Carrie Jacobs-Bond, 1862 - 1946

 

Born in Janesville, Wisconsin, on August 11, 1862, Carrie Jacobs as a child learned to play the piano. After her first marriage and subsequent divorce, she married Frank L. Bond in 1889. By the time her husband died in 1895, Carrie Bond had begun to write songs and in December 1894 had seen two, "Is My Dolly Dead?" and "Mother's Cradle Song," published in Chicago.

A short time later she moved to Chicago, where she ran a boarding house, painted china, and continued to write songs, most of which remained for many years in manuscript. By giving recitals and concerts in private homes and in public she supplemented her meager income and at the same time gradually built up a ready audience for her songs. In 1901, with the help of a loan, she published Seven Songs as Unpretentious as the Wild Rose, which included two of her most popular songs, "I Love You Truly" and "Just a-Wearyin' for You." The success of that venture allowed her to open the Bond Shop, where she sold sheet music, designed by herself and printed by the Carrie Jacobs Bond and Son company.

An invitation to sing for President Theodore Roosevelt at the White House, a recital in England in which she appeared along with the young Enrico Caruso, and a series of three recitals in New York City in 1906-07 helped spread her reputation. She was already wealthy by 1910, when she published her most popular song, "The End of a Perfect Day." It was the ultimate expression of the artlessly sentimental style in which she worked. By the early 1920s "The End of a Perfect Day" had sold five million copies in sheet, along with uncounted recordings and piano rolls.

From 1910 Carrie Bond lived in Hollywood, California. Of the more than 400 songs she wrote, some 170 were published. The rapid social changes of the World War I era dimmed the appeal of her musical style, however, and she was occasionally parodied. In 1927 she published The Roads of Melody, a memoir, and in 1940 The End of the Road, a collection of thoughts and verses. She died in Hollywood, California, on December 28, 1946.