(CN514, T048) for the Billy Graham Center Archives

This is a complete transcript of the oral history interview with Leroy H. Pfund (CN514, T048) for the Billy Graham Center Archives. No spoken words which were recorded are omitted. In a very few cases, the transcribers could not understand what was said, in which case “[unclear]” was inserted. Also, grunts and verbal hesitations such as "ah" or "um" are usually omitted. Readers of this transcript should remember that this is a transcript of spoken English, which follows a different rhythm and even rule than written English.

. . . Three dots indicate an interruption or break in the train of thought within the sentence on the part of the speaker.

. . . . Four dots indicate what the transcriber believes to be the end of an incomplete sentence.

( ) Words in parentheses are asides made by the speaker.

[ ] Words in brackets are comments by the transcriber.

This transcript was created by Emily Banas and a student worker and was completed April 2020.

Please note: This oral history interview expresses the personal memories and opinions of the interviewee and does not necessarily represent the views or policies of the Billy Graham Center Archives or Wheaton College.

Collection 514, Tape 48. Oral history interview of Leroy H. Pfund by Douglas Sean O’Donnell on February 15, 1995.

O’DONNELL: The tape is now recording. This is an interview of Mr. Leroy Pfund by Doug O’Donnell for the Archives of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. This interview took place on February 15, 1995 at 3:00 p.m. This interview took place at 707 Irving St. at the Irving House, Wheaton College, Illinois. First question is: What is your name, birth date, and birth place?

PFUND: Leroy H. Pfund [pauses].

O’DONNELL: Birthday?

PFUND: Oct. 10, 1919, Oak Park, Illinois

O’DONNELL: What…what are the names of your parents, sibling?

PFUND: Well, my dad was a…had a Swiss background. His first name was Liebhardt and my mother was of an English background and her name was Helen Myra. Her maiden name was Turner. She was raised in St. Charles and my Dad was raised in Oak Park. My sisters were Ruth now Muzzy and Phyllis now Hylie.

O’DONNELL: Okay. Describe the state of your Christian walk when you first came to Wheaton and if you were not a Christian give a summary of your view of God and religion.

PFUND: I was a Christian when I came to Wheaton. I had some difficulties in my life maybe like other young men and I think the first fall that I was in school I realized sin in my life that needed to be confessed and that fall meeting, a special meeting with Dr. [Harry] Ironside [Pastor of Moody Church in Chicago, 1929-48], I recommitted my life to Christ and that was the first fall that I was here in 1944.

O’DONNELL: That’s when you were a student?

PFUND: Yes.

O’DONNELL: Okay, finishing your undergrad?

PFUND: Undergraduate work.

O’DONNELL: When did you come to Wheaton?

PFUND: Well, I visited Wheaton when I was in high school. I lived in Elmhurst, but I came to Wheaton as a student in the fall of ‘44 after spending some years out of school after being…. priorly being at the University of Illinois Champaign spending a little time in professional baseball…came back to complete my undergraduate education by going fall semester each year

O’DONNELL: And why in particular did you come to Wheaton and not a secular school?

PFUND: My reason for going to Illinois in the first place was to take a course in landscape architecture and to follow my father’s business. There were some difficulties in that course for me and for that reason I dropped out of school and went on to play professional baseball and when I decided to return it was in the area of physical education. But probably the impetus to come to Wheaton was brought about by the godly lives of Wheaton students who were from my home church in Elmhurst; a man later to be Dean of Students here, Dr. Arthur Volle, a family, the Rymer family whose father was my Sunday School teacher, two sons Runnoy [?] and Don were students at Wheaton, the Gladfuller [?] family, Al and Ralph who both were students at Wheaton. One was a classmate of mine at high school and Robert Diehl who was from my church. There were probably some others but those had through young peoples’ association and through them bringing Wheaton students to our church for gospel, gospel team type of meetings. I got to feel that that would be the place I’d like to go to school. Had I not wanted to specialize, I would have gone to Wheaton probably in the first place.

