Jean Graham Ford, the youngest sister and last living sibling of Billy Graham, and the wife of evangelist Leighton Ford, died Feb. 29 in her hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina. She was 91.

“My Aunt Jean loved the Lord Jesus Christ, her family, her church and the work of God’s people around the world,” Franklin Graham wrote on Facebook. “She, along with her husband Dr. Leighton Ford, was always a great encourager to my father throughout his entire ministry. He sought her counsel on many issues during his lifetime.

“My father often recounted memories of growing up on the dairy farm. He was the oldest of the four children born to my grandparents, Frank and Morrow Graham. The youngest was his sister Jean, who was still a child when my parents married in 1943. She was stricken with polio at age 11 that paralyzed her throat. Even at that time in her young life, and faced with the possibility of death as a child, she often said that it would not have bothered her [to die] so much because she knew she was going to Heaven. She traced her faith back to her childhood, commenting that Jesus ‘was part of our family.’”

Franklin noted that Jean exemplified such faith when Sandy Ford, son of Leighton and Jean, died of a rare heart disease at 21.

“Sandy’s testimony for the Lord lives on to this day,” Frankin wrote, “and so does the testimony of Jean Graham Ford.”

She and Leighton Ford met and fell in love at Wheaton College, and were married on Dec. 19, 1953. Leighton later served as an associate evangelist with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) for three decades.

Franklin noted that in sharing her testimony, Jean would often say: “Sometimes it’s so difficult to trust our lives to the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet to me, there’s no option. That happened to be ingrained in me, my trust in what He promises; my trust in who I know Him to be.”

Speaking at Billy Graham’s funeral in 2018, Jean told how she was reminded of the hymn “Heaven Came Down” when she got the news that her brother had died.

“On February the 21st, Heaven came down and took my brother from me,” she told the guests. “One day, Heaven will come down and take me. And I know what [my brother] would want me to say today is, ‘Heaven is coming again and would like to take you also.’”

Jean was preceded in death by son Sandy in 1981. She is survived by her husband, Leighton, along with a daughter, Deborah, and son, Kevin.