Philadelphia
Philadelphia
Before the summer of 1884, John Lankenau’s friend and fellow hospital board member, the German Consul in Philadelphia, Charles H. Meyer, traveled to Germany to inquire about the availability of deaconesses from Kaiserwerth motherhouse and other motherhouses to staff the German Hospital.
No deaconesses were available.
Consul Meyer heard about the deaconesses at Iserlohn, and Lankenau later wrote to their directing sister and convinced them to come to America to take over the German Hospital, of which he was president.
He finally found seven deaconesses from a small sisterhood in Iserlohn who agreed to come.
These seven womxn literally cleaned up the Hospital, and with Lankenau’s financial help, entered into parish work, started a school for girls and a kindergarten, began a convalescent home for the aging, and established a Motherhouse for deaconesses, all within a decade of their arrival in Philadelphia.
The Motherhouse was eventually moved to Gladwyne (outskirts of Philadelphia) in 1953, a building donated by the Pew family of Philadelphia.
OMAHA The Evangelical Lutheran Immanuel Association for Works of Mercy was founded at Omaha, Nebraska in 1887 by the Rev. Erik Alfred Fogelstrom. In 1890 Pastor Fogelstrom created the Immanuel Hospital and Deaconess Mother House after sending women to Philadelphia and...
Baltimore
In 1889, just five years after the arrival of the Philadelphia sisters, the General Synod of the Lutheran Church (USA) created a Board of Deaconess Work, designating deaconesses as persons holding an “office of the church”. They opened a Motherhouse in Baltimore in...