In November 1873, Anna Spafford and the couple’s four daughters sailed for Europe on the S.S. Ville du Havre while her husband Horatio stayed behind in Chicago on business. The ship was rammed by another vessel and sank within minutes. Anna was pulled from the water unconscious, but all four girls drowned, and she sent Horatio a cable that began ‘Saved alone.’ On his way across the ocean to bring her home, Horatio wrote that he had passed over the spot where the ship went down, but that his girls were safe, folded, the dear lambs. Out of that grief came the hymn we still sing, ‘It Is Well with My Soul.’
