At 15, Fanny Crosby enrolled in New York City School for the Blind, and stayed as teacher of English grammar, rhetoric and history at the school for 11 years. Married at age 35 (to a blind musician), she wrote her first hymn at 41; she later would say that she never wrote a hymn without first kneeling in prayer. Using 200 pen names besides her own, Fanny Crosby wrote more than 8,000 hymns. In response to a question about her blindness she said, "When I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior." She was an active member of John Street Methodist Episcopal Church (America's oldest Methodist), and at one time was under contract to write three hymns per week. Fanny lived to the age of 95.

Music by William Howard Doane

Born in Connecticut, William Doane lived much of his life in Cincinnati, Ohio where he served as Sunday School superintendent for 25 years. He wrote 2,200 hymn tunes, many of them for poems written by Fanny Crosby. He also wrote many hymns for Sunday School.

Quoted from "101 Hymn Stories" by Kenneth Osbeck. Kregel Publishers, P.O. Box 2607, Grand Rapids, MI 49501, 1982.
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