Tribute to American singer and songwriter Carrie Jacobs-Bond who wrote the lyrics and music of "I Love You Truly," a favorite parlor song often used in weddings.

Carrie Jacobs-Bond, the most successful American song-writer of her day, wrote this popular parlor song "I Love You Truly." She composed many popular music pieces including: "Seven Songs: as Unpretentious as the Wild Rose," a Collection including "I Love You Truly" and "Just a-Wearyin' for You"; "Songs Everybody Sings," a Collection; and "A Perfect Day." Jacobs-Bond was a distant cousin of John Howard Payne, writer of another popular song "Home Sweet Home."

"I Love You Truly," an endearing love song among lovers and sometimes heard on a solemn fairy-tale wedding. While revisiting a box of piano sheets and inspirational quotes, this popular wedding song got this writer's attention, along with sheets of "Oh, Promise Me," "A Perfect Day," "Silver Threads Among the Gold" and few others. Sentiments drifted to after-dinner family singing around that old upright piano, and many more memories.

Song-writer Carrie Jacobs Bond

The writer of this lovely parlor song is Carrie Jacobs-Bond, an American songwriter and singer born 145 years ago, on August 11, 1862 in Janesville, Wisconsin. Her family (parents were Dr. Hannibal Jacobs and Emma Davis Jacobs) had financial difficulties when her father died while she was still a child. She started studying the piano with local teachers and began writing music in the late 1880s.

At 18, Carrie Jacobs-Bond was first married to E.J. Smith but the couple separated after seven years. They had a son Frederic. At 25, she remarried to her childhood sweetheart Dr. Frank Lewis Bond. The family moved to Iron River, Michigan. After seven years, her husband died of injuries from a fall. She moved to Chicago, Illinois the following year. Slowly, she started drawing audience after singing her own songs by providing recitals in local homes.

Publications

Inspired by her new following, in 1901, she published her first collection, Seven Songs: as Unpretentious as the Wild Rose which included two of the most enduring songs, "I Love You Truly" and "Just a-Wearyin' for You."

From the success of her first collection, she founded her own music publishing company The Bond Shop which she opened with her son Frederic in Illinois Chicago. She published another collection of her songs called Songs Everybody Sings and a memoir called The Roads to Melody. In 1910, she created her other most popular song of all,"A Perfect Day."

Jacobs-Bond's Last Years

Carrie Jacobs-Bond suffered from rheumatism. In 1920, hoping to find a suitable climate for her pains, she moved to California. On December 28, 1946, she died from heart attack at the age of 84 in Glendale, California.

Trivia

A website with a lot of superb information about Carrie Jacobs-Bond is at parlor songs entitled "America's First Great Woman Popular Song composer."

"I Love You Truly" Song Lyrics

I love you truly, truly dear,

Life with its sorrow, life with its tear

Fades into dreams when I feel you are near

For I love you truly, truly dear.

Ah! Love, 'tis something to feel your kind hand

Ah! Yes, 'tis something by your side to stand;

Gone is the sorrow, gone doubt and fear,

For you love me truly, truly dear.

(Source: It's Wedding Time Vol. One, Singspiration Inc.,1962)