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Lena Guilbert Brown Ford, middle name sometimes listed as Gilbert, (1870 – March 7, 1918) was a lyricist, best known for " Keep the Home Fires Burning" which she wrote during the First World War.
She was born Lena Guilbert Brown in Venango County, Pennsylvania and attended Elmira College, graduating in 1887. She married physician Harry Hale Ford and settled in Elmira, later divorcing him and relocating, with her mother and son, to London, England, where they would remain for twenty years. During World War I, Ford opened her home to soldiers and took care of them.
While in Britain she met
Lena Guilbert Brown Ford, middle name sometimes listed as Gilbert, (1870 – March 7, 1918) was a lyricist, best known for " Keep the Home Fires Burning" which she wrote during the First World War.
She was born Lena Guilbert Brown in Venango County, Pennsylvania and attended Elmira College, graduating in 1887. She married physician Harry Hale Ford and settled in Elmira, later divorcing him and relocating, with her mother and son, to London, England, where they would remain for twenty years. During World War I, Ford opened her home to soldiers and took care of them.
While in Britain she met Ivor Novello
Ivor Novello (born David Ivor Davies; 15 January 1893 – 6 March 1951) was a Welsh actor, dramatist, singer and composer who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century.
He was born into a musical ...
, with whom she collaborated to produce "Keep the Home Fires Burning" in 1914. It was the first major success for Novello and the only one for Ford. Among Ford's other published musical works are "When God Gave You to Me", "We Are Coming, Mother England", and "God Guard You" (with Westell Gordon).
Ford and her thirty-year-old son Walter were the first United States citizens to become fatalities of a German air raid
Air raid may refer to:
Attacks
* Airstrike
* Strategic bombing
Other uses
* ''Air Raid'' (album), by the improvisational collective Air
* Air Raid ''(Transformers)'', the name of three characters in the Transformers universes
* ''Air Raid'' ...
on London, their home being hit by one of eighteen bombs that fell on the city on the night of 7/8 March 1918. Mrs. Brown, Ford's mother, was only hurt in the bombing. Their remains were returned to and interred in the United States.
References
Sources
* ''New York Evening Telegram'', March 11, 1918, "American Woman Author and Son Air Raid Victims", p. 8. * ''Auburn'' (New York) ''Citizen'', March 11, 1918, "Author of 'Keep the Home Fires Burning' is Killed", p. 1. * ''New York Times'', March 13, 1918, "Mrs. Ford's Estate Raises Knotty Point". * ''The Music Trade Review'', April 13, 1918, "Royalty Question Before Courts", p. 57. * Alice Zinska Snyder and Milton Valentine Snyder (1921), ''Paris Days and London Nights'', E.P. Dutton & Company, p. 39.External links
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ford, Lena Guilbert American women poets American women in World War I American lyricists American World War I poets Civilians killed in World War I 1870 births 1918 deaths People from Venango County, Pennsylvania Writers from Pennsylvania Writers from London American expatriates in England Elmira College alumni 20th-century American poets 20th-century American women writers Songwriters from Pennsylvania