Kathryn Kuhlman (1903-1976)
(Video)
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Kathryn Johanna Kuhlman was born on May 9, 1907, in
Concordia, Missouri, to German parents, Joseph Adolph and Emma Walkenhorst
Kuhlman. She was one of four children: Myrtle, Earl, Kathryn and Geneva.
Kuhlman was converted in 1921 at a revival meeting held in a Methodist
church and led by a Baptist evangelist, a Rev. Hummel. By 1923 Kuhlman had
completed the tenth grade, which was the extent of public education
available in Concordia.
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Her sister, Myrtle, had married a travelling evangelist
from Moody Bible Institute, Everette B. Parrott. She urged the Kuhlman
parents to allow Kathryn to join them for the summer, which they
reluctantly did. The Parrotts' itinerary took them to Oregon that summer,
and Kuhlman assisted in services by giving her testimony several times in
the revival meetings. At the end of the summer, the Parrotts, intending to
return Kuhlman to Concordia, allowed her to stay with them and Rev.
Parrott promised that she could preach occasionally, a promise which he
never fulfilled.
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Kuhlman remained with the Parrots for five years. During
that time, the Parrotts were influenced by Dr. Price, a Canadian
evangelist, who instructed Parrott on the baptism of the Holy Spirit. As a
result, they incorporated a healing ministry in their services. It was
Everette Parrott's failure to join the team for a series of meetings in
Boise, Idaho, in 1928 that gave Kuhlman her first opportunity to preach.
The team at that time consisted of the Parrots, Kuhlman, and the pianist,
Helen Gulliford. Mrs. Parrott covered for her husband by doing the
preaching in Boise, but later rejoined her husband. Kuhlman and Gulliford
decided, at the urging of the pastor of a small mission church in Boise,
to stay and work on their own. Kuhlman handled the preaching and Gulliford
the music. They toured Idaho and other parts of the country for the next
five years.
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In 1933, Kuhlman and Gulliford moved on to Pueblo,
Colorado, where they held meetings in a Montgomery Ward warehouse for six
months. At the urging of a businessman, Kuhlman moved to Denver, and began
holding meetings in another Montgomery Ward warehouse in the downtown area
of the city. Shortly after- ward, the team moved to the warehouse of the
Monitor Paper Company, which they named the Kuhlman Revival Tabernacle.
Kuhlman enlisted the services of three sisters, Mildred, Lucille, and
Biney Anderson, the "Anderson Trio", to help with the musical portion of
the ministry. In 1935, the team moved into an abandoned truck garage,
which they named the Denver Revival Tabernacle. The programs attached to
the Tabernacle grew along with Kuhlman's ministry in Denver. These
included a Sunday school program and a women's society.
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She also began broadcasting a fifteen-minute radio
program called Smiling Through on station KVOD. Kuhlman shared her
preaching ministry in Denver with many visiting evangelists. It was
through one of these collaborations that Kuhlman met evangelist Phil Kerr,
who among other topics preached on divine healing, and whose influence
later became more significant.
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In 1937, Kuhlman met evangelist Burroughs A. Waltrip, who
had been invited to preach at the Denver tabernacle. Waltrip and Kuhlman
formed a professional alliance which later led to their marriage. It also
resulted in the deterioration of Kuhlman's ministry in Denver and
Waltrip's in Mason City, Iowa. The central issue was the fact that Waltrip
had left his children and wife in Texas and was shortly afterward divorced
by her. Gulliford resigned her post over the issue, and Kuhlman's business
manager and substitute preacher, speaking on behalf of the congregation,
informed her that she would no longer be welcome in Denver. Despite the
urgings of friends and the congregation, Kuhlman and Waltrip married in
1938. Shortly afterward they established their base at the Radio Chapel in
Mason City, where the news of Waltrip's divorce had not spread. Waltrip's
supporters in Mason City eventually learned of his divorce and drifted
away from his ministry as well. He and Kuhlman thereafter left Mason City
and travelled throughout the country, although their ministry was held at
a virtual standstill by the fact that they could not contain the news
about their past. Having been married six years, Kuhlman finally left
Waltrip in 1944 and in 1948 Waltrip divorced Kuhlman.
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The first place Kuhlman went after her separation from
Waltrip was Franklin, Pennsylvania, where she held a series of meetings.
