a musical prodigy at 8 years old, had started playing the pump organ atthe church when she was so small she needed help to reach the foot pump. She was self-taught on the piano.
Daddy decided at this very first meeting, he had met his future wife. He told his brother, Alf, he would marry
her as soon as she came of age. Dad stayed true to his word and in 1934 Mom and Dad were married. While
they attended Lee Bible College, Mom took Aunt Maude’s place in The Le Fevre Trio and sang about heaven
until she moved there 75 years later.
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In their first years of marriage and music, my
parents’ future looked as bright as the stars.
Daddy saw my mother’s exceptional gift for
playing piano, singing, and especially for
speaking, so he appointed her MC of the
group which, at the time, was unheard of for a
woman. Dad kept playing and singing and
became the group manager. In 1940, they
gained some notoriety playing on WGST, a
local radio show in Atlanta sponsored by the
NuGrape soft drink company.
Then the shadow of World War II fell over the
nation and everything changed.
My mother, already busy raising three
children, became pregnant yet again with me.
Then my father was shipped off to duty in the
U.S. Navy. While my dad served our country
on a ship somewhere near the Philippines, my
mother delivered me at the U.S. Naval Base
Hospital on Oct. 6, 1944, in Gulfport,
Mississippi. At 26 years old, she managed to
raise four small children on her own until
Daddy finally came home from the war when I
was 2 years old.
At Right: The Le Fevre Trio
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ON THE ROAD AGAIN
With the nation at peace and our family back together again, The Le Fevre Trio expanded. The children—Pierce,
Meurice, Andrea, and eventually me—joined in and the group became simply The Le Fevres. Daddy insisted on it.
He made all his kids sing, whether they were talented or not. I don’t think he believed God would give him a child
who couldn’t sing. The first time I sang publicly at 5 years old, I was so little I had to stand on the piano bench to
reach the microphone!
Even with some of us singing on tiptoe, The Le Fevres’ music found an audience. In the 1950s, we began
appearing on local TV. Videotape hadn’t yet been invented so we broadcast every show live. After performing the
show in Atlanta, our family traveled each week to do shows in Augusta, Macon, Columbus, and Savannah,
Georgia. Friday and Saturday nights we sang concerts; then we started the whole process over again on Sunday.
When video was introduced, we began taping the broadcasts at Ted Turner’s very first TV station in Atlanta.
From there, copies of the tapes went out to 126 cities, one at a time, to make our show the first syndicated
Christian TV show in the world! Courtesy of Martha White Flour Company, it also became the first Christian
show to have national sponsorship. Eventually, the show grew to include three other gospel groups and became
The Gospel Singing Caravan with my mom as the MC.
HEALING, HOLINESS, AND HYPOCRISY
The Le Fevres, launched into the spotlight through television, soon became famous in Southern Gospel music.
With my mom well on her way to becoming the queen of the genre, our family performed in some of the largest
auditoriums and arenas in the country.
We also sang for some of the biggest revival crusades and TV evangelists of the 1950s. During those years of the
great healing revival, I watched with utter amazement as God worked mighty miracles through such men as Oral
Roberts, A.A. Allen, Rex Humbard, and Jack Coe. Afterward, laughing and playing backstage with their children,
I never suspected I’d someday need such a miracle myself.
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My family not only sang for truly great ministers of God but also for some ministers who weren’t really serving
Him with their whole hearts. So I saw a lot of holy stuff and a lot of hypocrisy. I didn’t intellectually understand the
difference. But, as most children do, I sensed in my spirit that one was right and the other wrong. And like the world
war that had once darkened my parents’ life, the wrong I saw cast a shadow over mine.
A battle began inside me. Shaken by the good and bad I’d seen existing side-by-side in God’s people, I started to
question the possibility of ever really walking close to Him.
How can the sky be so dark and the stars so bright at the same time? It started out a kid’s question but as the
years passed it became a major spiritual dilemma. Although I would struggle with it for decades, when I finally
found the answer, it would keep me singing for the rest of my life.
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CHAPTER TWO
MUSICAL DREAMS
GOSPEL SHIP
I
