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. Her older sister Myrtle had married an itinerant
evangelist, Everette 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 a 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. 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, but he was married and
had two children. Waltrip left Denver went home, to Austin, Texas, and
shortly afterwards 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 ministry. There must
have been an ongoing relationship with Kuhlman because they married in
1938. She knew that the marriage was a bad idea. Her world came crashing
down. She gave up her church in Denver, lost some of her closest associates,
and the Waltrips' evangelization efforts were dogged by the stories of
their history. Her life was a disaster. In 1944, feeling the marriage
was the biggest mistake of her life, she left Waltrip. He eventually divorced
her in 1947.
Kuhlman began
to hold small evangelistic meetings on her own. In 1946 she 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.
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. These are probably 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 and was closely
associated with the growing Charismatic movement. 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 very enlarged and Kuhlman died on February
20, 1976, in Tulsa, following open-heart surgery
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