[There's a Friend that's ever near us]

Composer: B. C. Unseld

Benjamin Carl Unseld, 1843-1923 Born: Oc­to­ber 18, 1843, Shep­herd­stown, West Vir­gin­ia. Died: No­vem­ber 19, 1923. Buried: Elm­wood Ceme­te­ry, Shep­herd­stown, West Vir­gin­ia. After leav­ing school at age 14, Un­seld worked as a clerk in a coun­try store. He re­ceived his first mu­sic­al in­struct­ion around age 15, from a com­pan­ion who had at­tend­ed a sing­ing school. He was shown the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the scale in the old Car­mi­na Sac­ra, and had it sung for him. At the friend’s sug­gest­ion, he got per­mis­sion from his pas­tor to prac­tice on the church or­gan. Since both boys worked, their on­ly chance to prac­tice was af­ter the store closed at 9:00 p.m., and oc­caÂ… Go to person page >