Ruth Bell Graham

Life

She was born on June 10, 1920, in Qingjiang (present-day Huai'an), Jiangsu Province, China, the second of five children. Her parents, L. Nelson Bell and Virginia Leftwich Bell, were medical missionaries at a Presbyterian hospital north of Shanghai. As a child she reportedly dreamed of becoming a missionary to Tibet.

At the age of 13 she entered the Pyongyang Foreign School, where she studied for about three years. In 1937 she left China for the United States. At Wheaton College she met fellow student Billy Graham, and they were married on August 13, 1943. The couple had five children: Gigi, Anne, Ruth, Franklin, and Nelson. After their marriage they settled in Montreat, North Carolina, where she attended Montreat Presbyterian Church for many years.

In her later years she suffered from prolonged illness, including degenerative osteoarthritis. She died at her home in Montreat on June 14, 2007, at the age of 87, and was buried on the grounds of the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte. Her gravestone bears the inscription "End of construction—thank you for your patience."

Ministry and Accomplishments

While her husband held evangelistic crusades around the world, she remained largely at home raising their children. Billy Graham is said to have sought her counsel on many decisions concerning his ministry. When she died, he issued a statement calling her his "life partner" and saying that his ministry would have been impossible without her encouragement and support. Ruth worked to protect her family's privacy and is reported to have been wary of her husband's becoming too close to those in political power.

As an author, she wrote or co-wrote 14 books, including collections of poetry and prose. She practiced daily prayer and Bible study, a habit that reportedly set an example for her children, especially her daughter Anne Graham Lotz, who became a Bible teacher. Having grown up in Asia, she maintained a deep interest in the region; she encouraged her husband to visit China and accompanied him on that trip. She also helped found a children's health center in Asheville and the Billy Graham Training Center in Montreat. In 1996 she and her husband received the Congressional Gold Medal.

Influence on the Korean Church

Having spent her school years in Pyongyang in the 1930s, she had a deep personal connection to the Korean Peninsula. Following her husband's visits to North Korea in 1992 and 1994, she returned to Pyongyang herself in 1997 for a six-day visit. During that trip she offered brief greetings at a Sunday worship service at Bongsu Church, saying that her years in Pyongyang had been spiritually significant to her. That same year, a relief organization led by her son Franklin Graham began relief work in North Korea, and the Graham family presents this work as connected to Ruth's ties to Pyongyang. In Korean churches she is known chiefly as the wife of Billy Graham, who is widely remembered there for the 1973 Billy Graham Crusade. She is also mentioned in connection with the church in North Korea.

Assessment

The American press portrayed her as an independent, strong-willed woman and as her husband's closest adviser. In 1983 the author Patricia Cornwell published a biography of her, Ruth: A Portrait. Many assessments hold that she is remembered less for her own poetry and prose than as a woman who devoted herself to her family and supported her husband's ministry. No significant criticism of her is widely known.