The passing of Billy Graham's life partner and closest confidante on Thursday has drawn attention to the woman behind a man considered the greatest evangelist in history.
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(Photo: BGEA)Ruth Bell Graham, wife of evangelist Billy Graham, was a poet, writer and the evangelist's most trusted advisor and dearest friend. She died June 14, 2007. A public funeral service honoring Ruth Graham will be held Saturday in Montreat, N.C.
"[S]he's an incredible woman," said Anne Graham Lotz, second daughter of the Grahams, in an interview with CNN last fall. "You wouldn't have Billy Graham without Ruth Graham, and I know that. He knows that, too."
Billy Graham and then Ruth Bell, daughter of Presbyterian medical missionaries in China, had met when they were students at Wheaton College. Ruth was majoring in Bible and was active in the Foreign Missions Fellowship and Scripture Distribution Society. Graham was already an ordained Baptist minister at that time and he fell in love with Ruth "right that minute" they met, he said.
The feeling was mutual.
"When I got home, I was praying ... 'God, if you let me marry that man, it would be the greatest honor I could ever have,'" she told ABC news on occasion of the Grahams' 50th wedding anniversary in 1993.
They married right out of college.
As Billy Graham's wife, Ruth served as his anchor as the evangelist rose to fame and faced many temptations of pride and power.
Daughter Ruth Graham recalled, "Mr. Johnson (former U.S. president) was asking him (Billy) for advice, some sort of political advice. My mother kicked him under the table. And my daddy, being my father, said why did you kick me under the table? And Mr. Johnson looked at Daddy and said, Billy, she's right. You stick to preaching and I'll stick to politicking."
After more than six decades of marriage, Billy and Ruth Graham continued to share a love that grew deeper each day.
"Ruth is my soul mate and best friend, and I cannot imagine living a single day without her by my side," said Billy Graham. "I am more in love with her today than when we first met over 65 years ago as students at Wheaton College."
The Grahams' marriage was the kind a Chinese writer had spoke about, which Ruth recalled in her earlier interview with ABC. "In the West (America), marriage starts at a boil and gradually cools off. In the East, it starts cool and gradually reaches a boil. And there's something to be said for that," she said.
To the world-renowned evangelist, she was also his anchor of faith.
"Many reporters asked me who is the greatest Christian I have ever known,” Graham once said at a public appearance. “I always answer Ruth.”
Her faith and devotion to God was what drew Billy Graham to her and what kept his ministry alive. "Ruth was my life partner, and we were called by God as a team," Billy Graham said in a statement Thursday. "No one else could have borne the load that she carried. She was a vital and integral part of our ministry, and my work through the years would have been impossible without her encouragement and support."
"Strong, steady, and dauntless, Ruth Bell Graham was the glue that held the many of the parts of their lives together," according to a statement from Wheaton College. "Like her husband, Ruth loved the Scriptures and the Christ of which they speak."
At the dedication of the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, N.C., on May 31, the evangelist paid a tribute to his wife who was too ill to attend. Continue >>
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