Vilate Raile

Vilate Ellen Schofield Chambers Raile was a poet and member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She wrote the lyrics to the well-known Church hymn “Upon the Cross of Calvary” (#184), which was included in the 1985 Hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The poem she wrote in the centennial year of the pioneer migration is well-remembered:

They cut desire into short lengths

And fed it to the hungry fires of tribulation.

Long after when the fires had died,

Molten gold gleamed in the ashes.

They gathered it in bruised palms

And handed it to their children‚

And their children’s children forever.[1]

Vilate was born on January 17, 1890, in Salt Lake County, Utah. She married George Brower Chambers in 1912 and they had two sons. He drowned in Bear Lake in 1920 and in 1923 she married Dr. Henry Raile. She passed away on January 11, 1954, in Salt Lake City.