O’DONNELL: Okay. But you were from the area?

PFUND: Yes, Elmhurst. I lived in Elmhurst.

O’DONNELL: Lived in Elmhurst. Okay. How…how and from whom did you hear about the revival on campus?

PFUND: Well, in the 1950 revival I was here on campus. Even though I was married and we had two children and I working two jobs, I was at several of the meetings when I could be and knew about it because I was involved in the athletic department and saw the broadcasters that came out and knew that the….I had been on campus by that time five years, six years and so the fall special meetings was an annual thing. It was something that everybody looked forward to.

O’DONNELL: Okay. Did you, why did you first attend one of these meetings? Did you hear the revival was going on and wanted….was interested in seeing what was going on or…?

PFUND: I think that’s probably it. I think I always attended those meetings in the fall and as a new faculty person felt it was my responsibility to be there as a testimony to students that I was working with and teams that I was working with.

O’DONNELL: Where were these meetings like being held and what was the atmosphere?

PFUND: My memory is that some of them were held in what is now the Corey Alumni Gym and others were held in Pierce Chapel. I don’t remember how many in each place but I think there were meetings in both places during that particular revival.

O’DONNELL: What was your most vivid memory of the revival?

PFUND: A vivid memory is of Dr. [Clarence] Hale [professor of Greek] getting up to confess his talking negatively about other faculty to students of his and that’s about what I remember of that night. It was a…a stunning thing almost, knowing him a bit and knowing the character of the man, to see him get up and…and confess what he felt were convictions of his heart that he had violated his Christian testimony to students and it was so sincere and he was so well respected that I think that came as a surprise to many. It truly did to me.

O’DONNELL: What department was he in?

PFUND: He was in language and taught Greek and maybe other things as well but that’s what I remember.

O’DONNELL: Were there any particular Scripture passages that were emphasized during any of these meetings that you can recall?

PFUND: Not that I recall. I’ve read about Dr. Edwin Johnson speaking in the…those Scriptures that were not foremost with me. I don’t know that they were at the time. But, he…he gave a very simple message and I don’t remember that there was anything particular about the message that would necessarily be a whole lot different than other special meetings that…that I heard or were held. I had the unique experience of very soon after that year coaching his son here at Wheaton College. So my memories of him become more vivid because I got to spend time with him in the middle ‘50s when he would be here when his son was in school.

O’DONNELL: Right

PFUND: So, b…but I was always impressed with him as a minister of the gospel, but at that time I don’t remember in detail much of what he preached about. I’m not sure that I was there at his opening service.

O’DONNELL: Were people being converted at these meetings?

PFUND: Yes, I believe there…there were some but I don’t recall just how many.

O’DONNELL: Were there any of your, any friends, or faculty members that…that you knew that were converted?

PFUND: No, I can’t say that I remember anybody that went forward in that way. There were other years that there were people that went forward, not that I could name names of them. But very definitely. But in that particular time I don’t know that I recall anybody that was close to me, a close friendship.

O’DONNELL: Okay. When did you first feel that something unusual was happening?

PFUND: I think probably when…when the meeting went on. There had been meetings in the past where there would be a testimony meeting toward the end or there would be an altar call and

O’DONNELL: Okay. How did this revival affect your family, your wife, your children? Or were they affected at all by it?

PFUND: Well, the children were very small. Both of us had committed our way to Christ and that was…that was….The length of it was a new thing to us but revival meetings, both from our home churches and from our experience with the special meetings here, was not a new thing to us. But it was certainly an exciting and different experience in this particular case because so many people responded to confess sins and to ask the Lord’s forgiveness and to ask forgiveness of people that they had sinned against.

O’DONNELL: What in your opinion do you think caused the revival?

