Crosby, Fanny (1820–1915)

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Crosby, Fanny (1820–1915)

American blind poet, hymn writer, and worker in the Mission Movement. Born Frances Jane Crosby in Southeast Putnam County, New York, on March 24, 1820; died in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on February 12, 1915; only child of John (a farmer) and Mercy (Crosby) Crosby; attended the New York Institution for the Blind, New York City, 1835–43; married Alexander Van Alstyne (a blind teacher), on March 5, 1858 (died 1902); children: one (died in infancy).

Blind from infancy, Fanny Crosby became a popular poet and a prominent figure in American evangelical religious life at the end of the 19th century. Recognized primarily as the author of as many as 9,000 hymns, she was also a well-known speaker and devoted mission worker. In her later years, she was often referred to as "the Protestant saint" or "the Methodist saint," because of the large number of the faithful throughout the world that made pilgrimages to receive her prayers and advice.

Fanny, the only child of John and Mercy Crosby , was born in rural Southeast, New York, where eight members of the extended family shared one small cottage. At the age of six weeks, she contracted an eye infection, for which a doctor prescribed hot poultices that left her completely blind. Before the end of her first year, she lost her father to illness. (Her mother would later remarry and have three additional children.) While her widowed mother worked as a domestic, Crosby spent much of her time in the care of her grandmother Eunice, who was determined that the child not grow up to be a helpless invalid. Eunice became her granddaughter's eyes, describing the physical world to her in terms she hoped Fanny would understand. "My grandmother was more to me than I can ever express by word or pen," said Crosby. Although the family attended church every Sunday, it was Eunice who endlessly read to Crosby from the Bible and patiently answered her stream of questions. Crosby's blindness never stopped her from being an active, spirited girl, who learned to ride a horse bareback, climbed trees, and was as mischievous as any of her playmates.

Her mother Mercy, remaining hopeful that something could be done for her daughter's condition, scraped together enough money to take Fanny to New York. About age five, Fanny was examined there by several ophthalmologists, who confirmed that the damage to her eye tissue was irreversible. Mercy changed jobs around this time and took Fanny to the Quaker village of North Salem, where they lived in the home of her new employer. This was the first time Fanny had been solely in the care of her mother, and Mercy, although devoted to her daughter, was much stricter than Eunice. Around 1828, they moved to a boarding house in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Mercy took another job as a domestic while Fanny was enrolled in school. The teachers found it difficult to attend to her needs, so she spent most of her time in the care of the landlady, Mrs. Hawley, who set the child to the task of memorizing the Bible. Crosby would repeat what Hawley read to her line by line, chapter by chapter. Gifted with a phenomenal memory, within two years Crosby had mastered all four Gospels, as well as many of the psalms, all of Proverbs, all of Ruth, and the Song of Solomon.

As an adolescent, Crosby began to suffer bouts of moodiness and depression, which increased with Eunice's death in 1831. Still unable to attend school on a regular basis, she nonetheless developed a beautiful singing voice and mastered the guitar well enough to accompany herself. An excellent storyteller, Crosby was much in demand at local gatherings. Around this time, she started writing poems about events in the neighborhood, some of which were published in the local newspaper. Crosby's chance for a full education finally came in 1835. Although devastated by the knowledge that she'd have to leave her mother, the 15-year-old Crosby enrolled in the newly founded New York Institution for the Blind.

After overcoming initial homesickness, she embraced the institute as her new home and, for the next two decades, experienced what she called "the brightest joys I e'er have known." Outgoing and bright, she quickly made friends and easily mastered her lessons. Crosby's early talent for writing verse was encouraged by her teachers, especially after she visited Scottish phrenologist Dr. George Combe, who examined her skull and pronounced that she had great potential as a poet and should be given every opportunity to develop her talent. During her eight years at the institute, Crosby became one of its prize students and something of a celebrity as "The Blind Poetess." Many of her works were published in the poetry columns of local New York papers, and some poems found their way into The Saturday Evening Post. In 1941, the New York Herald published her poetic eulogy on President William Henry Harrison, after his untimely death just one month after taking office. She was often called on to recite for famous visitors to the school and was part of a student group that made public appearances in the area to demonstrate the educability of the blind and to encourage parents of blind children to send them to the school. The group also appeared before a joint session of Congress in January 1844 and again in April 1847. After her graduation, Crosby stayed on at the institute as a teacher of English grammar, rhetoric, and ancient history.

