"After much prayer and discussion, Ruth and I made the decision to be buried beside each other at the Billy Graham Library in my home town of Charlotte, N.C.," Billy Graham is quoted as saying in a news release posted on the Web site of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. The couple made this decision in early spring, the statement said, and decided to announce it "now that she is close to going to heaven."
The burial site has been a matter of contention for months, threatening to break apart the country's most famous Christian family. A Washington Post story in December revealed that son Franklin Graham, chief executive officer of the BGEA, had told potential donors that he planned to bury his parents at the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte.
Two of the other four Graham children, Ned Graham and Anne Graham Lotz, objected, as did Ruth, who called the library, a Disney-like building in the shape of a barn, "a circus." In the presence of six witnesses, including Ned, a neuroscientist and a Graham employee, Ruth signed a notarized statement saying she wished to be buried in a memorial garden at the Cove, a mountain retreat center that she and Billy built about 20 years ago.
Originally, she and Billy wanted to be buried there, the document said, and "under no circumstances am I to be buried in Charlotte, N.C."
But in March, Ruth and Billy signed another document saying they wanted to be buried in Charlotte, according to BGEA spokesman Larry Ross. Ross said the paper was signed in the presence of an attorney and a doctor.
