Anthem Lady

At some point during thousands of U. S. Protestant church services every Sunday, the choir rises, renders an anthem.

The words are usually from Scripture; the tune unpretentious--nothing so difficult as Bach or Handel. Majority of the anthems which plain churchgoers like, and which their choirs sing, come from the industrious pens of some 20 U. S. anthem-writers. Of these the most prolific is Mrs. Carrie Belle Adams. In Portland, Ore. last week Mrs. Adams sent off to her publishers four new anthems, baked a jelly cake, celebrated her 77th birthday.

Carrie Belle Wilson, daughter of a choir-leader, turned out her first anthem, He That Dwelleth in the Secret Place, at 16. She had already grown to love Allyn Groves Adams, 23-year-old bass in a Paris, Ill. church choir. They married when she was 21 and Mr. Adams went into the hominy business. In 1906 Carrie Belle Adams became associate editor of the Choir Herald, for which she has since written an article or an anthem every month, year in, year out. Her total output: 4,000 compositions, has made more money from high-school operettas and church cantatas than from anthems. Selling the latter outright, she got only $10 for her most popular one, Remember Now Thy Creator.

Though her unceasing outflow of tunes has made her the friend of all U.S. choir-leaders, Mrs. Adams does not drive herself. Tall, bespectacled and dignified, she seats herself at her grand piano from 8 a. m. to 2 p. m. every day, says: "I just write what I know I can write." Words come to her from her unerring memory of Holy Writ. The anthems appear finally in a neat, vertical hand, a delight to music engravers. Her work done, Carrie Belle Adams devotes herself to her large collections of cream pitchers and quilts.

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