I can never read this text without thinking of the beautiful hymn by Anna Hoppe, "O'er Jerusalem Thou Weepest", TLH 419, wedded to an equally beautiful tune. Miss Hoppe was a life-long member of St. John's, Eighth & Vliet, Milwaukee, baptized and confirmed by Johannes Bading, buried 52 years later by John Brenner. She was a voluminous author and translator, having written at least one hymn for every Sunday and festival of the Church Year. Many more of her hymns appear in the Augustana Synod hymnal of 1925. All this with an office job and little more than an eighth grade education.
Short Name: Anna Hoppe
Full Name: Hoppe, Anna, 1889-1941
Birth Year: 1889
Death Year: 1941
Anna Hoppe was born on May 7, 1889 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She left school after the eighth grade and worked as a stenographer. She began writing patriotic verses when she was very young and by the age of 25 she was writing spiritual poetry. After some of her poems appeared in the Northwestern Lutheran, a periodical of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, they came to the attention of Dr. Adolf Hult of Augustana Seminary, Rock Island, Illinois. He influenced her to write her Songs for the Church Year (1928). Several hymnals include her work, which was usually set to traditional chorale melodies, although she also made a number of translations. She died on August 2, 1941 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
