Topic: Carrie Jacobs Bond

Carrie Minetta Jacobs-Bond (August 11, 1862 – December 28, 1946) was an American singer and songwriter who composed many pieces of popular sheet music from the 1890s through the early 1940s. She is probably best remembered for writing the song "I Love You Truly", for which she became the first woman to sell one million copies of a song. That parlor song continues to be used at weddings over a century after its release. Her song with the highest number of sales immediately after release was "A Perfect Day" in 1910. Bond was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.

She was born Carrie Minetta Jacobs in Janesville, Wisconsin, to Dr. Hannibal Jacobs and his wife, Emma Davis Jacobs. Carrie Minetta Jacobs was born in her grandparent’s (Davis) home at the corner of Pleasant St. (now Court St.) and Oakhill Ave. Her father died while she was a child, and the family faced financial difficulties without him. During her short-lived first marriage to Edward Smith, her son Bert was born (1882 - 1928). This marriage unhappily ended in divorce in 1887. Her second marriage was to childhood sweetheart, Dr. Frank Lewis Bond of Johnstown in 1888. They lived in Iron River, Michigan, where she was a housewife 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. Dr. Bond was struck by a child's snowball, fell on the ice, and died five days later from crushed ribs. His wife was left with debts too large to be absorbed by the $4,000 in proceeds of his life insurance. She returned to Janesville. Selling ceramics, renting out a room, and writing songs didn't earn her enough money to pay her bills; so she slowly sold off her furniture and ate only once per day.

After her composing career began having some success, she and her son moved to Chicago. Soon, she found that people enjoyed her simple and lyrical music, and began her own sheet music publishing company. Her music exemplified extreme sentimentality, which was intensely popular at that time. To ease the pains of her rheumatism, in the early 1920s she and her son moved to Hollywood, California, where she continued performing and publishing. Bond died in her Hollywood home of a heart attack. She is buried in the "Court of Honor" at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.