Kathryn
Johanna Kuhlman was born on May 9, 1907, in Concordia, Missouri. Her parents
were German and she was one of four children. Her mother was a harsh
disciplinarian, who showed little love or affection. On the other hand,
she had
an extremely close and loving relationship with her father. She would describe,
as a small child how, her father would come home from work and she would hang
on his leg and cling to him. She often said that her relationship with God the
Father was extremely real because of her relationship with her own father.
Kuhlman
was converted, when she was 14, at an evangelistic meeting held in a small
Methodist church. When she was 16 she graduated from high school, which only
went to tenth grade in their town. He older sister Myrtle had married an
itinerant evangelist, Everett B. Parrott. They spent their time traveling and
asked that Kathryn could join them for the summer. Her parents agreed and she went
to Oregon to help out. She worked with them, and often gave her testimony. When
the summer was over she wanted to stay, and the couple agreed. She ended up
working with them for five years.
The
evangelistic team was made up of four people, Everette, Myrtle, Kathryn, and
pianists named Helen Gulliford. In 1928 Everette missed a meeting in Boise,
Idaho. Myrtle and Kathryn preached to cover for Everette. The pastor of the
church encouraged Kathryn to step out on her own. Helen agreed to join her. Her
first sermon was in a run-down pool hall in Boise, Idaho. The team covered
Idaho, Utah, and Colorado for the following five years. In 1933 they moved into
Pueblo, Colorado. They set up in an abandoned Montgomery Ward warehouse. They
stayed there for six months.
Denver,
being a much bigger city, was the next stop. They moved several times but ended
up in a paper company's warehouse, which they named the Kuhlman Revival
Tabernacle. Then in 1935 they moved once more to an abandoned truck garage they
named the Denver Revival Tabernacle. Kathryn was seeing a lot of success in
Denver. The church grew to about 2000 members. She began a radio show called
"Smiling Through" and invited speakers from all over the country. One
of them was Phil Kerr who taught on divine healing. In 1935 another invited
evangelist was Burroughs Waltrip.
Waltrip
was bad news for Kuhlman. He was a charismatic, handsome man several years
older than she was. There was an immediate attraction, and one family claims to
have seen the couple embracing in 1935, but he was married and had two
children. Waltrip left Denver and went home to Austin, Texas, but the
relationship simmered between Kuhlman and Waltrip. In 1937 he was invited back
to Denver to take the pulpit for two months. Shortly after he divorced his wife
and abandoned his two sons. He then spread the story that his wife had left
him. He moved to Mason City, Iowa, where he told everyone he was single, and
started a new ministry. Waltrip raised pledges of $70,000 to build a ministry
building called Radio Chapel. It was state of the art with a disappearing
pulpit and an art deco style. He appeared to be a successful and dynamic
preacher.
There
was an ongoing relationship between Kuhlman and Waltrip, and they married in
September 1938. Kuhlman was naive about the consequences of her choices and the
marriage was a disaster. She announced to her church that she and Waltrip were
married and they would go between Denver and Mason City preaching at their two
churches. Most of the people in her congregation left due to her relationship
with Waltrip. She gave up her church in Denver, lost some of her closest
associates, and moved to Mason City. Waltrip's success turned out to be a pipe
dream as well. The Radio Chapel was completed in June of 1938. By October 1938
Waltrip could not meet his debts. In December Waltrip was demanding a higher
salary, even with the shortfall in income. His Board of Directors quit and left
him to deal with the finances. His solution was not to pay the mortgage or
debts on the Chapel. Radio Chapel went into bankruptcy. Waltrip's last sermon
was in May 1939. The Waltrips were on their own. Kathryn's happy vision of she
and her husband flying back and forth between Denver and Mason City with a
successful preaching careers was utterly demolished.
The
next few years were very hard for the couple. They embarked on the road as
traveling evangelists, primarily staying in the Midwest. They were not accepted
in many places due to their marriage history. Initial advertisements listed
Waltrip as the primary evangelist. Then occasionally Mrs. Waltrip was also
mentioned. By the early 1940s Kathryn Kuhlman Waltrip was given equal billing.
Finally by the mid-1940s Kathryn was using only Kathryn Kuhlman in meetings
where she was the primary speaker. In 1944 Kuhlman went on an evangelistic tour
on the east coast without Waltrip. It may have been a conscious decision to
leave him, or she may also have taken the opportunity to reassess her life. It
appears to have been more gradual as Waltrip wrote about them as a couple as
late as 1946. Kuhlman never returned to Waltrip and they eventually divorced in
1947. She left her marriage behind and from then on acted as if it never
existed in the first place.
In
1946 Kuhlman was asked to speak in Franklin, Pennsylvania. She was well
received and decided to stay in the area. Kuhlman began preaching on radio
broadcasts in Oil City, Pennsylvania. These became so popular they were picked
up in Pittsburgh, and she was preaching throughout the area. She began to preach
about the healing power of God. In 1947 a woman was healed of a tumor while
listening to Kuhlman preach. Several Sundays later a man was also healed while
she was teaching on the Holy Spirit. She was now convinced of God's healing
work. One important thing to note is the context and timing of this breakout
period in Kuhlman's life. 1947 was the beginning of the Healing Revival
(sometimes referred to as the Latter Rain Revival) that would last for the next
10 years. What was happening in Kuhlman's meetings was breaking out across the
United States. It was in this time frame that the Voice of Healing Ministry was
established and men like William Branham, Oral
Roberts, A.A. Allen and many others were propelled onto the public
stage. Kuhlman was not associated with those groups, but stepped into the flow
of what God's Spirit was doing across the nation and the world.
In
1948 Kuhlman held a series of meetings at Carnegie Hall in Pittsburgh. She
eventually moved to Pittsburgh in 1950, and continued to hold meetings at
Carnegie Hall until 1971. She was used by God to bring the charismatic message
to many denominational churches, including the Catholic Church. (She received a
lot of criticism over this and was accused of being a closet Catholic.) These
were her best known years. Her style was flamboyant. She would hold her famous
miracle services and the auditorium was filled to capacity every time. She was
on radio and television shows. She was ordained in 1968 by the Evangelical
Church Alliance. Hundreds of people were healed in her meetings, and even while
listening to her on the radio or television. People she prayed for would often
be hit with the power of God and be "slain in the Spirit." Kuhlman
never claimed that she was the healer. She always pointed people to Jesus as
their healer.
Kuhlman
had been diagnosed with a heart problem in 1955. She kept a very busy schedule
and overworked herself, especially in the 1970's. She traveled back and forth
from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles frequently, as well as taking trips around the
world. Her heart was enlarged and Kuhlman died on February 20, 1976, in Tulsa,
following open-heart surgery. Videos of some of her services are still
available and continue to be popular today.
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