A little
poverty-stricken girl and a businessman, probably unaware that their chance
encounter would motivate a songwriter, met in a rural area near Dallas, and
that’s where this multi-pronged story began to take shape. Their names remain
unrecorded, but what they said was unforgettable to Ira Stanphill’s ears, as he
thought one morning about a “Mansion Over the Hilltop” that the child and the
businessman had mentioned on two different levels. That this song’s genesis
involved three different people, each from a different circumstance,
illustrates yet again how much like a fingerprint a song can be. A songwriter
like Ira may often hear a story that captures his imagination, but the path
each song travels is unique, allowing us as to appreciate that each one is
special, with twists and turns not unlike the loops, whorls, and arches
(forensic terms in the science of fingerprint analysis) that whet the appetite
of a musical detective. Yum!
The
circumstances that coalesced one evening when Ira Stanphill attended a revival
are the fingerprint of ‘Mansion Over
a Hilltop’. Ira was in his early 30s in 1945 when he was doing what a preacher,
musician, and songwriter in the Gospel genre like himself would consider
normal: He was attending a conference that he probably expected would stimulate
his passion, and hopefully that of many others, for God. A businessman who’d
had a rough time, but who’d also had an epiphany, was speaking. Business had
been bad, and this struggling entrepreneur had sought some relief in a drive
through a rural area. He found more than he’d thought he would, and
unexpectedly from a small child, too. Her appearance perhaps reminded him of
his own situation – a poor waif, with a broken doll, standing next to a
ramshackle house she called home. Yet, she smiled. Why? Because she had hope, with
her father building a brand-new home not far away, over the nearby hill. What a
gift hope is, the downtrodden man thought, not just for what we might attain in
this world to overcome destitution, but especially how this world’s cruelties
will be overcome by what awaits the believer in the afterlife. ‘My mansion is
secure’, the businessman reassured himself when he thought of his future with
God. That spoke to Ira similarly, and after sleeping on the message he’d heard,
he quickly wrote “Mansion Over the Hilltop”.
From a little
girl’s hopeful answer, through one discouraged adult’s heart, and into the soul
of a poet-songwriter who could put a musical exclamation mark at the conclusion
of this episode, this account reiterates for us that He’s at work. Is it just
coincidental how things happen for good, even in difficult times? The
businessman noted as he related his story to Ira and the assembled crowd, that
his heart was pierced by the unsuspecting girl’s hope-filled words. Could that,
in fact, be God nudging you and me, as if to say ‘I’m here…and I haven’t
forgotten you’? I’ve had at least one life episode in which I thought I felt
that nudge. Coincidentally, the first one that I remember, like the businessman’s
situation, involved my professional/vocational life. ‘Will I be a failure?’, I
remember calling out to Him in my angst one day. He answered ‘No, you won’t be’,
not too soon thereafter, and I skipped like a deer, rejoicing that He’d touched
me that way. I’ve never forgot that He sent me on my way, to live my vocational
dream, and to experience life in a kind of mansion for the last three decades.
You and I just need to remember that another hilltop’s view will reveal an
altogether different edifice – words cannot do it justice. Climb that hill!
The
primary source for the story on this song is the book Stories Behind Popular
Songs and Hymns, by Lindsay Terry, Baker Book House, 1990. Also, see The
Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs
by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006.
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