Adelaide A. Pollard

Short Name: Adelaide A. Pollard
Full Name: Pollard, Adelaide A. (Adelaide Addison)
Birth Year: 1862
Death Year: 1934

Adelaide Addison Pollard was born November 27, 1862, in Bloomfield, Iowa, United States. Her given name at birth was Sarah Addison Pollard, but she adopted the name Adelaide later in life. She was an American hymn writer and Bible teacher.

Pollard received education in Denmark, Iowa, Valparaiso, Indiana, at the Boston School of Oratory, and at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois. She taught in Chicago and later served on the faculty of the Missionary Training School of the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Nyack, New York. Pollard also participated in missionary work in South Africa before the outbreak of World War I and taught in Scotland during the war years.

She authored over one hundred hymn texts and gospel songs. Her best known hymn is “Have Thine Own Way, Lord”, written in 1902 and first published in 1907 in the Northfield Hymnal with Alexander’s Supplement. Its music was composed by George C. Stebbins.

Pollard died on December 20, 1934, in New York City following a sudden illness at a train station while en route to a speaking engagement. She was interred at Elmwood Cemetery in Fort Madison, Iowa.

Her hymn texts are represented in hymnals in multiple languages and have been widely disseminated internationally.