Pearl Lotte Goode (1884-1972) was almost a legend to the staff members of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. She was a widowed nurse in her mid sixties with grown children in 1949 when she joined other volunteers to pray for the Christ for Greater Los Angeles meetings that Billy Graham was going to lead, with Cliff Barrows as song leader and George Beverly Shea as soloist. The meetings were extended from three weeks to eight because of the enthusiastic crowds and marked the beginning of Rev. Graham's national reputation. Mrs. Goode felt called of God to pray for the evangelistic campaigns of Billy Graham and from that point on would travel to every city where a campaign was going to be held to rent a room and spend her time in continuous prayer while the meetings were going on. She later estimated that she covered 48,000 miles on Greyhound busses before she began traveling by airplane. Even when she did not leave her home in Pasadena (and she usually did not travel to Billy Graham's overseas meetings) she would make it a point to be in prayer during the same time that Rev. Graham would actually be preaching.

At first she conducted this ministry all on her own, with no fanfare or financial assistance. Eventually members of the BGEA team began noticing her among the crusade volunteers in the cities they traveled to all over the country and eventually provided for her travel and accommodations. She continued her prayer ministry until her death.

In October 1970, Dr. Lois Ferm of the BGEA staff sat down with Mr. Goode to capture some of her memories about the 1949 Los Angeles meetings and her prayer ministry. Links to the recording and a transcript are below. (This was one of the very first of hundreds of interviews that Dr. Ferm would do on BGEA history for more than a third of a century. The BGC Archives Collection 141 contains the tapes and transcripts of these interviews.)

Click to listen to the tape of the interview (27 minutes).

Click to read the transcript of the interview.

Click to read a letter that Pearl Goode wrote about her prayer ministry during the 1957 Billy Graham New York City Crusade.