This Christian Life

Hi, it was nice talking to you earlier. I don't
know if you know this hymn or not. It is absolutely wonderful. I have a hard time getting
thru it dry-eyed, partly due to the sentiments, and partly due to the mucic. It is written in a minor key, and just grabs the heart and vocal cords. Love you Mom, Steve and Delores

TO Whom It May COncern,

I was looking for more information on Mrs. Hart, the author of the hymn, "A Christian Home," and came across this web page. Google found less than 40 sites where "Barbara B. Hart" is mentioned, most of which only referenced, or quoted the hymn.

Could anyone supply more information? Even the date of her Homegoing?

I am Minister of Music at Immanul Baptist Church in Richmond, VA where her brother-in-law, Jim, was a member from 1987-1991 before moving to Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. We have sung the hymn several times- it is one of our "favorites."

Any information will be gratefully received. (If you respond, please copy to my personal address. Thanks!)

Hello Mr. Lowery,

Thanks for your inquiry into my Grandmother. It is exciting to hear of people that have been touched by her hymn. It is also a favorite of many in her lineage as several of us have used it in our weddings or other places like church.

What would you like to know about her? She died Easter eve, 1997.

She grew up as an only child in Bayonne, New Jersey, and attended Smith college and Columbia university, where she received a teaching degree. Her degrees were in secondary education and music. She was only 15 or 20 hours away from a doctorate, but had the great-good fortune of meeting a red-haired baptist preacher--who eventually became my grandfather!

I believe my grandfather grew up in Charlottesville and attended UVA for a divinity degree, and while attending there he went to First Baptist church (the one downtown with the big columns). And, it turns out, this is also where he was ordained. My grandma taught at Fairfax hall for several years and began attending First Baptist church--where she met my grandpa. Actually, they met because of a Billy Graham crusade, where she had a conversion experience!

Several years later, they moved to Michigan, enjoyed many, many years of ministry in several independent churches and with international students at MSU before they retired in Grand Ledge.

Hope this helps,
Paul

Dear Mr. Hart,

Many, many thanks for this background on Mrs. Barbara B. Hart. I like to use information such as you have provided to add depth to our congregation's singing. Singing songs written by a "friend" becomes a much more personal experience.

Our pastor is currently preaching a sermon series on "The Home" during our Sunday PM services, and Mrs. Hart's hymn has proven, and I'm sure, will prove to be a valuable "Hymn of Response."

Thank you for your quick response.

Jim Lowery

To Whom It May Concern

This hymn is very meaningful especially since I come from a big family. I was wondering, what was the situation in which Barbara wrote this hymn? What gave her the ideas for the words?

It is indeed very interesting to see the interest in my mother's music, in particular, "A Christian Home." I have many fond memories of Mom sitting at the piano, writing and playing...mostly playing. No one could play a key board better! And I say that without prejudice. She was quite a lady, inspired by our Lord in all her walk through life. He gave her the words and the courage to strive to live out the words. My life is better having had her as my mother, and I am eternally grateful to God that I was blessed by her presence.

That her music has touched others is a great testament to her life, her faith, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Sincerely, John Stephen Hart.

I see that my brother, John, has responded above, and thank you, (nephew) Paul, for the background on Grandma.

What prompted the song: Mom was choir director at the church where Dad pastored. It was the mid-1960's. Mom wanted the choir to sing a song on "family" for Mother's Day, and there wasn't much available on that subject. So she just sat down one day at the piano, and this hymn composition was the result of that "moment in time."

Yes - it is true......Mom's "A Christian Home" has been used over these almost 40 yrs. to bless people on a very wide geographic scale. Thank you, Lord!

Susan Hart Carlson
Rolling Meadows, IL 60008

The lives of hymn writers has always interested me. Would you mind telling me more about Barbara Hart's life? What kind of childhood life did she have? Did she face alot of difficult times in her childhood? How many children did she have? Did she have a difficult marriage life?

Thanks for the information.

