John R. Rice - Personality

Personality

Rice was a remarkably hard worker who rarely took a vacation. He once estimated that he had been away from home for thirty years of his forty-five year ministry. His book Home, Courtship, Marriage and Children was written almost entirely on the road, one chapter dictated on a train between Chicago and Albany, most of another while waiting for a plane at LaGuardia. A daughter who took a semester out of college to play the piano for Rice in two large revivals was there also pressed into service taking his dictation and typing the manuscript of the final chapters of the book. He claimed that woodworking was his hobby, but although he had all the necessary tools, he never had the time to use them. A brick room behind his house intended for woodworking was eventually used for storage.

Rice was gracious with praise and commanded the loyalty of his staff. He had a sometimes corny sense of humor--such as asking service station attendants, "Do you know where I could buy some gasoline?" or walking by a table filled with his own books and remarking to potential buyers, "I have read these books and find them to be sound." He liked dogs, horses, and children. Once he was discovered after a service playing hopscotch. He wrote texts and picked out melodic lines for dozens of simple gospel songs, mostly about revival and soulwinning. He was extremely frugal, there was never a hint of scandal about his personal life, and the testimonies of his six daughters were a credit to his ministry. Once on a car trip from Dallas to Chicago, Rice prayed, "Lord, help me to find someone I can win." He then missed a turn in Oklahoma and drove fifty miles out of the way. At a gas station where he stopped to ask directions, he led the attendant to Christ. Still upset about the unplanned detour, his daughters giggled at him, reminding him of his earlier prayer.

At 81, with a hearing aid, suffering from arthritis, and aware that his memory was "not quick as it was years ago," Rice still managed to be at the office most mornings at 6:30. In 1978, he had a heart attack, then a second, more serious one in April 1980. He died of a stroke on December 29. The staff counted 22,923 letters that had come to Rice between the beginning of his writing ministry and his death reporting that the writer had found Christ through Rice's books or booklets or through a sermon published in The Sword of the Lord.