The Reverend Alma M. Morse was born in Jennings, Louisiana on December 30, 1900, the youngest of five children and the only daughter. She moved to California in June 1906. She graduated from Mills College in Oakland, CA, in 1924 with a degree in drama. She studied voice in Boston and New York for two years and attended Richard Lynch's Sunday Unity services, her introduction to metaphysics. Back in Oakland she took over a small Unity group meeting in a storefront, and this group sent her to Unity Training School, Lee's Summitt, MO where she studied and was ordained by Unity's co-founder Charles Fillmore in 1942.

Miss Morse founded Lakeside Temple of Practical Christianity in 1939 at the prompting of metaphysical healer and teacher, W. Frederic Keeler. She was Minister of Lakeside Temple from 1939 until her retirement 27 years later in 1966.