Son of a Polish father and French mother, Benke em­i­grat­ed to Amer­i­ca at age 21. He knew no one in Amer­i­ca, but one day, he hap­pened across the Bow­ery Street Miss­ion in New York Ci­ty and wan­dered in. He vol­un­teered to play the or­gan, and they were so im­pressed they hired him, and he served as the mis­sion’s re­gu­lar or­gan­ist for a num­ber of years. He lived in Brooklyn, where he gave pi­a­no and or­gan les­sons and com­posed mu­sic. He be­came friends with a num­ber of people in the mu­sic bu­si­ness, including Fan­ny Cros­by, who wrote words to a num­ber of his piec­es, and Ira Sank­ey. Around 1897, the Bow­ery Street Mis­sion burned down. Dwight Moo­dy heard about Vic­tor, per­haps through Ira Sank­ey, and asked Benke to play at his 1898 mass meet­ing at Coop­er Un­ion in New York Ci­ty. It was said his work with Moo­dy com­mend­ed Benke for fu­ture work with the evan­gel­ist.

Sources

Music

1. Benke
2. God Bless Our School Today
3. He Has Prom­ised
4. How Can I Look on Cal­va­ry’s Cross?
5. Is There Some­thing I Can Do?
6. Just for Today
7. Keep on Watch­ing
8. On Joyful Wings
9. Our Sun­day School
10. Sing Praise to Jesus