Erle Whiting
| Erle Whiting | |
|---|---|
| 5th President of The Church of Jesus Christ (Cutlerite) | |
| April 10, 1955 – August 15, 1958 | |
| Called by | Emery Fletcher |
| Predecessor | Emery Fletcher |
| Successor | Rupert Fletcher |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
January 2, 1876 Clitherall, Minnesota, United States |
| Died | August 15, 1958 (aged 82) Independence, Missouri, United States |
| Resting place | Mound Grove Cemetery |
| Spouse(s) | Gertrude Blanche Cruzan |
| Parents |
Isaac Morley Whiting Sarah Jane Talcott |
Ivan Erle Whiting, Sr. (January 2, 1876 – August 15, 1958) was the fifth president of The Church of Jesus Christ (Cutlerite), a branch of the Latter Day Saint movement. His short tenure in office was marred by a dispute between the Independence, Missouri congregation of the church, where he and the church headquarters were located, and the branch at Clitherall, Minnesota, which rejected his election to office and chose Clyde Fletcher from their own congregation as president of the church. When the Independence branch (which was much more numerous) refused to accept this unlawful development, the Minnesota branch broke away under Clyde's leadership as the True Church of Jesus Christ (Cutlerite). A battle between the two branches for church properties and leadership was resolved in the Independence branch's favor by a Minnesota court, and Clyde Fletcher's schismatic sect ceased to exist with his death, when both congregations were reunited under Erle's successor, Rupert Fletcher.
Erle Whiting was born in Clitherall, Minnesota on 2 January 1876. His father, Isaac Whiting, served as the third president of the Cutlerite church, and he married Blanche Gertrude Cruzan in Clitherall on 19 October 1910.
Whiting succeeded to the presidency of the Cutlerite church upont he death of his predecessor, Emery Fletcher, in 1955. Ever since a majority of Cutlerites had relocated to Independence in the 1920s, living there in a much more urban environment than in rural Clitherall, differences had arisen between the two congregations. According to Whiting's successor Rupert Fletcher, author of Alpheus Cutler and The Church of Jesus Christ (a history of the Cutlerite church), the schism that led to the founding of Clyde Fletcher's church was precipitated by what he called "the lack of communication and a wide difference in environment." While the Minnesota congregation were primarily "members of a rural society, engaged in agrarian pursuits," the Missourians lived and worked "in an urban community." "The problems and needs of each have little in common with the other", wrote Fletcher, and this had often "caused disunity."
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