By Jamie Buckingham
(From the book DAUGHTER OF DESTINY, pp 120 – )
… A week later there was a knock on the door of her third floor apartment. The sheriff, dressed in street clothes, was waiting at the hall. He introduced himself and asked to come in.
“This morning my office received papers, which I am required to serve you. It is a divorce suit filed in Arizona by Burroughs A. Waltrip, Sr. You are named as the defendant.”
Kathryn stood silently, her head bowed. The ghost of her past had reappeared just when it looked like everything was working out in her favor.
The sheriff reached over and touched her arm. “My office ordinarily releases the names of all divorce suits to the local newspaper. But I have been attending your services and am convinced God sent you to this crime-riddled county for a special purpose. That is the reason I am delivering these papers personally. There is no need for anyone but the two of us to know what has happened. God bless you in your ministry among us. I am at your service.”
He turned to leave, but Kathryn reached out and caught his arm. For just a minute their eyes met. He smiled, and she nodded. “I will be grateful to you for the rest of my life,” she said softly.
He was gone. It would be almost seven years before a newspaper in Akron, Ohio, learned of her divorce and it ran it as a front page story. But by that time Kathryn’s ministry would be so firmly established that no slander from the past could hurt it. She knew, however, that nothing short of a miracle could have saved her if, in 1948, the story hit the papers in Franklin. Until he died, twenty-three years later, Kathryn sent flowers to the sheriff on his birthday. She never forgot.
When Kathryn moved to Franklin, she took up residence in the third floor attic room of the Business Women’s Club. It wasn’t long before she met two women who were to have a profound influence on her life. One was Jesse Vincent, the other was Eve Conley. Both were widows. Jesse worked at the bank in Franklin, and Eve, whose pharmacist husband had recently died, lived with her. Neither were Christians, although both were fascinated by Kathryn’s personality, attending as many of the services at the Tabernacle as possible.
Eve was a terrific cook, and the two of them decided to invite Kathryn to their home for Thanksgiving, 1946. After the meal, Kathryn said, “You think you invited me here, but you didn’t. I came on a much higher invitation than from two wonderful women. God sent me here to minister to you, and I am not going to be satisfied until the two of you are on your knees, confessing your sin and asking to be born again.”
“Tell us about your Jesus,” Eve said seriously.
For the next twenty minutes, Kathryn took them through the Bible, pointing out the passages that proved Jesus Christ was the promised Messiah, the Son of God. “There is no other way to God,” Kathryn said softly, “except through Christ. Are you now ready to give your lives to Him?”
They both nodded and slipped from their chairs to the carpeted floor. Kathryn joined them on her knees and was a witness as they entered the Kingdom of God.
Shortly after that, Kathryn moved in with them. When Jesse Vincent died, she left her estate to Kathryn, much of it in jewelry. It was the beginning of a large collection of precious jewels and antiques which years later would become the basis for another newspaper headline. many people gave Kathryn large gifts, either in person or in their wills. One grateful woman summed up the feelings of thousands. “I would have paid it all in doctor and hospital bills. Therefore, since i was healed at Kathryn’s meetings, why shouldn’t I give it to her?” It was a valid question, but it did not alleviate the many accusations made against Miss Kuhlman across the years for being “wealthy.”
Eve Conley continued on with Kathryn, working as her personal secretary and confidante, assisted by Susan Miller, who was still giving part of each day to help with the various mailings.
During this time, Kathryn had been corresponding regularly with another woman, Maggie Hartner, whom she had met in Pittsburgh several years before. Since Maggie was working at the telephone company in Pittsburgh, she was able to call long distance at a reduced charge. She called almost nightly, urging Kathryn to return to Pittsburgh for another series of meetings. “Everybody I know is listening to you over WPGH,” Maggie said. All you’d have to do is announce you’re going to have a service, and the place would be packed.”
Kathryn finally conceded. She came down and looked over Carnegie Hall. The custodian, a Mr. Buffington, showed her through the building.
“Look,” Kathryn said, “I want a lot of chairs up here on the platform. This place is going to fill up in a hurry.”
“Aw, Miss Kuhlman, we’ll never fill this auditorium,” the custodian said. “Even them opera stars can’t fill it,”
“Well, I want the platform full of chairs,” she said, turning to walk out the door. She whirled back and looked straight at the custodian. “Aw, God love you! You are concerned about me aren’t you? Well, just you wait and see. We’re going to have the biggest and best service this building has ever seen.” She was right. The first service was the afternoon of July 4, 1948. The building was so packed she had to have another service that same evening. It too was jammed to capacity.
From the very beginning, there were miracles. The Pittsburgh paper ran a full page feature story, complete with an artist’s sketch of what Kathryn now called her miracle services. The reporter said:
Miss Kuhlman comes from no recognized church; pretends only to be an emissary of the doctrine of faith in God. Yet, night after night, she has jammed the North Side Carnegie Music hall to overflowing. Hundreds have crowded the outer corridors to hear few fragments of her words. Additional hundreds have been turned away … She’s the combination of the orator and the actress; the songstress and the evangelist … When hymns are sung, her voice rises high and clear above the crowd.
