Lucy Chaffee Alden

Lucy Chaffee Alden
"A Woman of the Century"
Born	Lucy Morris Chaffee November 20, 1836 South Wilbraham, New Hampden, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	December 20, 1912 (aged 76) Hampden, Massachusetts, U.S.
Resting place	Old Hampden Cemetery in Hampden, Massachusetts
Occupation	author educator hymnwriter
Spouse	Lucius David Alden ​ (m. 1890)​

Lucy Morris Alden (née Chaffee; November 20, 1836 - December 20, 1912) was a 19th-century American author, educator, and hymnwriter of the long nineteenth century. Over 200 of her works appeared in various periodicals.

Biography

Lucy Morris Chaffee was born in South Wilbraham, New Hampden, Massachusetts, November 20, 1836. Her parents were Daniel Davis and Sarah Flynt Chaffee. Among her maternal ancestors was Judge John Bliss, of South Wilbraham, who on April 8, 1775, was appointed sole committee "to repair to Connecticut to request that Colony to co-operate with Massachusetts for the general defense", and who, under the constitution was chosen to the first and several succeeding senates. Alden spent a year at Monson Academy. She had a sister, Catherine Newell Chaffee (1835-1873).

For 10 years, Alden taught school, and for three years, she served as a member of the school board of her native town. She was left alone by the death of her mother in 1884. In July 1890, she married Lucius David Alden (1835-1898), an early schoolmate who had relocated to the Pacific coast, but she continued to live at her father's homestead. Her poetic, and far more numerous, prose writings appeared in various newspapers of Springfield, Boston, Chicago, and Minneapolis, in several Sunday school songbooks, and in quarterly and monthly journals. One doctrinal pamphlet of hers was translated by a British officer and missionary in Madras into Hindi, and many copies were printed. Copies of another were voluntarily distributed by a county judge in Florida among members of his state legislature. In 1891, under an appropriation, made by an association whose conferences reached from Maine to California, of a sum to be distributed among writers of meritorious articles, Alden was selected to write for Massachusetts.

Lucy Morris Chaffee Alden died in Hampden, Massachusetts, December 20, 1912, aged 76, and is buried at Old Hampden Cemetery in Hampden, Massachusetts.

Poetical quotation

We court the friendships thou has wrought,
The charms thy loves can lend,
Till many a form thy fruitful thought
Seems like our household friend.

Selected works

• The "one hope": Ephesians 4:4, 1886
• A Letter to Ministers: An Affectionate Entreaty, 1887
• Scriptural philosophy of the atonement: what did Christ purchase?, 1887
• A criticism on an editorial in the Congregationalist, entitled Christ's view, 1888
• Letter to every Christian missionary, 1888
• The Soul, what is It? A Scripture Reply: what is the Spirit in Man?: Let the Scriptures Answer, 1888
• The doctrine of immortality: a letter to ministers, 1900

Hymns

• Comes each day the guest unbidden
• How great was thine honor, O Bethlehem
• I follow the footsteps that guide
• I would be a little pilgrim
• Jesus, Jesus, dying Lamb
• Jesus knows a child's temptations
• Lord, sing with us our hymn of praise
• Loyal to Jesus forever
• O blessed the day
• Obedient to thy sacred word
• Once more over Jordan the Master has passed
• Praise to God, glory today, All his works
• Take me, Jesus, Jesus take me
• Though the cloud that hid our Savior Lucy Morris
• To my dying child, O Master
• Up, soldiers of Jesus

References

Bibliography

• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Chaffee, William Henry (1909). "5339 LUCY MORRIS CHAFFEE". The Chaffee Genealogy, Embracing the Chafe, Chafy, Chafie, Chafey, Chafee, Chaphe, Chaffie, Chaffey, Chaffe, Chaffee Descendants of Thomas Chaffe, of Hingham, Hull, Rehoboth and Swansea, Massachusetts: Also Certain Lineages from Families in the United States, Canada and England, Not Descended from Thomas Chaffe. 1635-1909 (Public domain ed.). Grafton Press. p. 477.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Herringshaw, Thomas William (1892). "LUCY M. CHAFFEE-ALDEN, HAMPDEN, MASS.". Poetical Quotations: Comprises Excellent and Appropriate Sentiments and Choice Selections Collected from the National, Local and Anonymous Verse-writers of America Now Living (Public domain ed.). American Publishers' Association.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: King, Cameron Haight (1908). King family of Suffield, Connecticut, its English ancestry, A.D. 1389-1662, and American descendants, A.D. 1662-1908, comprising numerous branches in many states of the United States, also appendices containing information concerning some of its maternal ancestors (Public domain ed.). San Francisco, California: Press of the Walter N. Brunt Company.
• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Willard, Frances Elizabeth; Livermore, Mary Ashton Rice (1893). "LUCY MORRIS CHAFFEE ALDEN.". A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life (Public domain ed.). Moulton. p. 14.

External links

• Works related to Woman of the Century/Lucy Morris Chaffee Alden at Wikisource
• Works by or about Lucy Chaffee Alden at Internet Archive