Description: F. A. Graves, circa 1897.
This Week in AG History — January 22, 1927
By Darrin Rodgers
Originally published on AG-News, Wed, 22 Jan 2014 – 4:36 PM CST
Music has always been an important part of the Pentecostal tradition. This was true one hundred years ago as it is today. One of the best-known early Pentecostal songwriters was Frederick A. Graves (1856-1927).
F. A. Graves overcame significant childhood adversity. He was orphaned at age nine and was diagnosed with epilepsy five years later. He was an earnest young Christian and prepared for ministry at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and studied music in Northfield, Massachusetts. Despite suffering periodic seizures, he moved to southwestern Minnesota and served as an organizer and evangelist for the American Sunday School Union. He heard John Alexander Dowie, the famous healing evangelist, at a meeting in Minneapolis. At Dowie’s meeting, Graves experienced a miraculous healing of his epilepsy.
Graves wrote at least 43 songs, including popular hymns such as Honey in the Rock (1895) and He Was Nailed to the Cross for Me (1906). However, Graves did not write a single song until he was almost 35 years old, after his healing from epilepsy. Much of Grave’s inspiration as a songwriter came from his own experience of suffering and God’s merciful healing. Graves did not expect to be healed, nor did he expect to be a songwriter. Graves often testified in his usual understated manner, “God had a blessed surprise for me.”
Graves received credentials as an Assemblies of God minister in 1916. All of his children attended Central Bible Institute in Springfield, Missouri. His son, Arthur, became president of Southeastern Bible College (now Southeastern University). Another son, Carl, became an Assemblies of God missionary to Ceylon. His daughter, Irene, married Myer Pearlman, the noted convert from Judaism, author, and theology professor at Central Bible Institute. F. A. Graves died on January 2, 1927. Nearly 1,000 people attended his funeral in Zion, Illinois.
Read the obituary of F. A. Graves on page 7 of the January 22, 1927, issue of the Pentecostal Evangel.
Also featured in this issue:
* “Keeping our Accounts Balanced,” by D. W. Kerr
* “Old-Time Pentecost,” by Mattie Ledbetter
And many more!
Click here to read this issue now.
Pentecostal Evangel archived editions courtesy of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center. For current editions of the Evangel, click here.
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I had the joy of interviewing on video the sweet little Irene Graves Pearlman. She lived a couple of blocks from the Assemblies of God offices in Springfield. I showed the video at a General Council in Los Angeles, and it continued to run during a dinner break when few people were in the convention center. One man in the center happened to be Mrs. Pearlman’s son who was just wandering around and looking at the various exhibits. From a distance he spotted our video screen, and he remarked to himself that the woman looked like his deceased mother. He could not hear the sound, but the more he looked, the more he was certain it was his mother. He made his way to our exhibit and was thrilled to see and hear his mother. He had no idea that we had made the video interview, and was he excited! When word got around, other family members came by and ordered a copies of the video. How cool was that!
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I have read F. A. Graves testimony written by himself about his and his wife’s healing. What a story of God’s sovereignty and miraculous power to heal. I think of this story quite often. Praise the Lord Jesus. Charles A. Jennings