Author: Jesus Loves Me
“You have rendered a real and patriotic service, and on behalf of all our people I desire to express our obligation and our appreciation.” (President Theodore Roosevelt in a letter to Anna Bartlett Warner)
Anna Bartlett Warner was born on August 31, 1827, to Henry and Anna Warner on Long Island, New York. Anna and her sister, Susan, were the only children of the Warner’s five to survive beyond infancy. Their father was a prominent lawyer in New York City, and their mother came from the wealthy New York district called Hudson Square. Financial tragedy struck the family in 1837, though, when “(p)rofits, prices, and wages went down, westward expansion was stalled, unemployment went up, and pessimism abounded.” (Wikipedia, “Panic of 1837”). Henry’s financial situation was complicated by poor investments and a number of lawsuits as well. Due to losing most of their net worth, the Warners moved from their New York City mansion into “an old Revolutionary War-era farmhouse on Constitution Island near West Point, New York.” (www.findagrave.com)
The loss of income forced both Anna and Susan to find some sort of gainful employment in order to meet the family’s financial needs. Since both displayed a compelling talent for storytelling, the two of them began composing novels and works of literature to bring in income. Susan’s success was first when her popular novel The Wide, Wide World was published under the pseudonym “Elizabeth Wetherell.” It allegedly sold a million copies, and if so, Susan was the fist American author to do so. Anna’s first novel came a year later and was entitled Dollars and Cents (a story of their family’s financial trials). Anna had produced a card game earlier called “Robinson Crusoe’s Farmyard” that proved to be quite popular as well. Both continued writing until their death, composing one hundred and six publications altogether, eighteen of which they co-authored.
Susan published a novel called Say and Seal, and the book was the first place where Anna’s poem Jesus Loves Me appeared.
“The words to ‘Jesus Loves Me’ first appeared in Susan’s 1860 bestselling novel ‘Say and Seal’. In the novel, Sunday School teacher Mr. Linden comforts his student, Johnny Fax. The words are spoken to soothe the dying child.
‘Jesus Loves Me’ was published as a hymn in the hymnbook ‘Original Hymns.’
The tune and chorus were added in 1862 by Dr. William Batchelder Bradbury. Dr. Bradbury dedicated himself to teaching, writing, and publishing his music; (he) published 59 collections of sacred and secular music. He (also) wrote hymns such as ‘He Leadeth Me’, ‘Just As I Am’ and ‘Sweet Hour of Prayer’. ‘Jesus Loves Me’ appeared in his hymnal ‘The Golden Sower’.” (Diana Leigh Matthews, “Jesus Loves Me”, 2012)
Once the poem was set to music and made public, it had almost immediate success. Not only was Anna’s generation drawn to its simple Gospel message, but years later Francis Schaeffer declared it his favorite hymn saying that “ultimately, intellectuals and children need the simple message of Jesus.” (www.godtube.com) Missionary Amy Carmichael recounted many times that she was converted after hearing this hymn at a children’s mission in Yorkshire, England. The islanders in the Solomon Islands reported that the surviving Marines from President John Kennedy’s destroyed PT boat sang the hymn with them. Even the theologian Karl Barth condensed his theological perspective into the words of Anna Warner: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
Anna and Susan’s significance in the spread of the Gospel didn’t end with the publishing of Jesus Loves Me, though. Both women were actively involved in discipling the West Point cadets that trained just across the Hudson River from their home.
“After each of the boys had read a Bible verse. Miss Warner, choosing her subject from some New Testament text, talked to them for perhaps half an hour until her enthusiasm and interest had obviously almost exhausted her small strength. Her English was the best and purest I have ever heard, and as she went on and her interest grew her eyes shone, like stars and her voice became rich and warm. There was never any cant or sectarianism, and she always gave to the boys the brightest and most optimistic side of the faith she loved so well. When she had finished and lay back pale and weary against her cushions her sister. Miss Anna, came down from the house with the rare treat of the whole week, tea and homemade ginger-bread.” (www.constitutionisland.org/warner-legacy)
Over forty-years-worth of Sunday afternoons were occupied with Bible studies at the U. S. Military Academy’s Cadet Chapel (during the winter) and a special tent near their home (during the spring, summer, and fall). Anna describes the scene:
“The first day, there was a very large gathering, curiosity helping on the numbers. After that, it varied from week to week, as must be always, I suppose; especially among Cadets, where guard duty sometimes interferes; and where Sunday is the free day for seeing friends. At home, in the summer, they met in our tent near the house, the forage caps tossed out upon the grass; the gray figures in all sorts of positions in and out of the tent.” (www.constitutionisland.org/warner-legacy)
Even when Susan died in 1885, Anna continued to meet with the cadets, both in the Cadet Chapel and on Constitution Island. In fact, Anna continued to teach them until the year of her death; since General Dwight Eisenhower graduated from West Point in 1915, it is thought that he too became one of “Miss Warner’s boys.”
In September of 1908, the island and home that had been Anna’s place of residence for over sixty years was gifted to the federal government with two stipulations:
“First: That the Island be for the use forever of the United States Military Academy at West Point, N. Y., and form a part of the military reservation of West Point, and (pursuant to the covenant in Miss Warner’s deed to me, which runs with the land) ‘that no part of it shall ever be used as a public picnic, or excursion, or amusement ground, operated by private enterprise, individual or corporate, for profit;
Second: That Miss Anna Bartlett Warner have the right to reside as at present on Constitution island, in full possession of her house and the gardens appurtenant thereto during her natural life, and to the use of such spring or springs from which she now gets her water supply, together with the right to pasture her cows and horses, and to take such firewood as will be necessary while she resides on said Island, it being clearly understood that these reservations in her favor are restricted to her own life only.” (Letter to President Theodore Roosevelt dated September 4, 1908)
Anna Bartlett Warner died on January 22, 1915, in Highland Falls, New York; her body is interred at the United States Military Academy Post Cemetery, in West Point, New York (Anna and her sister, Susan, are the only civilian women interred there). On her gravestone is appropriately inscribed the first verse of her famous hymn, Jesus Loves Me.
