Early Life
Hensley told his children he was from West Virginia and that his family's roots were in Pennsylvania. In reality, his family lived in Hawkins County, East Tennessee in 1880, the year historian David Kimbrough argues Hensley was born. One of 13 children, Hensley lived in Tennessee in Hawkins County and Loudon County in the 1880s. His family lived in Big Stone Gap, Virginia in the 1890s, and there he witnessed an elderly woman handle a snake during a revival service at a coal mining camp. His mother and sisters were very religious, and he was reared a Baptist.
Hensley left the Baptist church in 1901, the year he married Amanda Winniger. The couple moved to her brother's 400-acre (1.6 km2) farm in Ooltewah, where they lived in a shack. Hensley found work in local ore mines, helped in his brother-in-law's lumber business, and was involved in the production of moonshine, a common practice in the region. Hensley experienced a conversion while attending a Holiness Pentecostal Church of God service in Ooltewah, led by an evangelist's teenage son. He forsook alcohol, tobacco, and friendships with those he deemed "worldly".
Read more about this topic: George Went Hensley
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