Ever since her association with Helen Gulliford, music had played a big part in Kathryn’s ministry. Soon after she came to Franklin she made contact with Jimmy Miller, who had played the piano for Jack Munyon in Pittsburgh. Miller eagerly accepted Kathryn’s offer to be her pianist. Charles Beebee, also joined her. Both were at the instruments when she came to Pittsburgh for the first time in 1948—and both remained with her until she died.
Kathryn expanded her radio ministry after she returned to Franklin, beaming her half-hour programs into Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, and the Washington, D.C. area. The services in Faith Temple continued on a regular basis, but because of the expanded ministry, Kathryn began holding services in many of the nearby cities: New Castle, Butler, Beaver Falls, and at Stambaugh Auditorium in Youngstown, Ohio. But more and more, Kathryn was attracted to Pittsburgh, with regular services in Carnegie Hall.
Miracles continued to happen. Paul R. Gunn, a young Pittsburgh policeman, had been taken to a local hospital on September 28, 1949, with viral pneumonia. A lung ailment was diagnosed as cancer following bronchoscope, sputum, and X-ray examinations. In October, he started attending the services at Carnegie Hall. During the fourth service, he said he felt like a match had been stuck to a piece of paper inside his chest. In December, a company doctor approved him for work, and he started back on his job in January, 1950.
James W. McCutcheon was another miracle. Three years before, he was standing on a timber which was stuck by a bulldozer in Lorain, Ohio. He was thrown to the ground, and the ball joint of his hip was crushed. Five operations failed. The last one, a bone graft, was equally unsuccessful because of decalcification. The doctors recommended still another operation. McCutcheon was on crutches when he entered Carnegie Hall on November 5, 1949. His daughter, sitting next to him with her hand on his knee, later said she felt something like electricity enter her arm from his leg while Miss Kuhlman was preaching. He arose from his seat and walked without the support of his crutches. Instantly healed.
The Pittsburgh paper reported many of these miracles. And although they also had a great deal to say about those who were not healed, in most cases they accurately reported the miracles as well.
“Each night, a few rise above the physical world they’ve known,” a reporter for the Pittsburgh Press wrote.
“On Friday—the healing night—there was a young woman from Canton, Ohio, who came to pray for relief of a spine separation. She walked to the stage upright and knelt by the organ to pray in thanksgiving.
“A little boy about five, said to have been crippled since birth, tottered down the aisle on his own legs and held his arms on high for Miss Kuhlman to see.
“A woman who said she had been in a wheelchair twelve years walked to the stage and wept openly before the microphone. Her husband stood beside her, his face streaming with tears…
“For everyone who has proclaimed a cure, a score more have faded off into the darkness, as miserable and heartsick as when they came. But most will be back.”
One who kept coming back—for five months before he was healed—was Charles C. Loesch. Injured in an accident fourteen years before, his sacroiliac had become calcified, causing him to walk in a stooped position, bent forward from the hip in a grotesque manner. One leg was three and three-quarters inches shorter than the other, so he had to wear a special shoe with a built-up sole. He had been in constant pain ever since the accident.
Mr. Loesch’s children encouraged him to attend the miracle services both in Pittsburgh and Franklin. Nothing happened to his body, but coming home from the first service he poured out all his liquor and threw away his cigars—never to return to them again. However, he did keep returning to the miracle services. The more he came, the more he forgot about his own problems, focusing his prayer on those in worse shape than he.
Then one afternoon at Faith Temple, sitting with a large group of men on the stage while Miss Kuhlman preached, his leg began to vibrate. The vibration caused his heel to hit against the floor like an air hammer. Miss Kuhlman immediately stopped preaching and turned around.
“What’s this?” she inquired loudly.
Embarrassed, Loesch could only bend over and hold on to his wildly vibrating leg, trying to keep it from hitting the floor.
“You’re being healed, sir.” Miss Kuhlman exclaimed. Then turning to the audience, she said, “The power of God is on that man.”
It was indeed the power of God. After the service Loesch discovered that not only had his leg grown out, but his back was loose and limber.
It was the beginning of a twenty-eight year loyalty to Miss Kuhlman in which he would give up everything else to follow her, becoming her maintenance man, chauffeur and factotum.
During the week Kathryn and Eve Conley were staying at the Pick Roosevelt Hotel in Pittsburgh, traveling back to Franklin (about 84 miles away) for the Sunday services. Maggie Hartner, who was now spending two days a week working for Kathryn (as well as holding down her job at the telephone company), kept the pressure on, begging Kathryn to move to Pittsburgh.
“I can’t Maggie,” Kathryn replied. “I just can’t. You don’t understand. These people took me in, loved me, and accepted me when no one else in the world wanted me. I owe them my life. No, the roof on Faith Temple (in Franklin, Pennsylvania) would have to literally cave in before I’d believe God wanted me to move to Pittsburgh.”
The last week of November, western Pennsylvania experienced the biggest snowfall in its history—more than forty inches in a three-day period. A great Thanksgiving service had been planned at Faith Temple. But traffic was stopped for hundreds of miles. Even if the roads had been open, though, there still would be no service. The accumulated weight of snow on the roof of the old building was too much for the rotting timbers. On Thanksgiving Day, 1950, the roof of Faith Temple caved in.
Three weeks later Kathryn bought a house in Fox Chapel, a suburb of Pittsburgh. it was to be her home until she died.