T. L. Osborn

He was the seventh and youngest son of thirteen children, born to Charles Richard Osborn (1883–1966) and his wife Mary (née Brown) (1885–1951).

His father, also a seventh son, was a nonpracticing traditional Baptist, "That's supposed to mean something," Osborn once commented, adding "Turns out, it did mean something."

His parents were musicians, as were several of his brothers and sisters, and Tommy Lee started making music at a very young age.

Growing up in the latter half of the 1920s, he saw his large family struggling through the depression years.

Tommy Lee "T.L." Osborn (December 23, 1923 – February 14, 2013) was an American Pentecostal televangelist, singer, author and teacher whose Christian ministry was based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

In six decades as a preacher, Osborn hosted the religious television program Good News Today.

Tommy Lee Osborn was born on December 23, 1923, on the family potato farm, in Grady County, Oklahoma.

In 1930, when Osborn was six years old, his father moved the family to Skedee, Oklahoma, in search of another, more profitable farm.

Osborn had experienced a Christian conversion in 1937, at the age of 13, when his older brother took him to a Pentecostal church in Mannford.

Gradually, each of his six brothers moved out of the family home until TL was the only boy still living with his parents and helping his 60-year-old father on the potato farm.

He admitted that he was reluctant, even scared, to ask his father's permission to move out and begin traveling.

Finally, while sorting potatoes in the cellar, he plucked up courage to make the request and was greatly surprised when his father said "yes."

In 1939, aged 15, Osborn was milking the cows when he began to cry.

He fell on his knees, praying and asking God what was happening.

The Lord, he said, called him to be an evangelist, while he laughed and cried at the same time, overwhelmed by what was happening to him.

He dropped out of high school after completing eighth grade and hit the road with E.M. Dillard, a traveling evangelist.

Osborn was responsible for organising evangelistic meetings and was also in charge of youth services in the evening.

He traveled with Dillard through three states.

The last one was California, and he met Daisy Washburn, in Los Banos, California at one of the meetings.

It was 1941 and he was only 17 when he fell instantly in love.

On April 5, 1942, Osborn married graduating high school student and farmer's girl, Daisy Washburn Osborn (born September 23, 1924 in Merced, California).

He was 18, and she was only 17.

Shortly thereafter, they set out on a life of ministry and missionary travel, including a trip to India when Osborn was still only 21.

In time, they carried the Gospel of Christ to tens of millions of people all over the world, declaring it with faith and confidence.

However, that early mission in India, preaching at Lucknow, was not fruitful.

Their ministry lasted less than a year in India, and they returned home because of critical family sickness.

In 1947, the Osborns had their only daughter, LaDonna Osborn (b. March 13 of that year; she was raised accompanying her parents on the platforms of global mass miracle evangelistic crusades.

The Osborns first gained public notice shortly after returning from India, as evangelists on the Big Tent Revival circuit in the United States and Canada.

There, they preached to audiences often numbering over 10,000, in open-air meetings and under large tents in settings such as fairgrounds and stadiums.

Other young contemporary evangelists, including Oral Roberts, Billy Graham, Jack Coe, R.W. Schambach and A.A. Allen, were also on the circuit.

The Osborns emphasized the love and compassion of God, rather than the "fire and brimstone" theology style commonly used by evangelists of the era, and they practiced supernatural healing in their meetings.

The Osborn's egalitarian ministry philosophy was also not accepted by many conservative audiences.

By the early 1950s, their emphasis began to shift more and more toward international missions.

They held large crusades in Latin America, Asia, and Africa and crowds grew rapidly, at times exceeding 100,000.

After Osborn's crusades in Thailand in 1956 and Uganda in 1957, Pastor Fred Wantaate of Makerere Full Gospel Church said that "after that crusade in Mombasa, the fountain of the river of Pentecostalism spread in the heart of East Africa".

Around that same time, he met another future televangelist, Marilyn Hickey, eight years Osborn's junior, with her new husband, Wallace.

The young couple traveled around in her husband's car, conducting tent revival meetings in various towns.

At a church in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, he met future televangelist Oral Roberts, who would become his lifelong friend for over 70 years, until Roberts's death in 2009.

Osborn frequently went with Roberts to help with evangelical meetings.

Roberts did most of the preaching, Osborn did everything else, including playing the accordion and the piano for the musical part of the meetings.