Graham died this morning at his home in Montreat, N.C., at age 99. But the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that before the Southern Baptist preacher dazzled thousands in Los Angeles in 1949, it was in the heart of U.S. railroading and coal country — Altoona — that Graham nearly lost heart for his ministry.
“If I ever conducted a campaign that was a flop, humanly speaking, Altoona was it!” the Post-Gazette quotes Graham as writing in his 1997 memoir, “Just As I Am.”
Apparently, Graham’s “Crusade” in the city, known for its gargantuan Pennsylvania Railroad shops, provoked disagreement among certain Protestant clergy though the people received him warmly. At the time, Graham and members of his Crusade Choir could only pray and hope that they could finish their mission in Altoona and move on to the next place.
As for Trains Magazine, Graham appears at least once since 1940, specifically in Editor David P. Morgan’s November 1978 editorial. In it, Morgan describes an idea Graham once gave to President Dwight Eisenhower in the 1956 to offer “an ultramodern white train” to India and the Indian people as a gift. Why? The Soviet Union had just donated a white horse and Graham thought more people could see and touch a white train.
Graham took to the world’s pulpit 1949 and befriended U.S. presidents and counseled business leaders for decades while attracting a loyal following of Christians numbering in the millions before retiring from public life in 2005.
This article has nothing to do with railroading or the industry. Why is it in here? Please leave your religion out of Trains magazine.
I grew up in Altoona during the 1940s and 1950s. I left for the Marine Corps in 1957. I returned in 1961 to attend Penn State Altoona. Then it was off to the main campus and from there more locations around the world than I can recount.
As I rmember it, most people in Altoona during the time I was growing up were Catholic, Jewish, or mainline protestant, i.e. Lutheran, Methodist or Presbyterian. I believe there was only one bible church and one Northern Baptist Church in Altoona. I was reared in a diverse family – Catholic, Jewish, and Lutheran – before diversity was popular.
The time of Graham’s appearance was well before the Ecumenical Movement. Although I was too young to remember his first visit to Altoona, I suspect that the heads of the aforementioned religious groups warned their congregants not to attend a religious gathering led by an unknown fundamentalist southern preacher.
Like every human community Altoona had its warts. But I it was no more prejudice than most other places in the United States in the 40s and 50s. Graham probably would have gotten same rejection in numerous small cities in the U.S., especially those with profiles similar to the Altoona. Los Angeles, however, was a different kettle of fish.
Oh, by the way, Altoona was a wonderful place to grow up. I return frequently to visit friends and make a pilgrimage to the horseshoe curve.
Great man who served a great God.
“Someday you will read or hear that Billy Graham is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God.” Billy Graham
Amen!
Billy Graham was a special human being and made the World a better place. God Bless Him.