Jessie Pounds was in poor health as a child, and re­ceived her ear­ly edu­ca­tion at home. At age 15, she be­gan sub­mit­ting ar­ti­cles to Cleve­land news­pa­pers and var­i­ous re­li­gious pub­li­ca­tions. In 1896, she mar­ried Rev­er­end John Pounds, pas­tor of the Cen­tral Christ­ian Church in In­di­an­a­po­lis, In­di­a­na. In her ear­ly years, an ed­i­tor com­ment­ed that some of her po­e­try would make good hymn texts. So be­gan her song writ­ing ca­reer. Over her life­time, she wrote 50 li­bret­tos for can­ta­tas and op­er­et­tas, 9 books, and more than 400 Gos­pel song texts. She collaborated with James Fillmore for three decades.

Sources

Hymns

1. Anywhere with Jesus
2. Are You Coming to Jesus Tonight?
3. Beautiful Isle of Somewhere
4. Going On
5. I Know That My Redeemer Liveth
6. I Want to Live Closer to Jesus
7. Place in the Ranks for Me, A
8. Tell the Promises over to Me
9. Touch of His Hand on Mine, The
10. Way of the Cross Leads Home, The
11. We Are Going Down the Valley