LeRoy Edwin Froom

1890 - 1974

While LeRoy Froom was best known in the Seventh-day Adventist church for his work as editor for several church publications, secretary of the General Conference Ministerial Association, and author of several books, including the four-volume Faith of Our Fathers, he was also a musician. He served on the committee that prepared the 1941 SDA Church Hymnal and was responsible for the publication of the 1944 songbook Gospel Melodies.

Froom composed hymns and sacred music, following the unorthodox method of writing the melody first and then the words. He was represented in the 1941 hymnal by two hymns, #697, With Praise, O God, We Worship Thee, and #702, Dismiss Us, Lord, with Blessing. The latter was retained in the 1985 Seventh-day Adventist Church Hymnal as hymn #690.

Froom was born in Belvedere, Illinois, the only child of John Edwin and Cristina Neilson Froom. He studied at Pacific Union College and Walla Walla College, now University, before graduating from Washington Training Center, now Washington Adventist University. He married Esther Birch Fenton in 1913, and they would have a son, Fenton Edwin, who would become an Adventist minister.

He began his career as a pastor and then trained to be an editor at Pacific Press Publishing Association. He subsequently served as editor of the Chinese Signs of the Times, Watchman, and The Ministry, the latter a magazine he started and edited while serving as first Associate Secretary then Secretary of the Ministerial association from 1928 to 1950.

In addition to his work at the General Conference, Froom also taught historical theology at the Theological Seminary at Andrews University. He was living in Takoma Park, Maryland, and working on a final book, The Holy Spirit - Executive of the Godhead, when he died at age 83.

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Source: Wayne H. Hooper and Edward E. White, Companion to the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal, 1988, Review and Herald Publishing Association, 620-21; Scott and Valerie Froom family tree, Ancestory.com; 1910 U.S. Federal Census; U.S. Passport Application, 15 August 1918; Obituaries: The Review and Herald, 4 April 1974,30; The Washington Post, 21 February 1974.

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