Biography
Ruth McCue Bell was born on June 10, 1920, in Qingjiang, in the province of Jiangsu, China, the second daughter of Dr. L. Nelson Bell and Virginia Bell, American Presbyterian missionaries. Her father was a surgeon who ran a large mission hospital, and the family lived in a compound among the Chinese. She grew up speaking Chinese and loving the land. She saw the hardships of the people, and she saw her father's care for them. At the age of thirteen, she was sent to the school for missionary children in Pyongyang, in Korea. She was a lively and adventurous girl, who loved horseback riding and the outdoors. She was also a thoughtful girl, who prayed and read the Bible. She said that as a teenager, she had decided that she wished to be a missionary in Tibet, and that she did not expect to marry.
She went to the United States to study at Wheaton College, in Illinois, in 1939. She was a student of beauty and wit. At Wheaton, she met a young man from North Carolina, William Franklin Graham, who was studying anthropology and was preparing to preach. He was impressed by her sincerity and her prayer life. He was struck, he said, by the way that she prayed. They became close. She was uncertain, since she had planned to go to Tibet, and he was set on an evangelistic ministry. After a time of prayer and doubt, she accepted that God was leading her to marry him. They were married on August 13, 1943, in Montreat, North Carolina. She was twenty-three.
The early years were hard. Billy traveled a great deal, working with Youth for Christ and then as an evangelist. She stayed at home. She raised their children, five in all, Virginia, called Gigi, Anne, Ruth, called Bunny, William Franklin III, called Franklin, and Nelson, called Ned. They lived in Montreat, in a log house in the mountains, which she had designed herself and which she called Little Piney Cove. She said that she felt that she had been called to be the one who stayed at home, so that her husband might go. She was lonely at times. She wrote that she missed him when he was away, and that she asked God to help her to be a good wife. She also had a quick sense of humor, which helped her.
She was not a quiet woman. She had firm opinions, and she was not afraid to tell her husband what she thought. She often counseled him on his work. She advised him to keep his personal integrity and to avoid the entanglements of politics. She encouraged him in the early years, when he was unsure of himself. She also was a woman of deep prayer. She spent time each day in the Bible. She loved poetry and wrote verse, which was published in several volumes. Her books include It's My Turn, Legacy of a Pack Rat and Footprints of a Pilgrim. She also wrote a book on her experience of raising children, Prodigals and Those Who Love Them, which was written out of the pain of a time when one of her sons strayed from the faith.
Her wit became a part of the Graham story. When asked if she had ever considered divorce, she is said to have replied that she had considered murder but never divorce. She also said that if two people agree on everything, one of them is unnecessary. She had a quick tongue, and she was known for her good sense. She kept a sign on her desk that said, Construction ahead, thank you for your patience, and she chose the words for her own grave marker, End of construction, thank you for your patience.
Her life was not free from suffering. She endured a number of illnesses. She had a serious fall in the 1980s and suffered from back trouble for the rest of her life. In later years, she lost much of her mobility and spent her time in a wheelchair. She also experienced the pain of seeing one of her children go through a time of rebellion. She did not give way to bitterness. She prayed for her son, and he returned to the faith. She also bore the strain of her husband's public life, in which she was often in the background. She said that she was content with it.
She died on June 14, 2007, at the age of eighty-seven, in Montreat. She was buried at the Billy Graham Library, in Charlotte, beside the place where her husband would be buried. Her life shows the effect of a woman who held the home so that a ministry could go forward. She was a partner, a counselor and a poet, and she gave her husband a place to return to.