1875–1949

Introduction

Born: Ap­ril 14, 1875, Eas­ton, Ma­ry­land.

Died: De­cem­ber 24, 1949, Lewes, De­la­ware.

Buried: Spring Hill Ce­me­te­ry, Eas­ton, Ma­r­yland.

portrait

Biography

Poole’s an­ces­tors for sev­er­al ge­ne­ra­tions were Ma­ry­land Quak­ers, but his par­ents af­ter mar­riage joined the Me­tho­dist de­nom­in­ation. Of their three child­ren, two be­came Me­tho­dist min­is­ters, and the third a Me­tho­dist class lead­er.

Poole at­tend­ed Wash­ing­ton Col­lege in Ches­ter­town, Ma­ry­land. He was or­dained a Me­tho­dist mi­nis­ter in 1900, and pas­tored in the Wil­ming­ton Con­fer­ence for 35 years. He served at the Mc­Cabe Me­mo­ri­al, Ri­chard­son Park, and oth­er church­es.

In 1913, he was Su­per­in­ten­dent of the Anti-Sa­loon League of De­la­ware.

Concerning his hymn writ­ing, Poole said:

My first ap­pear­ance in print out­side of lo­cal pa­pers was in 1907. Since my twelfth year I had been writ­ing vers­es in old com­po­si­tion books which I care­ful­ly con­cealed. Ma­ny of these vers­es were hymns. It was in 1907 that I ven­tured to send a ma­nu­script to a pro­mi­nent pub­lish­er and asked if it was worth keep­ing. They im­me­di­ate­ly re­ferred me to Charles H. Gab­ri­el, and he asked for more. Among the first lot was Just When I Need Him Most, which im­me­di­ate­ly be­came po­pu­lar.

Since then I have writ­ten about five hund­red hymns and three hund­red oth­er verse ma­nu­scripts, be­sides ma­ny spe­cial ar­ti­cles, in spare mo­ments of a bu­sy life. They are writ­ten on trains, in meet­ings, and an­y­where the mood seiz­es me…

I have been work­ing un­der high pres­sure most of the time since I was fif­teen years old. While hymn writ­ing does not pay me as com­pared with oth­er work I will stop a high priced ar­ti­cle any time to write a hymn which will help oth­ers on the way. If I can­not sing to make oth­ers list­en, I will write such that they will read.

My real work is that of a mi­nis­ter and pas­tor. The writ­ing is done as re­cre­ation and di­ver­sion from re­spon­si­bi­li­ties which might oth­er­wise de­press me. The same idea which sends me to my pul­pit, sends me to my pen or type­writ­er—To Help Some­bo­dy.

Sources

Lyrics

Music

Help Needed

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