Haldor Lillenas

Born:  November 19, 1885, Stord Island (near Bergen), Norway.

Died: August 18, 1959, Aspen, Colorado.

Buried:  Floral Hills Cemetery, Kansas City, Missouri.

Pseudonyms

• Virginia Rose Golden
• Laverne Gray
• Richard Hainsworth
• Rev. H. N. Lines
• Robert Whitmore
• Ferne Winters

    Lillenas emigrated to America as a child; his family settled first in South Dakota, then moved to Oregon in 1889. He attended Deets Pacific Bible College in Los Angeles, California (later renamed to Pasadena College); studied music at the Siegel-Myers School of Music in Chicago, Illinois; and received an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Olivet Nazarene College. His first pastorate was in Lompoc, California, in 1910; he later pastored in Redlands, California, and Indianapolis, Indiana. In 1924, he founded the Lillenas Music Company (bought by the Nazarene Publishing Company in 1930), and worked as an editor there until his retirement in 1950.
    Haldor married Bertha Mae Wilson, a songwriter like himself. He and Bertha were elders in the Church of the Nazarene. Haldor traveled as an evangelist, then pastored several churches, 1914-1924. In his lifetime, he wrote some 4,000 hymns, and supplied songs for many evangelists. His works include:

• Special Sacred Songs, 1919
• New Sacred Songs
• Strains of Love
• Special Sacred Songs No. 2

Hymns

1. And Yet There Is Room (© 1928)
2. Bible Stands, The
3. Church of God, Awaken
4. Climbing Up the Hills of God (© 1957)
5. Don’t Turn Him Away (© 1925)
6. Dusky Hands
7. Garden of My Heart, The
8. Glorious Freedom
9. He Has Called Me by My Name (© 1927)
10. He Is Mine (© 1929)
11. Higher Than the Mountain (© 1957)
12. Holy Spirit, God Most Holy (© 1957)
13. I Have Found a Precious Resting Place
14. I Know a Name (© 1928)
15. I Have Settled the Question
16. I Lost the World (© 1924)
17. Jesus Will Walk With Me (© 1922)
18. Lord, I Am Pleading (© 1924)
19. Loyal and True (© 1930)
20. More Than a Friend (© 1928)
21. My Burden Is Gone (© 1923)
22. My Mother’s Old Bible Is True (© 1929)
23. My Wonderful Lord (© 1938)
24. My Wonderful Friend
25. O My Heart Sings Today (© 1924)
26. Once I Was Bound by Sin’s Galling Fetters
27. Peace That Jesus Gives, The (© 1931)
28. One Day I Traveled a Toilsome Road
29. Savior Have I, More Precious to Me, A (© 1931)
30. Soldiers of Immanuel (1919)
31. Standing on the Word (© 1927)
32. Surrender to Jesus (© 1953)
33. Sweeping the Way
34. Tell the Blessed Story
35. There’s a Blessed and Triumphant Song
36. Under the Atoning Blood (© 1918)
37. When the Holy Ghost Abides (© 1929)
38. Where They Need No Sun
39. Wonderful Grace of Jesus
40. Wonderful Peace
41. Word of God, The

Music

1. Glory Just to Walk
2. Jesus Has Lifted Me
3. Steady, Brother, Steady