Rumours about Kuhlman and Waltrip continued to follow her, making it
difficult for her to arrange and hold meetings. Following their
separation, however, Kuhlman worked to re- establish her preaching
ministry. The turning point came in 1946 when Kuhlman was invited by
Matthew J. Maloney, the owner of the Gospel Tabernacle in Franklin to
return there to conduct a series of meetings. Receiving a favourable
response, Kuhlman began preaching on radio broadcasts on station WKRZ in
nearby Oil City, Pennsylvania. Within a few months, her program had been
added to the schedule of WPGH, a Pittsburgh station.
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By 1948, Kuhlman began holding meetings in neighbouring
cities, including Pittsburgh. In the previous phase of her career, Kuhlman
was strictly an evangelist and limited her preaching to a salvation
message. While in Franklin, she occasionally preached on healing, and
would call people to the front not only to indicate their commitment to
Christ but also to be healed. Being puzzled by the occasional healings,
Kuhlman began investigating these manifestations of God's power more
thoroughly. In 1947, she preached her first series on the Holy Spirit.
During the first meeting a woman was healed of a tumour while listening to
Kuhlman preach. Later during the series a man was also healed. These
events marked the beginning of Kuhlman's healing ministry.
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Kuhlman was forced to leave the Gospel Tabernacle due to
a contract dispute and temporarily used an old roller skating rink, which
became the Faith Temple at nearby Sugar Creek. Kuhlman maintained her
loyalty to Franklin, ignored offers to move her ministry to Pittsburgh,
and continued to hold meetings at Faith Temple until a heavy snowstorm
brought about the collapse of the roof. Kuhlman then transferred her
headquarters to Pittsburgh. She first visited Pittsburgh for a six-week
preaching series in 1943. At that time, she met Maggie Hartner, who later
became her secretary and close friend. It was through Hartner's influence
in 1948 that Kuhlman decided to hold a series of meetings in Pittsburgh at
the Carnegie Hall. The services were very successful and, upon returning
to Franklin, Kuhlman expanded her ministry further. Her radio programs
were distributed to other areas, and she began holding services in nearby
cities and Youngstown, Ohio.
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Hartner continued to urge Kuhlman to move her ministry to
Pittsburgh, which she finally did in late 1950 following the disaster at
Faith Temple. She set up her office in the Carlton House, and began
holding regular meetings at the Carnegie, where she continued until 1971.
Although she had been strongly urged to move to Pittsburgh, had received
favorable press coverage, and had a successful ministry there, she was not
unanimously welcomed by the city. Local pastors charged that she was
drawing members away from their congregations. She survived the charges,
partly through the support of the city's mayor. However, other conflicts
occurred. Kuhlman was invited by Rex Humbard to join his family for a
series of meetings in Akron, Ohio. Kuhlman did so and unknowingly entered
the territory of the fundamentalist preacher, Dallas Billington, who
engaged Kuhlman in a prolonged fight over the validity of the healings at
her services and the impropriety of a woman being a minister. (Kuhlman was
later ordained in 1968 by the Evangelical Church Alliance.) The fight
included a $5000 offer to anyone who could prove they could heal through
prayer, and the public release of information on Kuhlman's marriage to a
divorced evangelist.
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In 1965, Kuhlman extended her ministry to California with
a meeting in Pasadena. Soon after she began holding meetings in the Shrine
Auditorium in Los Angeles, which she continued until 1975. In 1973,
Kuhlman held her first Canadian service in Ottawa. The arrangement were
made by Maudie Phillips, who had travelled to Pittsburgh for Kuhlman
services since early 1969. In 1970, Phillips helped set up the Canadian
office of the Kathryn Kuhlman Foundation. The office was established to
accommodate Kuhlman's growing Canadian constituency. Following the 1973
meeting Phillips' organizational skills were utilized to co-ordinate
Kuhlman's services in a number of cities around the United States.
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Kuhlman gradually built a staff around her. Jimmy Miller,
her accompanist and pianist, and Charles Beebee, her organist, had been
with her since her early Pittsburg days. Arthur Metcalfe became her choir
director in 1952 and continued to lead the choir until his death in 1975.