I am Barbara's 8th (and last) child. Here is one story I remember Mom telling from her childhood:

Mom grew up in Bayonne, NJ, an only child with a highly artistic, and may I say, "socialite" mother. Barbara's mother dabbled in many religious denominations and took "Bobbie" to different types of services, mainly of Christian origin. Barbara's mother was not so tolerant of other faiths, though, it seems. When Barbara brought home Jewish friends from the Horace Mann public school in Bayonne, Grandma was concerned and enrolled her in a private girls' school instead. Our mother Barbara has always loved the people of the Judaic faith, as well as their history. It was a wonderful culmination of this magnetism that she, as a young woman, found Jesus, the Jew who would be the Christ.

Barbara's father was a preeminent astrologer of his time, with his own spiritual leadings (and followings), "Wynn" (Sidney Bennett). He told her in one of his magazines dedicated to her, that he sensed a strong spirituality in her. This was before she became a Christian.

Barbara had sought truth in many different directions while "hanging out" with classmates at Columbia. Then she knew she found the answer when she found Christ in her early 20's. Some of my siblings may remember the details of her conversion better than I. It seems my nephew, Paul, knows more than I as well. Her mother was never reconciled, I believe, with the fact of Barbara's conversion to Christianity and was disappointed that she married a Baptist minister. They did, however, remain in a loving relationship until 1960 when Barbara's mother died.

Mom was just WAY ahead of her time, graduating from Smith College and then getting her Master's at Columbia University back in the '30s. I recall that she was quite the debutant, worldly-wise, gifted in music and poetry, and athletic (swimming, diving, tennis). We 8 kids considered her a border-line genius and always knew we'd get an answer out of her whenever we had questions. She was our walking encyclopedia and enjoyed besting herself in Scrabble by making 1000+ points per game for leisure or working the paper's crossword puzzles.

When Mom became a Christian and then married Dad, she "fought" forsaking her past life throughout our memory of her. Even though she had made a piano debut in NY (?) by playing classical music (at age 12, I believe?), she seemed reluctant to play classical music while a pastor's wife--as though she felt guilty doing so. But those times are some of my happiest memories. In fact, she would often awaken us as our alarm clock before school by playing the piano.

We could write a book about our memories of Mom! Perhaps our saddest memory is of how Alzheimer's took her life at age 80, two years after Dad died. To see that brilliant, gifted mind deteriorate into so dreadful a disease broke everyone's heart. But in that disease I saw her re-connect with the "old ways" of her life that had once brought her joy and fulfillment. In her assisted-living home for dementia, for instance, I saw her dance for the first time in my life--with child-like bliss before the face of God. I love that memory of her.

(I'm #3 of the 8 kids.)

Thank you for the information. It is really good.

Thank you very much for all the information. It is extremely interesting. Since I also come from a family of eight children, I understand fully what her hymn "A Christian Home" is trying to say and the meaning behind each word.

Addendum to my previous info. on 3/14/04 --

I should have given a little more detail on how the wide-spread publishing of Mom's "A Christian Home" happened:

Back in the mid-1960's, sometime soon after the writing of this hymn, John Peterson of Singspiration (music arm of Zondervan, I believe), himself a widely-known and published gospel songwriter, somehow got wind of this song and contacted Mom to see if he could buy the rights to the song (he wanted to publish it in a new hymnal). Mom "sold" it for "a song" -- a very unheard-of $100 -- but then, she wasn't wanting to make anything off of the inspiration from God's Spirit, which was just like her!

Then, before you knew it, her hymn was being very-widely published in many hymnals......and Dad started buying every single hymnal which had the song. His song-book "library" with her song ended up with close to a couple dozen, or more, hymnals before he died on 4/12/95. Mom died almost 2 years later on 3/29/97.

One of my most beautiful and enduring comforts is that both Mom and Dad died during Resurrection Week. I cannot think of a more beautiful time of year to go be with our Lord.

Our family is very touched (and humbled) by the interest of many in the origin of Mom's song, and in the details of her life. Thank you, and God bless each of you.

Susan Hart Carlson