Ruth Bell Graham was born on June 20, 1920, to Presbyterian missionaries in northern China. Her father, Dr. Lemuel Nelson Bell, ran the Presbyterian hospital in Qingjiang; her mother was the former Virginia Leftwich.
In his 1979 book, “Bill Graham: A Parable of American Righteousness,” Marshall Frady wrote that when Ruth was a child, she “used to pray every night that the Lord would let her be a martyr before the end of the year,” and that she would be “captured by bandits and beheaded, killed for Jesus’ sake.”
Ruth was sent to what is now North Korea in her high school years and then, at 19, to Wheaton College, near Chicago. Her dream was to become a missionary in either China or Tibet. But her plans changed when she met Billy Graham, who was also a student at Wheaton.
“I have just met a wonderful girl,” Mr. Graham wrote to his mother, as quoted by Mr. Frady. “Her name is Ruth Bell. She looks a little like you and even her voice sounds like you. This is the girl I am going to marry.”
She was an attractive young woman who wore lipstick, she later explained, because “Mother had always hoped we wouldn’t look like the pickings out of a missionary barrel.”
“It didn’t seem to me a credit to Christ to be drab.”
Can you forward a message of condolence to Billy from me? I had the great pleasure of working with him at the Hollywood Bowl during one of his early evangelical services (about 1951 ). I am sure he doesn’t remember me, but I certainly remember him
Harvey,
If you go to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association web site you can write a message of condolence to the family.
http://www.billygraham.org/RBG_Default.asp
sj engelhardt