Facts About "Anywhere With Jesus"

“Anywhere with Jesus” was a hymn beautifully written by Jessie Brown Pounds and Helen C. A. Dixon. The tune was composed by Daniel B. Towner, head of the music department at Moody Bible Institute.

Jessie Brown Pounds was born on August 31, 1861 in Hiram Ohio, Cleveland. She was homeschooled because she was not so healthy when she was a child. She was fifteen when she started writing verses and published it for the Cleveland newspapers. J.H. Fillmore, an American composer, musician, publisher, and bandleader, discovered Jessie Pounds and invited her to write some hymns for the book he’s publishing. Later on, she became a regular hymn-writer working under Fillmore Brothers. In 1885, she went to Cincinnati and was appointed as an editor in Standard Publishing Company for eleven years. She married Rev. John E. Pounds, pastor of the Central Christian Church in Indianapolis. She wrote about four hundred hymns and one of her works called "Beautiful Isle of Somewhere" was sung at President McKinley’s funeral.

The second writer, Helen Cadbury Alexander, was born in 1877 to Richard Cadbury, a British industrialist and philanthropist. She was sent to a university and studied language and music in Germany. She married a song leader, Charles M. Alexander in 1904. She supported her husband in his evangelical mission and they traveled to different places with Torrey and J. Wilbur Chapman to spread the gospel. Charles Alexander died in 1920, and Kennedy Maclean and Helen both wrote his biography in 1921 entitled "Charles M. Alexander: A Romance of Song and Soul-Winning." Helen found another love and married Amsji C. Dixon in 1924.

The composer of the hymn, Daniel B. Towner, was born in Rome, Pennsylvania in 1850. He was a student of Philip Bliss when he was in elementary. He majored in music when he was in college and joined D.L Moody, an American evangelist, publisher, and founder of Moody Church in Illinois. He has composed more 2,000 songs during his time.