Anna Spafford
Anna Spafford, born Anne Tobine Larsen Øglende in Stavanger, Norway, was a Norwegian-American woman who settled in Jerusalem, where she and her husband Horatio Spafford were central in establishing the American Colony there in 1881.
She was a survivor of the sinking of the French passenger steamer Ville du Havre in 1873. Her daughters Anna “Annie”, Margaret Lee “Maggie”, Elizabeth “Bessie”, and Tanetta were lost in the wreck. Afterwards Anna gave birth to three more children. Her husband, Horatio Spafford wrote the song "It Is Well with My Soul" after the various tragedies that struck them, which includes the Chicago fire and the loss of their daughters in the sinking of Ville du Havre.Literature
