Ruth, a Portrait

July 31, 1997
What is it like to be the wife of the preacher to the presidents, the peripatetic world evangelist Billy Graham? In this new version of her first book, published in 1983, popular crime novelist Patricia Cornwell, a long-time friend of the Graham family, draws an intimate and engaging portrait of a strong woman whose life is deeply informed by her religious faith. Relying on conversations with Ruth Bell Graham and anecdotes from Ruth Graham's life with Billy Graham, Cornwell chronicles the life of Ruth Graham from her childhood years as the daughter of medical missionaries in China to her life as the woman at the side of Billy Graham. As the child of these missionaries, Ruth Graham's strong, indomitable will was shaped by the hardships which her family faced as Christians in a country whose government opposed the presence of Christians. This biography also tells of Ruth Graham's great desire to be a missionary to Tibet, and the ways in which her dreams were altered when she met Billy Graham at Wheaton College in 1940. Cornwell's biography illuminates the life of a woman whose devotion to husband and family is an expression of her devotion to God. Ruth Graham also emerges in this book as a strong-willed mother who seeks to teach her children about the love and compassion of God through her own example. Cornwell's book will serve as an ideal companion volume to Billy Graham's just-released autobiography, Just As I Am.