Hewitt, Eliza Edmunds

Author

b Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA 1851, d Philadelphia 1920. Raised in a family where the Bible was read daily and gospel songs were sung and learnt, she attended the Girls’ Normal Sch in Philadelphia and spent her life in that city. She trained and worked as a schoolteacher and taught in Sunday School at the Olivet Presbyterian Ch and the Calvin Presbyterian Ch across town. Much of her time was also given to youngsters in the Northern Home for Friendless Children, even when a spinal injury had cut short her main career. Much of her verse was set to music by B D Ackley, C H Gabriel (both qv), J R Sweney (as here) and other evangelical musicians well-known in her N American generation. She sometimes used the pseudonym Lidie H Edmunds; different songs have made an impact on the British and American churches respectively, but her work became well-known in Pentecostal and Salvationist traditions. No.733.