1847–1936
Lizzie de Armond

Introduction

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Born: Ju­ly 23, 1847, Phi­la­del­phia, Penn­syl­van­ia.

Died: Oc­to­ber 26, 1936, at her home in Swarth­more, Penn­syl­van­ia. Fun­er­al ser­vic­es were held at the Swarth­more Pres­by­ter­ian Church.

Buried: Wood­lands Ce­me­te­ry, Phi­la­del­phia, Penn­syl­van­ia.

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Biography

Lizzie was the wife of An­drew Good­rich De­Ar­mond (1846–1923).

A gra­du­ate of the State Nor­mal School, West Ches­ter, Penn­syl­vania, she or­gan­ized the pri­ma­ry de­part­ment of a com­mu­ni­ty Sun­day School in Swarth­more around 1896.

Very few who at­tend and work in the Sun­day school will fail to re­cog­nize the name of Liz­zie De Ar­mond. She is, per­haps, the most pro­lif­ic writ­er of child­ren’s hymns, re­ci­ta­tions, ex­er­cis­es, dia­logues, etc., of the pres­ent day. At twelve years of age, her first po­em was print­ed in the Ger­man­town, Pa. Te­le­graph.

In the ear­ly years of her wo­man­hood the cares and re­spon­si­bi­li­ties of life crowd­ed out all pos­si­bi­li­ty of writ­ing, and it was not un­til she was left a wi­dow with eight child­ren to sup­port that real ne­ces­si­ty com­pelled her to re­new the work so long ne­glect­ed. Short ar­ti­cles for va­ri­ous pa­pers and ma­ga­zines, li­bret­tos for can­ta­tas, na­ture stori­es and oth­er li­ter­ary work found a rea­dy mar­ket, and were step­ping stones to high­er achieve­ment.

‘If Your Heart Keeps Right’ now be­ing used so ex­ten­siv­ely in Evan­gel­is­tic meet­ings is her best known hymn. Un­der date of Jan­ua­ry 1st, 1915, she writes, Now in the light of the glad New Year, 1915, if any­thing I have writ­ten has helped to lift one soul above the cares and wor­ries of ev­ery­day life, and brought it near­er to the great lov­ing heart of Je­sus, the joy is mine, but the glo­ry be­longs to God.

Charles Gab­ri­el, The Sing­ers and Their Songs, pp. 23–24

Sources

Lyrics