Richard Ralph Carmichael was born April 29, 1900 in Lincoln, Nebraska. Adele Boatright was born in Granger, Iowa January 25, 1902. Both Adele and Richard as youths were involved in church work coming from families of ministers that participated in meetings, camps and revivals.  As a late teen, Richard worked for the Assemblies of God minister, Kelly Campbell in Hickory Grove, Iowa. Adele began assisting her father around 1910 after her father, David Elmo Boatwright (1880-1959), became an evangelistic preacher. Adele was ordained in 1918 at a young age of 16 by the evangelistic Assemblies of God in Davis City, Iowa. Between 1919 and 1920, Richard would meet Adele Boatright while attending the short lived Midwest Bible School in Auburn, Nebraska. After the school closed, Richard travels the circuit as a musician playing the piano and trombone. Adele held revival campaigns in the Iowa region assisting her father. Richard eventually became as musician at Adele’s father’s church providing a vehicle for him and Adele to become reacquainted. They would marry November 9, 1923. Richard and Adele would enter into a contract to become co-pastors, alternating in ministering, and begin their decades of working together by founding Bethel Church in Quincy, Illinois. Adele was a passionate minister and was well known throughout the US for her charismatic style. Together, they both traveled and preached from coast to coast Richard often in charge of the music while Adele drew in the crowds with her evangelism. During their normal pastorate, Richard would often take the morning service with Adele leading an evangelical evening service. They would pastor at Bethel for about 10 years before moving to Fargo, North Dakota to minister at Fargo Gospel Tabernacle in 1934. While in Fargo, Richard ran a column in the Fargo Forum titled, “Today’s Sermonette”; an idea he would extend to church bulletins as well. In 1939, Adele is found evangelizing in the San Jose, California region and shortly after the Carmichaels would make a new home there, pastoring at Calvary Pentecostal Church. In the early 1950s the Carmichaels are found pastoring at Ventura Assembly of God in Ventura (later known as First Assembly of God), California. Either February or March 1959, the Carmichaels would become pastors of Bible Assembly of God in South Gale. This would be Richard’s last church as he becomes deathly ill and dies January 18, 1960. Adele continues to minister throughout the US including the Hawaiian Islands. She ministered and taught for 85 years up until the day she died. She collapsed on her way to teach a Bible class at New Hope Church, Westlake Village, California on October 14, 2003. The Carmichaels would have two children both born in Quincy. Ralph Richard Carmichael (1927- ) who is well known in the composer and arranger in the secular and Christian music industries and Ruthadele (1932-) who would also be a Bible teacher.

Note written by Frost, Guy, 1965-