Jimmie McDonald, a vocalist, and Dino Kartsonakis, a young keyboard
artist, were also added to her musical team and both performed for
television broadcasts and services. For the administration of the
ministry, Walter Adamack was appointed her accountant; he was instrumental
in the formation of the Kathryn Kuhlman Foundation. Gene Martin was given
responsibility for the missions outreach of the Foundation. Jamie
Buckingham oversaw the book publishing. Kuhlman also included Paul
Bartholomew, Kartsonakis's brother-in-law, on her staff as distributor of
her television broadcasts and her personal administrator. Steve Zelenko
became her radio sound engineer, and Bill Martin was her announcer.
Kuhlman's services were characterized by congregational and choir singing,
a message on the need to be "born again," the power of the Holy Spirit, or
on healing, and a time when individuals could come forward to describe
their own healing or ask for Kuhlman to pray for them. As Kuhlman prayed
for and laid hands on individuals, they would be "slain in the Spirit" or
"come under the power", an experience Kuhlman likened to Paul's Damascus
road experience. One of Kuhlman's associates would catch them as they fell
to the floor, and the service would continue around them. Kuhlman avoided
claiming that she did the healing, and attributed the healing to God
alone.
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Kuhlman's healing ministry and association with leading
charismatic made her one of the leaders in the charismatic movement. Her
activities included being a regular speaker at Full Gospel Business Men's
Fellowship meetings and conducting a charismatic clinic at Melodyland, a
charismatic centre in California. While she encouraged individuals to seek
the Holy Spirit's blessing and speak in tongues, she remained silent
throughout her career on her personal experience. Kuhlman's celebrity grew
along with her ministry, due both to the healings occurring in her
meetings and the visibility afforded by the mass media. To extend the
scope of her ministry, she began broadcasting television programs in 1965
on CBS, with Dick Ross working as her producer. Other media exposure
included articles in People, Christianity Today, and Time, and interviews
on the talk shows of Johnny Carson, Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin, and Dinah
Shore. She also had occasion to meet other well known figures, both among
entertainers and religious leaders, such as Pope Paul VI in 1972. As in
the past, Kuhlman's coverage in the media was not always favourable. In
1974, for example, William Nolen, a medical doctor, wrote a book in which
he questioned the healings in her services and described Kuhlman as being
medically ignorant. She was not without her supporters in that debate, as
H. Richard Casdorph, another medical doctor favourably disposed to Kuhlman
and her ministry, met with Nolen on the Mike Douglas Show to refute his
charges.
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While principally recognized for her healing ministry,
she was also honoured at a 25th anniversary celebration of her work in
Pittsburgh, at which a commemorative medallion designed by Evangelos
Frudakis, was presented. She was granted an honorary Doctor of Humane
Letters degree by Oral Roberts University in 1972, given city keys to both
Pittsburgh and St. Louis and included in the Who's Who of California, and
the Who's Who in America.
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Kuhlman's health problems, related to her enlarged heart,
were originally diagnosed in 1955, but became far more severe in the last
several years of her life. Contributing to the ailment was the strain of a
heavy schedule, particularly in the 1970's, when her itinerary expanded
from conducting services in Pittsburgh and Los Angeles to visiting many
other cities as well. She also continued her television ministry and
visited the mission institutions supported by the Foundation.
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She had the additional strain of personnel problems with
Kartsonakis and Bartholomew, which grew out of contract disputes. Suits
were filed but the matter was settled out of court; both men were fired in
early 1975. Kuhlman's health declined dramatically in 1975. She was
hospitalized in Tulsa during the summer, and in Los Angeles near the end
of the year. Kuhlman died on February 20, 1976, in Tulsa, following
open-heart surgery. Her death was not uneventful, for in addition to being
well known, it revealed a recently rewritten will, which restructured the
disposition of her estate and left much of it to Dana Barton "Tink" and
Sue Wilkerson. The Wilkersons had known Kuhlman since 1972, but became her
constant companions from early 1975 until her death.
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Following a number of years of Kathryn Kuhlman's active
ministry, the Kathryn Kuhlman Foundation was established in 1957, with the
Carlton House in Pittsburgh as its headquarters. A Canadian branch of the
Foundation was set up in 1970. The Foundation was the organizational
administrator of Kuhlman's ministry. In addition to co-ordinating her
meetings and her broadcast ministry, the Foundation also provided
financial support for a variety of missionary projects throughout the
world. The Foundation continued its operation after Kuhlman's death, co-ordinating
messages and responding to inquiries from devoted followers. In 1982, the
Foundation terminated its nation-wide radio broadcasting.
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Thanks to: Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois; and the
Billy Graham Center Archives for this biography.
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