In April 1844, while she was still a student, Crosby had published her first small volume of poetry under the title The Blind Girl and Other Poems. It was followed by a second and third volume: Monterey and Other Poems (1851) and A Wreath of Columbia's Flowers (1858). Crosby, writing in the sentimental style of the day, belonged to a cadre of popular poets that have been relegated to the historical basement. Bernard Ruffin, in his biography Fanny Crosby,

describes much of her verse as undistinguished and banal, but he also cites several champions of her work. Henry Adelbert White (1880–1951), a poet and longtime professor of English at various universities, called Crosby a first-class writer. Literary critic and editor Henry Sandison (1850–1900) said she was "naturally a classical poet," and maintained that her secular verse was frequently of excellent quality. Most critics, however, agree that although Crosby occasionally rose above the conventional, much of her notoriety as a poet had more to do with her blindness than her poetic gifts.

In 1858, Crosby married Alexander Van Alstyne, another blind teacher, and ended her long association with the Institution for the Blind. The couple settled on Long Island, where they lived in rented rooms in a small country town. Van Alstyne made what money he could giving piano lessons and playing the organ in various churches in the area. Crosby, meanwhile, seemed to blossom away from the city and her notoriety. Around 1859, the couple had a child who died in infancy, and a grief-stricken Crosby longed to return to a familiar setting. The couple moved back to Manhattan and took a room a few blocks from the institute; they later settled in Brooklyn. As Crosby's interests outside the marriage increased, the couple grew apart and separated amicably around 1885. Van Alstyne died in 1902.

Crosby began writing verses to be set to music in 1851, when she and George F. Root, a music instructor at the institute, collaborated on a cantata called "The Flower Queen," which they were successful in publishing. She contributed lyrics to 60 or so other songs, some of which went on to become popular favorites of her day, like "Hazel Dell," "There's Music in the Air," and "Rosalie, the Prairie Flower." Around 1864, she began writing hymns; although like her poetry they suffered from cliché and sentimentality, a few displayed qualities beyond ordinary talent. Crosby is often credited with producing 9,000 hymns, but the exact number is unknown because, out of modesty, she wrote under many different pseudonyms (possibly as many as 200). For many years, she was employed by William Bathchelder Bradbury, the most prolific hymn writer of the period and the publisher of Sunday school hymnbooks. (Following Bradbury's death, the company was reorganized by Sylvester Main and Lucius Horatio Biglow.) In addition to producing her own verses to be set to music and writing words to a given melody, Crosby also revised the work of other hymn writers. Among the 20 or so musicians she collaborated with was the singing evangelist Ira D. Sankey, partner and colleague of renowned preacher Dwight L. Moody. Sankey and Moody often said that the success of their evangelical campaigns was due in most part to Fanny Crosby's hymns.

Of the huge volume of hymns Crosby produced, her best known include "Rescue the Perishing," "Jesus the Water of Life Will Give," "Blessed Assurance," "The Bright Forever," "Savior, More Than Life to Me," "Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior," and her personal favorite "Safe in the Arms of Jesus." Although her hymns are non-denominational, they were especially popular with the Methodist Church, which for a time observed Fanny Crosby Day. (Crosby converted from Calvinistic Presbyterianism to the Methodist Church in 1850.)

At age 80, Crosby moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, where she lived with her widowed sister, Carolyn (Carrie) Ryder , who also served as her secretary and amanuensis. After Carrie's death in 1906, Crosby spent the remainder of her life with her niece Florence Booth , who also lived in Bridgeport. Active into advanced age, Crosby produced yet another book of poems,Bells at Evening and Other Verses (1897), and wrote two volumes of autobiography, Fanny Crosby's Life-Story (1903) and Memories of Eighty Years (1906).

Although she continued to produce hymns, Crosby's later years were also spent in service at the Bridgeport Christian Union and the Bowery Mission in New York City. From 1867 to 1915, she established schools for the poor in New York City. Crosby was constantly booked for speeches for the Railroad Branch of the YMCA and at local churches and grange halls. She also participated in the annual summer educational and recreational assemblies held in Chautauqua, New York (under the auspices of the Methodist Church), and received visitors from around the world. Crosby was 95 when she died of arteriosclerosis and a cerebral hemorrhage on February 12, 1915. After the largest funeral ever held in Bridgeport, surpassing even that of P.T. Barnum, she was buried in Mount Grove Cemetery.