He must have had some leftover emotions when he decided to record what his imagination gave him insight to see. DeWitt Huntington was not that uncommon in his circumstances in 1868 in Rochester, New York. But, if he was thinking about someone or multiple people that he’d lost to eternity, was that the impetus for his four-verse poem to himself “O Think of the Home Over There”? (The song may also be known as ‘The Home Over There’.) Was it his first wife (Frances), whose death left him a 36-year-old widower with three children two years earlier, whom he was remembering? Or, were there one or more of his brothers and sisters missing from his large family that caused his heart to ache? All of us lose people we love, but DeWitt didn’t wallow aimlessly in his feelings; instead, his resilient faith spurred his creativity, with one of the few songs that he authored in his lifetime. In fact, only a couple of other song-poems are attributed to DeWitt Huntington, so what he says in this one draws our attention; see if you can hear what was going on.
No record of what motivated the 38-year-old DeWitt Clinton Huntington to compose his poem in 1868 exists, so this song-poem detective has to rely on intuition and a bit of speculation. How would you or I feel if we’d lost spouses in our mid-30s, with three children to raise on our own? Was DeWitt’s solution to this tragedy two-fold -- writing his poem, and re-marrying? He did both of these in 1868, the second of which resulted in a fourth child. We can imagine that DeWitt felt the consolation and support of the church and its members with whom he ministered in western New York, as he coped with his loss and found new happiness with his second wife. Coming from a large family, which included eight siblings, had DeWitt’s life also been visited with the loss of one or more of them, or his parents, by this time? He certainly sounds like someone who was visualizing others who’d already departed, in every verse that he wrote. It wasn’t just ‘…the home over there’ that DeWitt could see. He thought about ‘the saints’ (v.1) and ‘friends’ (v.2), and then became more personal with ‘kindred’ (v.3) and ‘many dear to my heart’ (v.4), almost as if his insides were burning the more he wrote and thought about who he most wanted to see again in the afterlife. He was still feeling some ‘sorrow and care’ (v.3), and as he dwelt on his last two verses, he spoke in phrases of a longing to see these special people --‘let me fly…’, ‘I’ll soon be at home’ and ‘the end of my journey…’. Perhaps a part of DeWitt was feeling that his mortal existence had already been diminished, with a part of himself missing with the loss of his first wife, Frances. Was that why the daughter that he and his second wife (Mary) had was named Mary Frances? How many others around DeWitt’s church were likewise experiencing similar life-changing events, times that upend one’s life, perhaps irreparably?
Was a part of Dewitt, even after remarrying, still dissatisfied with how things were going in 1868? How many times do you think he heard someone utter the words ‘Oh, time heals’, as he tried to manage his situation? Was thinking of the new home in the Beyond part of his therapy? He must have surmised, especially with the career path he’d chosen 15 years earlier as a man of God’s word, that to focus his being on the eternal life that beckoned was not his own idea. Something – Someone -- inside himself was doing that. It appears that DeWitt was listening, and coaxing others around him who’d listen, to do what he was putting into practice. Maybe these thoughts, poetically expressed by DeWitt and later put to music (by Tulius C. O’Kane) were just the tonic to salve his spirit at a difficult time. See if you think it helps you, if you’re in a similar situation.
See brief biography on the author here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/h/u/n/t/huntington_dc.htm
See the song’s four verses here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/h/o/m/e/homeover.htm
See more biography here: DeWitt Clinton Huntington | Hymnary.org
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