Herb Stewart my father in law passed this on, very worth reading! What obstacle are you overcoming?
Notice of Copyright Posted:

New York, March 24, 1820:

A baby girl, Frances Jane, is born to a low income family in New York. At six weeks of age she developed a slight cold in her eyes. Her family doctor was summoned, but was out of town. Another doctor came and prescribed hot mustard poultices on her eyes. Her sight was immediately and permanently destroyed (the "doctor" wasn't a doctor, but a quack, and quickly left town).

When Frances Jane reached twelve months, her father John died. Her Mom went to work to support the family while her paternal Grandmother stayed with the baby.

At age five, neighbors, friends, and relatives took up a collection so her Mom could take her to the finest eye doctor of the day, Dr. Valentine Mott. After his examination he stated, "Poor child, I am afraid you will never see again."

Frances Jane did not think she was poor, and the great doctor's words didn't seem to disturb her. But even at five years of age she was disturbed by trying to figure out how she was to get an education.

At age eight she wrote her first recorded poem:

O what a happy soul am I! Although I cannot see,
I am resolved that in this world,
contented I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy,
that other people don't.
To weep and sigh because I'm blind,
I cannot and I won't!

From early on Grandmother read to her constantly, mostly from the Bible. Grandmother also vividly described things of this world and the next to Frances Jane. She became so familiar with the Bible that is said that she could repeat from memory Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Ruth, many of the Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and much of the New Testament!

At age 11 she published her first poem. Just before her fifteenth birthday, the dilemma of how to get an education was solved as her Mom enrolled her in The Institution for the Blind in New York City. At this news, Frances Jane clapped her hands and exclaimed, "O thank God, He has answered my prayer, just as I knew He would." She spent the next 23 years at the school as student and teacher.

In the fall of 1843, when Frances Jane was 23, the school was trying to raise money from the government and sent her to appear before the US Congress. She used her original poems to bring tears to the eyes of John Quincy Adams, Thomas E. Benton, Jefferson Davis, Hamilton Fish, Alexander Stevens, Robert Toombs, Henry A. Wise, and many other notables of the day. As a result of this she began to meet the movers and shakers of her time and knew every US president personally except Washington . . . until her death in 1915. Many of the presidents became her close lifetime friends.

Not too shabby for a poor little blind girl. You've never heard of her? She is commonly know as Fanny J. Crosby. Pick up your hymn book next Sunday and look for her name . . . she wrote over 8,000 poems. Thousands of those poems have become some of our favorite hymns. Seems strange, but evidently Fanny couldn't or wouldn't write the music to turn her poems into songs as every one of them credits the music to someone else . . . even more strange since she was an accomplished piano player.

Fanny's first poem-hymn didn't happen until 1864 at 44 years of age. Some of her songs?

Pass Me Not was her first one to be noticed worldwide and was wrritten after a prison service where she heard one of the inmates cry, "O Lord, don't pass me by!", Safe in the Arms of Jesus (written sometime after the death of her only child who died in infancy . . . she married Alexander VanAlstyne when she was 37 and they lived together as man and wife for 44 years), Rescue the Perishing, Blessed Assurance, To God Be the Glory (this was in an English songbook in 1873 but doesn't seem to occur elsewhere for another 80+ years until it was "discovered" in 1954 and sung by George Beverly Shea and the Billy Graham Crusade Choir in Toronto in 1955), All the Way My Saviour Leads Me, Close to Thee, Saved by Grace, I Am Thine O Lord, Near the Cross, etc. There are hundreds more that most folks recognize immediately . . . just don't have room for them here . . . but each is a sermon and inspiration all by itself.

At age 90 Fanny stated, "My love for the Holy Bible and its sacred truth is stronger and more precious to me at ninety than at nineteen." When asked about her long life, she said the key was that she guarded her taste, her temper and her tongue (hmm . . . I have a little difficulty with all three!). All thru life she could often be heard saying, "Don't waste any sympathy on me. I am the happiest person alive."

Frances Jane Crosby was buried is buried in Mountain Grove Cemetery, Bridgeport, Connecticut on February 12, 1915. The songs sung at her funeral were Faith of Our Fathers (her favorite, but not written by her), then two of her own, Safe in the Arms of Jesus and Saved by Grace.

Her gravestone isn't one of the largest around, but on it is carved "She hath done what she could!" (Mark 14: 8) . . . my prayer has long been that a similar epithet could one day be truthfully placed on my own gravestone.

Thru the years I've talked with many folks that the rest of us would consider handicapped. The happy, successful
ones usually don't share our point of view. One summed it up something like this:
"It ain't what you don't have or can't do that matters . . . it's what you will do with what you do have . . ."
Fanny thought like that . . .

This is copyright material complied from various sources and written by by Herb Stewart, Adamsville TN (hlstewart@centurytel.net). None of this material may be used in any way without prior written permission from the author. Said permission and one time use is hereby granted to Homer H. Hillis for web publication.