Johannah Fraser

Fraser, Johannah. (Portree, Isle of Skye, Scotland, 1871--July 26, 1932, Toronto, Ontario). Roman Catholic. Emigrating to Canada as a child, she joined in 1891 the Sisters of St. Joseph, Toronto, taking the name of Sister M. Geraldine. As a teacher in Toronto's separate schools, she composed many poems, songs, plays, and operettas on Catholic subjects for use with her pupils, culminating in The Lone Company, a play about Jesuit martyrs, which she wrote at the request of Archbishop Neil McNeil and produced in conjunction with the Christian Brothers.

In 1923, she sent to a Eucharistic Congress in Chicago eight lines of verse beginning "The King of the world is passing by," using "The Unknown Soldier" as a pseudonym; though astonished by the response to her lyric, she allowed it to be published after she had added two stanzas. Similarly she insisted on crediting her other widely-used hymn "Be thou King, O Lord" to her community rather than herself.

--Hugh D. McKellar, DNAH Archives