Lemuel Nelson Bell (July 30, 1894 – August 2, 1973)[1] was a medical missionary in China and the father-in-law of famous evangelist Billy Graham.

Although the hospital had a pastor on staff, Bell made the healing of souls a priority in his work, gently explaining the Gospel to his patients.

The Bells returned to the United States before Pearl Harbor in 1941 and retired in Montreat, North Carolina, across the street from their daughter Ruth and Billy Graham.

In 1947 Bell wrote without irony that he was 'ashamed at the intolerance, the discrimination, and the humiliations which have been heaped on them [blacks] by the white race' while he defended segregation.

[6] With his son-in-law, he was extremely active in trying to mobilize evangelicals to support Richard Nixon against Roman Catholic John F. Kennedy for president in 1960.