1865–1936

Introduction

portrait

Born: Feb­ru­ary 8, 1865, Yates Ci­ty, Il­li­nois.

Died: Sep­tem­ber 1, 1936, San­ta Bar­ba­ra, Ca­li­for­nia.

Buried: San­ta Bar­ba­ra Ce­me­te­ry, San­ta Bar­ba­ra, Ca­li­for­nia.

Pseudonyms

Biography

Lewis was the son of Lew­is Wes­ley Jones and Fran­ces A. Ta­ber, and hus­band of Lo­ra Wright.

He at­tend­ed the Moo­dy Bi­ble Ins­ti­tute in Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois, where he was a class­mate of ev­an­gel­ist Bil­ly Sun­day.

After gra­du­a­tion, he worked for the Young Men’s Chris­tian As­so­cia­tion (YMCA) in Da­ven­port, Io­wa; Fort Worth, Tex­as (1915); and San­ta Bar­ba­ra, Ca­li­for­nia (1925). Hymn writ­ing was his av­o­ca­tion.

In ad­di­tion to the en­try giv­en be­low in the sourc­es, Find­a­grave has an­oth­er en­try, in Al­too­na, Ala­ba­ma, for a Lew­is El­ling­ton Jones, which al­so claims to be the song writer. Des­pite be­ing carved in stone, the Ala­ba­ma grave site is in er­ror, based on this Oc­to­ber 1932 let­ter from Jones to Hal­dor Lil­le­nas:

In re­gard to the writ­ing of my songs, would say that a great ma­ny came from sen­tenc­es in a pas­tor’s ser­mons. Since I be­gan this work, I have al­ways been list­en­ing for some such in­spir­a­tion. I re­mem­ber that ‘Pow­er in the Blood’ was writ­ten dur­ing a camp meet­ing at Moun­tain Lake Park, Ma­ry­land.

My life has been un­ev­ent­ful. I was born in Il­li­nois, moved with my par­ents to Io­wa, where I lived on a farm un­til I was twen­ty-one. Then I went in­to bu­si­ness for a while. Even­tu­al­ly I en­tered Y.M.C.A. work.

Attended train­ing school in Chi­ca­go; Bil­ly Sun­day gra­du­at­ed from the same class. I was in Y.M.C.A. work for thir­ty-six years. I re­tired five years ago, and am now liv­ing in Ca­li­for­nia, where all bad weather is un­u­su­al.

Preacher’s Ma­ga­zine, Vol­ume 25, Number 1, Ja­nu­ary-Feb­ru­ary 1950, pp. 37–38

Sources

Lyrics

Music