

In 1952, aged 17, Swaggart married 15-year-old Frances Anderson whom he met in church while he was playing music with his father. With his parents, Swaggart attended a small, 25-member Assemblies of God church in Ferriday. He also had a sister, Jeanette Ensminger (1942–1999). The extended family had a complex network of interrelationships: "cousins and in-laws and other relatives married each other until the clan was entwined like a big, tight ball of rubber bands." He is the cousin of rock'n'roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis and country music star Mickey Gilley. They were related by marriage, as Willie's maternal uncle, Elmo Lewis, was married to Minnie's sister Mamie. Jimmy Lee Swaggart was born on March 15, 1935, in Ferriday, Louisiana, to fiddle player and Pentecostal preacher Willie Leon (known as "Sun" or "Son") Swaggart and Minnie Bell, daughter of sharecropper William Herron.

4.2 Swaggart's confession and defrocking.
