Description

Elsie Duncan Yale

Elsie Duncan was born October 21, 1873, in Brooklyn, New York to Charles and Hannah Leech Duncan. She grew up the daughter of a former ship’s captain who served as the shipping commissioner for the Port of New York at the time of her birth. Her mother was a gifted musician and soloist at St. Paul’s church in New York.

In 1885, the family moved to Northfield Massachusetts, where Elsie received a substantive religious education. She married Arthur Wells Yale, Jr. in December 1896. After a lengthy honeymoon, the two of them returned to Philadelphia where it appears Arthur established a medical practice and Elsie began to pursue her interests in writing. Religiously devout throughout her life, Elsie would go on to write hundreds of hymns, stories, and poems in the ensuing years. Her work was printed in such notable publications as the Woman’s Home Companion, Saturday Evening Post, Ladies’ Home Journal, and more.

While living in Philadelphia in 1914, Elsie wrote a compelling hymn presumably for a children’s day program. This powerful hymn, along with others, was published in 1914 and titled “The Song of Praise.”

It appears that somewhere between 1920-1930, Elsie divorced her husband and moved with her mother and daughters to Southern California, where she taught Sunday School in the Jewell Memorial Methodist Church in Colton California. At the time of her death in January 1956, she was the organist for the Grace Episcopal Church of Colton California. She was buried in Brooklyn, New York.

As mentioned, Elsie wrote many songs, but there is one that is particularly known and loved today. So rousing and inspiring is it, that it has moved audiences young and old to deep emotion and faithful devoted action. It was originally part of that 1914 collection for a children’s day program. It was authored by Elsie, but Elsie published it under the pseudonym Grace Gordon. It was set to music by Walter G. Tyler—also a pesudonymn for the great Philadelphia hymnist, Dr. Adam Geibel. The hymn—Called To Serve.

Sources: https://www.thetabernaclechoir.org/articles/called-to-serve-lds-hymn-history.html

https://ldshymnology.wordpress.com/tag/elsie-duncan-yale/