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 pseudonymn for the great Philadelphia hymnist, Dr. Adam Geibel. The hymn—Called To Serve.

Called to Serve became a part of the Latter-day Saint music tradition in 1920, not long after it was written. It would persist through the 19th century being sung by the primary children, that is, until April 1985. In an effort to inspire and edify a congregation of mission presidents gathered from all over the world in the Assembly Hall on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, it was decided that missionaries from the Provo Missionary Training Center would learn and prepare a little-known, and mostly forgotten children’s song. At the appropriate moment, the huge missionary choir marched down the aisles, among the leaders singing,

Called to serve Him, heav’nly King of glory,

Chosen e’er to witness for his name,

Far and wide we tell the Father’s story,

Far and wide his love proclaim.

(Chorus)

Onward, ever onward, as we glory in his name;

Forward, pressing forward, as a triumph song we sing.

God our strength will be; press forward ever,

Called to serve our King.

The Church News of August 11, 1985, later wrote of the moment,

‘The impact of this experience was so moving that tears were flowing and deep emotions were stirred. It was an unforgettable spiritual moment’

In 1985, when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints published a new hymnal it was decided that Called to Serve would be included, as one of only seven children’s hymns in the adult hymnal. In fact, Called to Serve was the last chosen and it was placed among other such rallying songs as “Behold, A Royal Army” and “We Are All Enlisted.”

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

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

https://www.hymns.com/store/pg/243-LME-2017-June-Hymn-of-the-Month.aspx

Karen Lynn Davidson, Our Latter-Day Saint Hymns: the Stories and the Messages (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1988), 256.