Читать книгу Sisters In Song; Women Hymn Writers - Leslie Clay - Страница 14

1855-1934

“Face to Face”

Carrie’s family spent most of her early life in New Jersey. She married Frank Breck and they moved to Portland, Oregon in the 1910s. She was devoted to her husband and five daughters. By her own admission, she could not carry a tune. But she had a good sense of rhythm and she wrote more than 2000 poems. She was physically weak, and had to take frequent rests while doing her many chores. At those times, she would sit in her favorite rocking chair and write poetry. She said: “I penciled verses under all conditions: over a mending basket, with a baby on my arm, and sometimes even when sweeping or washing dishes, my mind moved in poetic meter.”

She occasionally sent her poems to a composer of gospel hymns, Grant Colfax Tuller, with the hope he would set them to music. When the verses of “Face to Face” arrived in the mail one day, Tuller had just completed the music for a song with lyrics he didn’t fully like. Carrie Breck’s words were a perfect fit, and so the song was made complete.