Fanny Crosby
Francis Jane Crosby was born in Putnam Co. New York, March 24, 1820. She was known as Fanny Crosby. Fanny Crosby was known as the most prolific hymn writer ever. She is credited with writing over 9000 hymns, over 100,000 of her hymns were sold. She wrote hymns under around 200 pseudonyms because she did not want to flood the market with Fanny Crosby hymns. In 1975 she was elected into the Gospel music Hall of Fame.
Fanny Crosby was the only daughter of John and Mercy Crosby. When Fanny Crosby was only a few months old she caught cold and had an eye inflammation. The doctor put a mustard poultice on her eyes but it was too strong and damaged the nerves in her eyes. The damage was so severe she lost sight. When Fanny was eight years old she wrote her first poem about blindness. When Fanny was 12 with the help of her grandmother she memorized large sections of the Bible she memorized the four Gospels, the Pentateuch, Proverbs, Song of Solomon and many of the Psalms. She was also having singing lessons and had a good soprano voice.
At the age of 15 Fanny enrolled in a New York Institution for the Blind. She stayed there eight years as a student and two years as a graduate pupil. During the time she learned to play piano, organ, harp, and guitar. In 1843 she became a lobbyist for the blind in Washington DC.
While she was at NYIB she met Alexander Van Ahstyme Jr. in 1843 they were married. In 1859 they had one daughter, that daughter died in her sleep when she was just an infant. Fanny would never talk about her daughter until near the end of her life. Her husband left her shortly after that. The real reason for their separation has there are been made public.
Most of Fanny's life she lived in the humblest of places and spent just a minimum on herself. the rest of the money she had, she used to help the poor and hungry. She was a great advocate of the poor in New York City she said that was her most important job.
You would think with all her poems she would have a pretty good income but unfortunately at that time most of the money went to the composers of her hymns so she got very little and what she did have she gave to the poor. She sold five books of poetry in her lifetime and around 100 million copies of her songs were sold.
She would work on as many as six or seven songs at a time and when she got 12 ready then she would dictate them to somebody who would write them down for her.
She died in Bridgeport, Connecticut at her half sister's house where she'd been living. She died of arteriosclerosis at the age of 94 on February 12, 1915.
In her will she left money to build a home for senior men with no other place to go. It wasn't until 1923 that the home was established in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The home operated until 1996 when it was taken over by the Bridgeport rescue mission.
Fanny Crosby once said “She was glad she didn't have sight because it would hinder her in her life's work.” She often said when she gets to heaven the first face she will see will be the face of God.
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