History of Hymns: “Precious Memories”
History of Hymns: “Precious Memories”
Original post
10/08 Edited 7/24 JM
A very popular song through the years with many brethren that might be construed to talk about the memory of the just has been “Precious Memories”. The text was written and the tune was composed both by John Braselton Fillmore Wright, who was born to George Washington and Cassandra Coley Wright in Tennessee on Feb. 21, 1877, the fifth of twelve children. When he was but two years old, his family moved to Limestone County, TX, where he grew up in the community of Box Church near Groesbeck, attended the community school, and married a local girl named Fannie Jackson, who bore him seven children. A farmer by trade, he took his young bride in 1902, left the homestead, and rambled over Texas for many years. His mother was well known as a singer and his earliest memories were of singing together by her and his father of the songs of their youth. As a result of this upbringing, he produced over 500 songs. In 1909, he learned that his mother had died, and his father followed five years later. Many of his early songs were sentimental numbers, based on the scenes of his childhood, which have been long forgotten.
However, on a the crisp, still, autumn night of Oct. 23, 1923, at his home near Hamlin, TX, about a year and a half after the death of his youngest son, Everett Jackson Wright, from diphtheria at age five, Wright, now a middle-aged farmhand, turned his thoughts again to the days of his youth before the family circle was unbroken and he penned his most famous song. It first appeared in the 1925 Harbor Bells edited by V. O. Stamps and published by the Stamps-Baxter Music Co. It listed J. B. F. Wright as the owner but with no copyright date. A cousin reported that there was a verbal agreement for Wright to get a certain percentage royalty each time the song was recorded, but he only received $36 from the first recording because after Mr. Stamps died his heirs would not honor the agreement. Sometimes the date of 1938 is given for the song, but that may be when the Stamps-Baxter Co. finally got around to filing a copyright on it in their own name.
Later, Wright became a custodian and nurseryman for Cisco Junior College in Cisco, TX, from which he retired in the early 1950’s before his death sometime around 1959. In 1966 Stamps-Baxter “renewed” the copyright with an additional stanza by Lonnie B. Combs, a favorite tactic of theirs to bring under their domain songs for which either the copyright had run out or there was some question about the original copyright. Among hymnbooks published by members of the Lord’s church during the twentieth century for use in
churches of Christ, “Precious Memories” appeared in the 1952 Hymns of Praise and Devotion edited by Will S. Slater; the 1959 Majestic Hymnal No. 2 and the 1978 Hymns of Praise both edited by Reuel Lemmons; the 1959 Hymnal edited by Marion Davis; the 1963 Christian Hymnal edited by J. Nelson Slater; and the 1965 Christian Hymnsongs and the 1973 Great Inspirational Songs both edited by Albert Brumley. Today, it may be found in the 1971 Songs of the Church, the 1990 Songs of the Church 21st C. Ed., and the 1994 Songs of Faith and Praise, all edited by Alton H. Howard; the 1978/1983 (Church) Gospel Songs and Hymns edited by V. E. Howard; and the 1992 Praise for the Lord, edited by John P. Wiegand; in addition to Hymns for Worship, and Sacred Selections.