Graham Billy - Ruth, a portrait: the story of Ruth Bell Graham

Also by Patricia Cornwell

A T IME FOR R EMEMBERING
P OSTMORTEM
B ODY OF E VIDENCE
A LL T HAT R EMAINS
C RUEL AND U NUSUAL
T HE B ODY F ARM
F ROM P OTTER S F IELD
C AUSE OF D EATH
H ORNET S N EST
U NNATURAL E XPOSURE

R UTH : A P ORTRAIT
P UBLISHED BY W ATER B ROOK P RESS
12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921

eISBN: 978-0-307-76514-7

Copyright 1997 by Cornwell Enterprises, Inc.

Originally published by Galilee in 1998 by special arrangement with Doubleday.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.

W ATER B ROOK and its deer colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the original hardcover Doubleday edition as follows:
Cornwell, Patricia Daniels.
Ruth, a portrait: the story of Ruth Bell Graham /
Patricia Cornwell.1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Graham, Ruth Bell. 2. BaptistsUnited StatesBiography.
3. Evangelists spousesUnited StatesBiography. 4. Spouses of
clergyUnited StatesBiography. 5. Children of missionaries
Biography. 6. Graham, Billy, 1918. I. Title.
BX6495.G666C67 1997
2692092
[B]DC20

v3.1

To
the wise old woman

M AY 2, 1996
C APITOL R OTUNDA
W ASHINGTON , D.C.

The Hendersonville High School band, of western North Carolina fame, played on the lawn, cool air warmed by the sun, while Secret Service watched. Celebrities and senators and old friends like Tricia Nixon Cox and Lynda Bird Robb, and Paul Harvey, and a crime novelist whose first book had been Ruth Bell Grahams biography, took seats inside. They assembled in good spirits amid oil portraits and marble, on this National Day of Prayer when the Reverend Billy and his wife, Ruth, were to receive the Congressional Gold Medal. George Washington had been honored thus in 1776. Two hundred years later, the first clergy couple followed.

I was there, in truth, to take notes. It had been suggested that I update the biography I had decided to write long ago when I was twenty-four and too young to have any business asking. As I sat in a section near the front, among Ruth Grahams vast relations, I was struck by how time has spent itself. I was sweetly sad, and amazed that some people are never a disappointment, no matter where journeys take us or how well we finally know those we chose to emulate and love.

Neither Billy nor Ruth had shifted in a way that counts. He was still tall and a bit befuddled by all the attention. His eyes were no less blue, but they were not as much here as there, and most of all they were kind. Hers typically didnt like being noticed and didnt miss a trick. She still plotted practical jokes and would rather chat with ushers and housekeeping staff. Vice President Al Gore gave her a chair when she was escorted to the front. When Billy was led in, he gave Ruth a kiss.

I sneaked ahead of Newt Gingrich to hug Ruth in all her magenta. She thought I was sweet to come all this way from Richmond, Virginia, and hoped I might find time to stop by the Renaissance afterward and visit. She asked me if I were still doing my work in morgues, and I assured her I was and all was going fine. She would get room service, something Chinese, if the hotel had it, she promised. If that would suit?

She did not know if the Gold Medal was really gold or something else, but she suspected something else when a granddaughter persisted in knowing a little later in a room of the Renaissance, where she and Billy briefly rested. I was certain Ruth did not care about the medals composition, nor was she especially impressed when the four major television networks let the world know that the Grahams would be dining with the Clintons at the White House this night.

Thats interesting, Ruth commented from her bed, as she dipped into a dish of Chinese food. Honey? she called out to her husband, who was stirring cream of broccoli soup, wondering if it was cool enough. Did you agree to something you didnt tell me about?

Whats that? He cupped a hand behind an ear, from his couch.

A striking teenage boy, who wore a small earring, pointed a camera, intending to take another photograph of his legendary grandfather. I dont have a good picture of you. The grandson was having fun.

You can get one in my coffin. Grandfather Billy leaned forward and dipped into his soup.

What? The grandson guffawed.

Bill! Ruth chided her husband as misinformation on the evening news went on. What a dreadful thing to say!

T he journey that led us here, or at least my humble few miles of it, opened with rain. The night was cold and interminable and blew over eaves and in billowing sheets through an open stadium, shrouding lamps in milky light, on June 5, 1982. I was still young and newly married, and unknown, and on a budget. I had attended but one Billy Graham crusade prior to this, in Asheville, when I was too young to precisely remember the decision I made.

At one end of Bostons muddy Nickerson Field was the wooden platform, this moment occupied by four rows of empty folding chairs and several tall amplifiers and a baby grand piano enveloped in heavy plastic Bundles of thick cable snaked across the wet plank floor. The podium was covered with a small square awning flapping loudly like a wind-ripped flag. It was 7:00 P.M. I had never been so cold and wet and hungry in my life, and I let my then-husband know this more than once.

For the past hour some thirteen thousand people cocooned in slickers, trench coats, hats, plastic bags, and galoshes had trickled through the field house for the 7:30 service. It would not be televised because of the weather. Wide wooden boards bridged puddles leading to tiers, and rainwater was an inch deep on the seats. The Reverend Billy Graham had been urged to cancel and as usual had refused, leaving his hotel with plastic-laminated sermon notes and his large-print black leather Bible. Wearing a Greek fishermans cap, a khaki trench coat, and tinted glasses, he arrived in the flashing blue of a light attached to the roof of his rental car.

No one seemed to notice the figure slipping out of the backseat. She left him at the field house door and skated across the muddy tile floor, Sheraton trash can liners over her feet and fastened at the ankles with rubber bands. She wore black kid gloves and a fuchsia plastic rain cloak with a matching cap that was an umbrella from her crown to the tip of her nose. Looking like a psychedelic version of the Morton Salt girl, Ruth gave me a wet hug.

In no hurry to file outside to find a seat as there would be plenty to choose from this raw, dreary night, we sat in folding chairs against a cinder block wall, watching the crowd slog by. Outside, propagandists were passing out tracts accusing Billy Graham of being a Communist sympathizer, and buildings and buses near the stadium boasted anti-Graham signs and banners. A deranged man less than ten feet from us loudly asked a security guard if he was Billy Graham disguised as a cop.