Graeme’s descriptions of Billy’s attitude toward his own
finances echoed the observation from his brother.
■ ■ ■Mel Graham began our interview with him by telling about his
and Billy’s ancestors who fought in the Civil War. “When they
came back, they farmed—nothing but poor red soil here, depleted
by cotton. The South was considered very poor; in the thirties this
was a terribly depressed area. But my daddy, he took over his
father’s farm, and he paid it all off.”
Mel obviously had learned a lot from his father, operating the
dairy farm until he was forty, then finding additional success in
related ventures.
“Was running the dairy farm a tough business?”
“It was tough! Seven days a week; Sunday almost like Mon-
day. Something every hour, it seems—like a cow trying to calve.
We milked a hundred head by hand twice a day—no machin-
ery—three of us. Billy had to do it too.”
Mel said Billy didn’t like the milking, but he was eager to work
as a Fuller Brush salesman. “The first week Billy Frank set an all-
time record as a rookie in the whole company—working in one
of the poorest places in America. By the end of the summer he
was one of the best they’d ever had.”
“Was Billy cautious about money?”
“He would never borrow a dime.”
“So he had to scramble from the very beginning?”
“He moved furniture. He did everything.”
We talked to Mel about Billy’s caution in spending organiza-
tional money. Melvin described how Billy would cut some pro-
jects “way down. He’s just conscious of God’s money.” Melvin told
us a complicated story about Billy’s extreme generosity to another
ministry in settling a financial matter.
“Why did he insist on being so generous?” we asked.
“Just the way he is. Doesn’t care a thing about money. When
we divided up our dairy farm years ago, Billy said, ‘Give me what-
ever you want, it doesn’t matter to me.’ That was his attitude.”Mobilizing Money