PFUND: I don’t know if I…I can put a finger on that except to say that I think the preparation probably came through in many different ways. Through the contact with godly professors like Dr. Hale was and others through friendships that we knew. And you realize that those years of ‘49, ‘50, ‘51 produced probably more missionaries abroad than any segment of…of Wheaton history up to maybe the present time. I…I….More now because there are maybe more numbers of students now but all of those things are valuable. Young Life Campaign was very strong on campus beginning in those years. Tuesday nights were student prayer meetings and that was a strong event as I recall it. The students may have been closer together as a group because, not only because of chapel and Tuesday night prayer meetings, but Friday night was the night the Lit Societies met and before that there was always Candlelight dinners in the dining hall. Everybody came dressed up special, party kind of an occasion. So, there was a lot of…of comradery between students that might not have always been since then of those particular things and the fact that the school was smaller in number of students. Maybe only half as big as it is now.

O’DONNELL: So were, there were prayer groups before the revival even started?

PFUND: Yes, prayer groups. On the Sunday night before special meetings started there was always a prayer meeting in Pierce Chapel and that was always well attended. There were also regular Tuesday night prayer meetings which in the fall meetings there had been only a couple of them before this, maybe only one, but it was pretty much a commitment of everybody to go to Tuesday night prayer meetings. Not of everybody, but of a great number of students.

O’DONNELL: How do you feel personally that prayer had an influence on just the whole spiritual atmosphere?

PFUND: Well, I read a little bit about….(I think I probably knew at the time but had kind of slipped away) reading about the special meetings at Wheaton Academy [a private Christian high

© 2020. The Billy Graham Center Archives. All rights reserved. This transcript may be reused with the following publication credit: Used by permission of the Billy Graham Center Archives, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL. BGC Archives CN 514, T48 Transcript - Page 6 school] right prior to this in that fall about mothers of students got with their students and confessed their own sins and iniquities in their lives that surprised their own students and that began a revival because of their prayer for their students at Wheaton Academy. And then some of those mothers had students in college and they decided to pray for the college at that time and then that spilled over to the student prayer meetings here and the churches and the like which all to me (like I said at the beginning) had a part in bringing this about. Nobody could predict it.

O’DONNELL: Right

PFUND: I look back on it. I don’t think about it all….I heard about some of those things at the time never thinking about what the outcome would be and how it would affect so many people.

O’DONNELL: How did it affect…like you were talking about the churches and other areas outside of Wheaton community? Would it seem like a revival outside the community as well as…

PFUND: Yes, well…

O’DONNELL: …in religious areas?

PFUND: …I think that in the churches…were very…very much aware of what was going on and much prayer for the…for the revival. When you think even now of how many faculty and staff are in the churches close by. Then it was probably a higher percentage because there weren’t as many churches so….the close-in [?] Church of the Bible church and the College Church, and probably…I’m not sure if the Free Church had begun by that time. I don’t think it had. But those churches in particular and maybe the…what was called the Tab Downtown [United Gospel Tabernacle, Wheaton IL], where both Dr. [Raymond] Edman [President of Wheaton College, 1941-67] preached and where Billy Graham had been a student pastor and a number of other Wheaton people had preached there. Dr. [Merrill C.] Tenney [Professor of Bible & Theology] eventually was the pastor there who taught on the faculty here. Those three, those three churches probably had more faculty people involved, staff people involved, and were praying for the meetings. And then I think that spilled over because of the people in the churches being in the business community in the city here to people telling about it and being asked about it and it…it made it necessary almost for those people to continue to pray for the meeting.

O’DONNELL: Right.

PFUND: So then that brought newspaper people. It brought people from other states in as kind of a curiosity thing, but they were impressed by it, I remember. There were people who talked about that considerably at the time.

O’DONNELL: How did it affect the faculty since you were somewhat part of the faculty at that time?

