Biography
Daisy Marie Washburn was born on November 11, 1924, in Burbank, California. She grew up in a Christian home in a family of modest means. As a young woman she met Tommy Lee Osborn, a young preacher, and the two were married in 1942. She was only seventeen. They began their ministry together as pastors, and soon felt called to a wider work as missionaries. In 1945 they went to India, but they were disappointed at the lack of results, and after a year, they returned to the United States in discouragement.
Back in America, they went through a time of deep searching. They prayed and read the Bible, seeking a way to see the power of God at work as it was in the Gospels. They came to a new understanding of faith and of the healing ministry of Jesus. In 1948, after a meeting with the evangelist William Branham in Dallas, they were stirred to begin a healing and evangelistic ministry. They set out to hold large crusades in countries around the world.
Daisy was a full partner in the work. She taught, preached, wrote and organized. She managed the offices and the crusade logistics and traveled with her husband to many nations. Together, they held crusades in Jamaica, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Africa and Asia, and they drew crowds of tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands. The meetings were marked by teaching on faith, prayer for the sick and a call to receive Christ. Photographs from those years show vast crowds gathered in open fields.
She wrote books and teaching materials and was a leading voice on the role of women in the church. Her book Five Choices for Women Who Win, published in 1978, made the case that women should take up their place in ministry and leadership. She argued from Scripture that God calls both men and women and that women have been held back by tradition and not by the Word. She also trained women across the world, and she spoke with a plain and encouraging style. She had a large influence on many women who became preachers and church leaders.
Their ministry also faced criticism. Some questioned the claims of healings in the crusades, and others criticized the emphasis on prosperity that grew in the movement. The Osborns defended their work and pointed to the changed lives of those who came. Some of the methods they used in raising funds also came under question. It is right to say that the full story is mixed, as it is for many ministries. Daisy herself remained a gracious and kind person, and she was known for her warmth.
Her husband died in 2013, and she had died two years before him, on October 28, 2011, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She was eighty-six. They left behind a global mission organization and hundreds of thousands of converts. Her life shows how a woman called by God can serve as a full partner in the great work of the gospel, and how a faithful wife and coworker can leave a mark on the world.