Billy Graham

A Life in Pictures

Ken Garfield

• Publisher: Triumph Books
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9781572435810
• eBook ISBN:
  9781623687281
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religious Biographies

Celebrating the life and legacy of one of America's best-known religious figures in words and photographs, this book traces the amazing journey of the lanky farm boy from Charlotte, North Carolina, who grew up to preach to more than 200 million people in stadiums and arenas around the world. Written by a journalist who covered Graham and his ministry for more than a decade, Billy Graham: A Life in Pictures chronicles the preacher's rise, his friendship with U.S. presidents, his spectacular crusades, and his work in building a religious organization that continues with his son Franklin as its leader. It also offers a glimpse into Graham's rich family life and how he managed to maintain his integrity while other religious personalities, despite—or perhaps because of—their large followings, were losing theirs. The book provides a fitting tribute to one of the most important religious leaders of the 20th century, a man of unimpeachable character who influenced millions around the globe.

Chapter 1. Road to a Revival

Who could have imagined that a gangly farm boy from a small North Carolina town would grow up to become modern times’ most famous religious figure?

Not Jim Stenhouse of Charlotte, N.C., a prominent architect who first knew Graham as the youngster who hauled milk to his door at Eighth and Pine Streets in 1926, at the impressionable age of eight.

“He was just a kid,” Stenhouse said only months before he passed away in 1996 at age 86. “He was just the kid who drove the milk wagon. I had no idea he’d be what he is.”

Neither did the milkman-turned-evangelist, whose life revolved around what most every Southern boy’s life revolved around way back when: Baseball, girls, bicycles, boys’ adventure books, goats, mules, cows, horseshoes, the magic of the radio, working in his mother’s garden — the stuff of good, simple, honest living that served him well when he rose to a life of faith and glory.

There’s a lesson here, of course.

Like so many men and women who changed the world, Graham wasn’t raised to be famous or influential; he didn’t plot to gain power; he didn’t ache at an early age to be anything but what he was — a normal boy brought up in a good, modest, loving home.

The greatness, and the impact, came to him naturally.

Did it come to Billy Graham because he was touched by God?

Because he was in the right place at the right time when the world needed an uncompromising Christian evangelist?

Or was it a blend of both?

Each of us must answer that question for ourselves, based on what we believe.

But whatever the reason for the rise of Billy Graham, the modesty with which he was born stayed with him as the world’s spotlight turned his way.

Isn’t it like that for the truly great souls among us? They don’t demand our attention. But when they get it, we are the better for it.

William Morrow Graham was born on Nov. 7, 1918, to Charlotte dairy farmers William Franklin and Morrow Coffey Graham. It was four days before the armistice that ended World War I, and he came into the world in the family’s farmhouse, a white, frame home with green trim overlooking pastures filled with the Graham herd of cattle.

The Graham dairy farm. CHARLOTTE OBSERVER FILE PHOTO

Debbie Matthews, Grants and Donations Coordinator for Anne Springs...

Table of contents

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Measuring the Man
• Chapter 1. Road to a Revival
• Chapter 2. A Decision by a Rock
• Chapter 3. The Great Crusader
• Chapter 4. America’s Preacher
• Chapter 5. A Kinder, Gentler Evangelist
• Chapter 6. Billy Graham, and Time
• Chapter 7. The Legacy Endures
• Chapter 8. Billy, In His Own Words
• Chapter 9. A Graham Catalog
• Chapter 10. The World Was His Stage
• Chapter 11. The Work Will Live On
• Chapter 12. A Final Thought