PFUND: Well, I remember specifically that we had a day of prayer right following that, right in

© 2020. The Billy Graham Center Archives. All rights reserved. This transcript may be reused with the following publication credit: Used by permission of the Billy Graham Center Archives, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL. BGC Archives CN 514, T48 Transcript - Page 7 the midst of that on campus when classes were excused and it was at those times that we had prayer all day long. Not that we were all there all day long but hour by hour by hour there was always faculty praying. And I can remember one meeting that I was in was probably about where the president’s office is now [Blanchard Hall] in kind of an east conference room where there were probably fifteen faculty gathered. So, I was part of that one and then sometime later that week in one that was up on the third floor. I don’t remember anybody that was there except I think in the early one Dr. [Henry Clarence] Thiessen [professor of Bible and Theology] was there, who happened to by my professor in Ethics and Theism course when I first came to Wheaton. So, I recognized him.

O’DONNELL: How did the whole athletic department….How did it affect coaches that you knew or even the athletes?

PFUND: Well, first of all again the size of the school was different so we may have had five…five coaches at the time and most of those coaches would be at chapel every single day. As a…as a general rule….So students knew how the coaches felt about the spiritual emphasis on campus and so at special meetings that was true as well. And I can’t remember specifically, except that I know from fellows talking about it that there were prayer meetings during that week by the athletic team and pretty much encompassed the whole campus. I don’t know that there were very many people that missed out on it except people like myself who…and some others because of family situations or some that commuted and didn’t live on campus so would go home at night and so forth.

O’DONNELL: All right. Were there any negative effects from the revival?

PFUND: The only negative I would have thought might have been that when it got to be an all- night thing newspapers and curiosity seekers started to come in and that’s when Dr. Edman called off one of the meetings and stopped it and said it would resume in the morning. Now, it may have officially resumed in the morning, but he did that in order to keep it from encompassing too many curiosity seekers…

O’DONNELL: Right

PFUND: …which it seemed to be bringing about at that point and some of that resulted in the salvation of people who came in. The stories told later of people that came in to that and heard the message and saw the conviction of the Holy Spirit upon people’s lives that they responded to that as well.

O’DONNELL: Were there any negative reactions of revival on campus? Any students or faculty that you know of that were against this?

PFUND: Not at that particular one. I really haven’t any memory of that at all, being negative.

O’DONNELL: What role did music play in the revival?

PFUND: Well, it might be different. I happened to listen to chapel this morning and heard…and heard the leadership singing from the platform. I was in my car travelling so I was…I listened to chapel. It was more like that. It was the singing of hymns and choruses and that was…that was pretty common for chapel services, particularly special services. The regular chapel would not have had much of that but the special meetings always had a time of music to begin with. And I’m not sure…I just…somebody would have to go back and look, but I think Bud Schaeffer (who was the basketball captain that year as a senior and who had been in missionary work all the years with overseas crusade, Adventure for Victory, and sports ambassador and is still associated with them) was the song leader for that, for those meetings that fall. You’d have to check that to be sure, but he was a senior that year and I rather think that he…he was the one that led the singing.

O’DONNELL: Okay. What’s the difference between a special service and just a normal chapel time?

PFUND: Well, a special services always had a special speaker from outside the campus and that’s where Edwin Johnson….Is that what you’re speaking of?

O’DONNELL: Okay, yeah.

PFUND: Edwin Johnson came. I think his church at that time was either Philadelphia or somewhere in Pennsylvania. Over the years there were all kinds of speakers that came from away. I’ve lost the names of many of them now [chuckles] but I suppose those….in one of those early years Billy Graham spoke. Dr. Ironside, who was the president of Moody Bible Institute at the time, was here. Some of the rest of them slip me right now. If I had a chance to think about it a little more I’d maybe recall some more of their names but it was almost always someone from off of campus.

O’DONNELL: But it was the same time period?

PFUND: It was the same time. The…the school would start like on a Thursday. And special meetings would either be that following Monday or a week from that following Monday. I think ten days of school about before the first special meetings.

O’DONNELL: Okay.

