The Rev. Robert Schuller reading scripture during Sunday services at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif. Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Times and Getty Images
Nov/Dec 2024 (Volume 16, Issue 6)
By Arvid Huisman
While some Iowa farm boys of the 1930s were dreaming of becoming farmers, firemen, policemen, teachers and doctors, a very young Robert Harold Schuller was dreaming of becoming a preacher.
Years later, Schuller’s dream was fulfilled and he became one of the world’s most famous preachers in one of America’s most iconic houses of worship, the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif. From 1970 until his retirement in 2006 he had a worldwide television ministry that attracted millions of viewers to his popular weekly television show “Hour of Power.”
Robert Schuller was born on Sept. 19, 1926, to Anthony and Jennie Schuller on a farm near Alton in northwest Iowa’s Sioux County. The youngest of five children, he attended a one-room country school and graduated from Newkirk High School in 1943. Newkirk is an unincorporated community about six miles northeast of Orange City.
Farming was never a part of Schuller’s dream. In her book “Robert Schuller My Journey,” author Roseann T. Sullivan quoted Schuller as saying, “I didn’t mean to hate the smell of the barn or the squish of a cow pie in the pasture. I didn’t choose to be an out-of-place farmer’s son. I just was.”
Schuller’s Uncle Henry, his mother’s brother, was a missionary in China. While on furlough in 1931, Uncle Henry visited the Schuller farm. It was then that his uncle declared to young Robert, “You will be a preacher when you grow up.”
In addition to his distaste for farm life, Schuller encountered difficulties with school life. During school recess softball games, his schoolmates — boys and girls — always chose him last.
Author Sullivan shared Schuller’s story: “I asked my teacher, ‘Why didn’t anyone want me?’ ‘Well,’ she said, ‘You’re very likeable, but you’re … well, you’re fat and slow, you know.’”
Years later Schuller said he had discovered the power of negative self-esteem and he saw his role as a preacher to include making his hearers feel better about themselves.
The Rev. Robert Schuller delivers sermon to parishioners who sit in cars in what is thought to be America’s first and biggest drive-in church in Garden, Grove, Calif., a Los Angeles suburb, Nov. 12, 1972. Photo courtesy of Associated Press
Schuller encountered other challenges growing up on the farm. When he was a college student home for the summer, a tornado swept through Sioux County and destroyed every building on the family farm. With few options, his father purchased a rundown house in nearby Alton for $50. Father and son took the house apart one board at a time. Saving every piece, including the nails, they transported the materials to their farm and built a new house.
It is claimed that nine families were wiped out by the tornado but the Schullers were the only ones to rebuild.
Schuller’s parents were devout members of a Reformed Church of America congregation and young Robert grew up in the denomination. Formerly known as the Dutch Reformed Church, the denomination still has a strong presence in Sioux County.
After graduating from high school, Schuller enrolled in the Reformed Church’s Hope College in Holland, Mich., where he earned a bachelor of arts degree in 1947. He remained in Holland and enrolled in Western Theological Seminary where he was awarded a Masters of Divinity degree in 1950.
TO READ THE ENTIRE STORY AND OTHER FASCINATING STORIES ABOUT IOWA HISTORY, subscribe to Iowa History Journal.