Annie S. Hawks (1835–1918) was a busy American housewife and mother. On a sunny morning in 1872, while doing household chores in her Brooklyn home, she was suddenly filled with an overwhelming sense of God's near presence, realizing that no matter how ordinary or busy her day was, she could not live without Him. She sat down by the window and wrote the lyrics to 'I Need Thee Every Hour'. Years later, after the sudden death of her husband, she confessed: 'It was not until the shadow fell that I understood the comforting power of the words I had written'.