PFUND: And…and the main…the part that made it special was a special outside speaker. Chapel was a little bit longer sometimes and then there were evening services every night…

O’DONNELL: Okay

PFUND: …except Saturday.

O’DONNELL: What role did relationships play in the revival? What social relationships and connection paved the way for the revival and conversion?

PFUND: I think some of the things I mentioned earlier. The organizations on campus like…like Young Life was prominent. People were involved in Youth for Christ clubs, High C clubs, and the like. And I think that the grouping of students in those various ministries plus…plus gospel teams going into the inner city, gospel teams going to what we would call now retirement homes, county homes. Those sort of ministries gave a lot of attention to spiritual growth and interest in that type of thing.

O’DONNELL: You somewhat answered this. Maybe you could go into more detail. What role did preaching play in the revival?

PFUND: Maybe I could say it this way. The preaching of Pastor Johnson being what it was did not promote the man but promoted Christ and His Word and I think that had the greatest impact. As I said earlier I don’t recall any particular points of emphasis on his part, what the theme was. I just remembered the simple gospel…

O’DONNELL: Right

PFUND: …being preached and being responded to.

O’DONNELL: Okay. What role did sharing of testimonies play in the revival?

PFUND: Well, I think it brought about the listening of roommates, classmates, colleagues who thought…were…was brought to mind things in their own lives that needed to be confessed. And I don’t know that everybody responded to that but there were a great host of people that did both faculty and staff. Probably not as much as staff who would not ordinarily be at special meetings but in those days there were quite a few and then faculty and…and sometimes the trustees who were part of the trustee board would be at meetings or have a part of them.

O’DONNELL: What role did confessions play in the revival and what were people confessing about?

PFUND: Everything. Breaking the standards of conduct or pledges it was called in those years. Relationships with roommates and like that. Mishandling of other people’s belongings, taking things that didn’t belong to them, lying about things and having to confess their unfaithfulness in that way. Probably mostly related to the pledge and the breaking of the pledge.

O’DONNELL: Did you confess anything at that time?

PFUND: Not at that particular time. At the meetings I had this other experience when I first came to Wheaton and it was so alive and fresh to me that it probably was a great factor in my staying at Wheaton, being interested in staying at Wheaton, so this was a blessing to my life, just an encouragement at the time. And I was quick to go home to tell about it and tell my family who were Christian and my wife’s family and other relatives that were close by that we’d had a chance to visit with and to be involved in the prayer for it and in the encouragement of those who were…were questioning and would…would maybe have….had gone…go through emotional

O’DONNELL: Were there people who were key figures in the revival? If so, who and what was so important about them?

PFUND: Well, first of all [Dr. Raymond] Prexy Edman [Wheaton College President] was always prominent in the revival in…in the special meetings in the fall. The song leader was always the special…had a special involvement there because it had the attention of the student body and the audience. I believe that was Bud Schaeffer and for many years Carter Cody who just recently passed away was the song leader for special meetings who worked in the development office...

O’DONNELL: Okay.

PFUND: But also was the choir director in one of the churches and was involved in that way or someone else of that quality, so that was important. And then…and then the speaker, Edwin Johnson and others over the years who always had a great impact on the student body to the extent that the students would seek them out for council after the meetings and I’ve seen it grow from being kind of a catch them after the meeting on the floor thing to time with them in special places at special times during the day which I believe it would be scheduled time today.

O’DONNELL: Right. Okay. What percentage of the college community would you estimate were involved in the revival?

PFUND: Oh, that would be very hard for me to say. Certainly upwards of seventy-five percent. The other twenty-five could be a part of…of the…being involved in work or travel and not living on campus. That type of thing.

O’DONNELL: Right

PFUND: Most of them were not involved with that…that way as far as you could tell. At this point, it’s hard for me to determine.

O’DONNELL: How did the revival end? How would you describe the end of the revival?

