Carrie Jacobs Bond

Carrie Minetta Jacobs-Bond (August 11, 1862 – December 28, 1946) was an American singer, pianist, and songwriter who composed some 175 pieces of popular music from the 1890s through the early 1940s.

She is perhaps best remembered for writing the parlor song "I Love You Truly", becoming the first woman to sell one million copies of a song. An enduring favorite as a wedding song, it first appeared in her 1901 collection Seven Songs as Unpretentious as the Wild Rose, along with "Just Awearyin' for You", which was also widely recorded.

Jacobs-Bond's song with the highest number of sales immediately after release was "A Perfect Day" in 1910. A 2009 August 29 NPR documentary on Jacobs-Bond emphasized "I Love You Truly" together with "Just Awearyin' for You" and "A Perfect Day" as her three great hits. Jacobs-Bond was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.

Carrie Minetta Jacobs was born in Janesville, Wisconsin, to Dr. Hannibal Jacobs and his wife, Emma (Davis) Jacobs. She was a distant cousin of John Howard Payne, the lyricist who wrote "Home Sweet Home." Jacobs was born in the house of her maternal grandparents at the corner of Pleasant Street (now W. Court Street) and Oakhill Avenue. Her father died while she was a child, and the family faced financial difficulties without him.

During Jacobs' short-lived first marriage to Edward Smith, her only child, Frederick Jacobs Smith, was born. This marriage ended in divorce in 1887.

Her second marriage in 1888 was to her childhood sweetheart, Dr. Frank Lewis Bond of Johnstown, Wisconsin. They lived in Iron River, Michigan, where she was a homemaker and supplemented the family income with painted ceramics, piano lessons, and her musical compositions. When the economy of the iron mining area collapsed, the family doctor had no money. Struck by a child's snowball, Dr. Bond fell on the ice, and died five days later from crushed ribs. Carrie was left with debts too large to be covered by the $4,000 in proceeds of his life insurance, and she returned to Janesville. Selling ceramics, renting out a room, and writing songs did not produce enough money to pay her bills. She slowly sold off their furniture and ate only once per day.

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