Hymn Story: Lord Take My Hand and Lead Me
Lord Take My Hand and Lead Me was written by Julie Katharina von Hausmann. She was born in 1826 in Riga {now in Latvia}. Her father was a teacher and after he went blind, she cared for him until his death. She then went to live with her sisters in Germany, Southern France and St. Petersburg, Russia. Julie never married and suffered her own health issues. She requested that when others published her work they not mention her name. She died during a summer vacation in Estonia in 1901.
“A legend circulates that Hausmann wrote her most famous poem “So nimm denn meine Hände” after journeying to see her fiancé at a mission and, on arriving, finding that he had just died. Various explorations of her biography have yet to confirm or deny the rumor.”
Earlier translations had been made by Herman Brueckner as “O take my hand, dear Father” and Elmer Leon Jorgenson as “Take Thou My Hand, and Lead Me.”
Martha D. Lange translated the hymn into English.
