A woman sits in a ballooning black taffeta dress with her thin hands folded. Beneath her placid face with its broad nose, her dress buries what we believe on faith to have been a womanly figure. There is something very deep about the eyes of this sober lady, who has a very long name: Karolina Wilhelmina Sandell-Berg. Despite all formal appearance to the contrary, she preferred to be called Lina Sandell.
I came across Sandell’s photo in an enormous anthology of hymnody by Douglas Alvin Snow. I found it among my husband’s books, which I’m happy to report now belong to me too. The open book spreads larger than my lap and is peopled by faded personages such as this woman, who wrote the enduring hymn “Day by Day.”
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