Gospel Pentecostal Church here in 1919, and the twins also had a headquarters here.

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But the twins didn’t just evangelize in Wichita; they traveled all over the country singing and preaching the good news.

The twins are credited with starting about 75 churches in the United States during their lifetimes, and they evangelized to countless others, a remarkable achievement during a time when women were typically not allowed to minister.