PFUND: Well, I don’t know that I was at the last meeting. I kind of feel that I was. But I guess we would say today, on a high. People were rejoicing. The singing was deeply from within from those who were involved. The expressions after the meeting for the weeks immediately following were all of spiritual growth and praise and glory to God for what had occurred. And that’s my feeling of how it ended. I don’t have any specifics to say what the last word was said or the last song that was sung.

O’DONNELL: Did you feel it had a dramatic effect on the campus for that whole entire year?

PFUND: Yes, it did. Yes, I think it did. In fact, I think it had a great dramatic effect on the

© 2020. The Billy Graham Center Archives. All rights reserved. This transcript may be reused with the following publication credit: Used by permission of the Billy Graham Center Archives, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL. BGC Archives CN 514, T48 Transcript - Page 11 campus for more than just that year. For several years afterwards beginning of a…missionaries that were martyred in South America [Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, and Ed McCully, three of the five missionaries killed by the Waorani people in Ecuador] who were in school at that time had….Some of them had just finished school and some of them were around here and had friends in school. So, they were very much involved at that time and of course they were martyred in February of ‘56, I think. Those particularly….But there were others as I mentioned earlier that have a great percentage of students out of those classes that went on to the mission field.

O’DONNELL: All right. What influence, if any, did the revival have on you in the short term?

PFUND: In the short term to make sure to be very sensitive to the spiritual needs of the fellows I was working with in…in basketball and baseball, in the classes that I taught, and being more persistent than ever about being at chapel and showing….Being a generally…genuinely interested person in that part of the campus life. Not that I hadn’t been before but that really…really brought to focus what that…what that emphasis meant in the lives of so many.

O’DONNELL: Do you think the revival had a long term influence on the people involved? If so, in your opinion, what is that influence? What was that influence?

PFUND: Well, you have to remember that Wheaton is what it is because it believed in God’s word from the very outset and that in the lives of…of people before us….I use an example strongly and probably used it in answering any questions of Miss [Alice] Spaulding [Assistant professor of Bible] who was my teacher in Romans, a godly person who’s related to some of the trustees and alumni at Wheaton at that time who had a great impact upon the people she taught in her classes. So that…that impact didn’t end with that revival, but it continued on with fervor through the lives of faculty, particularly through the life of Prexy [Edman]…

O’DONNELL: Uh-uh

PFUND: …throughout the ‘50s, as he was president until 1965.

O’DONNELL: Right.

PFUND: And those…those events were not forgotten. I think that’s probably the reason because the faculty were serving long years. Many of them served for twenty-five, thirty years and so you had that core of people here who were committed to Christ and His Kingdom…

O’DONNELL: Right

PFUND: …for their lives and for their ministry.

O’DONNELL: Have you ever been involved in any other revival?

PFUND: No, I don’t know…I can’t answer, but…but ’70 I can remember a little bit by reading

O’DONNELL: Okay.

PFUND: …as much as I do of the fifty revival.

O’DONNELL: You were living in the area?

PFUND: Yes. Yes, I was still coaching.

O’DONNELL: You were still coaching?

PFUND: Uh-huh, right.

O’DONNELL: Are there any final comments you’d like to make?

PFUND: No, I think it would do anybody good to read about these revivals from the information that’s available. Also to read of the history of Wheaton that was written by Dr. [Paul] Bechtel [professor of English] just a few years back and also a book, The Fire on the Prairie written by Wyeth Willard who at that time was acting chaplain. I don’t think he was full time chaplain. I believe he worked in the business office…

O’DONNEL: Uh-huh.

PFUND: …but he came here as kind of an assistant to the president in several different ways and he writes of that fervor from the early days at Wheaton when there were only…what in the early years of Wheaton only 168 students or something like that and before that time even less and how that impact of the…of the determination to follow God’s word because they believed it had impact on every generation till now, including now.

O’DONNELL: Okay. Thank you.

PFUND: Thank you. Thank you.

END OF TAPE