Careers of Service: The Norwegian Lutheran Deaconesses by Vesterheim

Careers of Service: The Norwegian Lutheran Deaconesses Laurann Gilbertson, Textile Curator

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, a group of dedicated Norwegian-American women organized to further the work of the Lutheran church. They were part of a larger, international Protestant movement, and they called themselves deaconesses. The office of deaconess, a life of service, was called the diaconate. A Deaconess is a Christian woman who … has a call to devote herself to works of charity and spread the Gospel in words and deeds. For her work she is properly trained and tested as to ability, knowledge and Christian character by the church through a Motherhouse.1 — Sister Lena Nelson Deaconesses have worked for the church from Biblical times to the Middle Ages. The work was revived in 1836 in Kaiserswerth, Germany, by Rev. Theodor Fliedner and his wife Friedericke. From Germany the “modern” diaconate quickly spread through Europe and Scandinavia. Sister Cathinka Guldberg trained at Kaiserswerth and was called as the first Sister Superior at a new motherhouse and hospital in Oslo. The diaconate spread more slowly to America via Fliedner and German-American minister William A. Passavant. Here several Protestant denominations, including Lutheran and Methodist, took part in the deaconess movement. Nine Lutheran motherhouses were established in the United States to train deaconesses. Norwegian motherhouses were established first in Brooklyn, then in Minneapolis and Chicago. 42

Anna Børs, wife of the Norwegian consul, and the pastors of the Norwegian Seamen’s Church in Brooklyn, invited a deaconess from Norway to work with the growing numbers of Norwegian immigrants in their Bay Ridge neighborhood. Sister Elizabeth Fedde arrived in 1883 and began work through The Voluntary Relief Society, headquartered near the Seamen’s Church. She collected and distributed food and clothing, helped immigrants find employment, placed orphaned children, nursed people in their homes, and visited them in local hospitals. She had some help from deaconesses

The Norwegian Lutheran Deaconesses’ Home and Hospital at 4th Avenue and 46th Street in Brooklyn, New York. Shortly after this photo was taken, the Board of Managers turned over the hospital to the U. S. Army from November 1918 to July 1919 to treat wounded soldiers returning from overseas. Vesterheim Archives.

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The Norwegian Lutheran Deaconess Institute in Minneapolis, early 1890s. Sister Superior Ingeborg Sponland stands at the far right. Photographer: A. Larson, 313 Washington Ave. S. Courtesy of the Norwegian-American Historical Association, Northfield, Minnesota.

from Norway and soon there were “probationers” and then deaconesses trained in New York. The Norwegian Lutheran Deaconesses’ Home and Hospital was officially incorporated in 1892. After several expansions and moves the institution settled for 50 years at 46th Street and 4th Avenue. In Minneapolis in 1888 Rev. M. Falk Gjertsen invited Rev. Passavant, who had organized the German branch of Lutheran deaconesses in Pittsburgh, to meet with a group interested in learning how to start the diaconate in Minnesota. Passavant recommended starting with a deaconess, so they borrowed Sister Elizabeth Fedde from the home in Brooklyn to serve as the first sister superior. The next year the Norwegian Lutheran Deaconess Institute was incorporated and in 1891 they purchased a house at the corner of 15th Avenue South and East 23rd Street to serve as a hospital. Sister Elizabeth needed to return to Brooklyn, so the Board of Directors called Sister Ingeborg Sponland to serve as sister superior. Sister Ingeborg had trained at the Oslo Motherhouse and was in North Dakota visiting her parents at the time she was called. The deaconess training and work in Minneapolis expanded quickly. In less than ten years, 38 sisters were associated with the home; 17 worked in the hospital and 20 worked out in 11 different stations, for example as parish sisters or missionary nurses. Sister Ingeborg Sponland resigned in 1904 because of poor health, but she later recovered and went on to head the Norwegian Lutheran Deaconess Home and Hospital in Chicago. There was also a Brooklyn connection to the Chicago home. Rev. Andreas Mortensen, who had helped call Brooklyn’s first deaconess, spoke in Chicago in 1885 about “The Female Diaconate.” A group of women organized soon Vol. 5, No. 1 2007

after to collect and distribute food, clothing, and money to the poor in anticipation of a deaconess institution for Chicago. Finally, in 1896, the Norwegian Lutheran Deaconess Society was incorporated by Dr. Nils Quales, Rev. A. C. Anderson, and Adolph Larson. The home and hospital were located in the Humboldt Park neighborhood, first at Artesian Avenue and LeMoyne Street and then permanently at Haddon Georg Sverdrup was a Avenue and Leavitt Street. strong proponent of Although each of the three mission and deaconess Norwegian deaconess homes work. Professor and and hospitals was founded as then president of an independent institution, all Augsburg Seminary in Minneapolis, he headed eventually came under the wing the Board of Directors of of the church. The Brooklyn and the Norwegian Lutheran Chicago homes and hospitals Deaconess Institute from were associated with the United 1889 to 1903. Sverdrup Norwegian Lutheran Church. The and his second wife, Elisa, both taught at the Deaconess Institute in Minneapolis institute. Elisa Heiberg was part of the Lutheran Free Sverdrup had been a 2 Church. deaconess in Norway A board of directors managed and worked with Sister the affairs of each institution. A Ingeborg Sponland at the Oslo Rikshospital. rector, who was an ordained pastor, oversaw the business of the hospital Photographer: Dorge, and the instruction and consecration Minneapolis. Vesterheim Archives.

of the sisters. The sister superior was in charge of the inner for example, did both. Sister Anna had served ten years in management of the home and training the deaconesses. The Madagascar as a nursing and teaching sister when she met home, or motherhouse, was where new deaconesses were missionary Rev. Kittel Braaten. They married in 1921, but she trained and where students and sisters lived. didn’t stop working. Her son Arndt remembers that Malagasy The diaconate was open to unmarried Lutheran women women helped care for the six children, so Anna was able to between the ages of 18 and 32 (or 36 in Brooklyn) with high provide medical and evangelical service full time until retiring school educations. To begin the process, a woman would send in 1954. a written application to the specific deaconess home along with Most of the first deaconesses were nurses, but as the the history of her life, her spiritual condition, and reasons for program grew the deaconesses’ work also expanded, sometimes taking up deaconess work. She also needed to submit letters in combination with nursing, to include foreign and home of recommendation from her pastor and others, and health missions; parish work; social services; hospital, orphanage, and statements from her physician and dentist. Later, widowed senior home administration. women without children were admitted and the motherhouse could formally invite qualified women who were older. Once Fields of Service accepted the women were admitted as “pupils” or “candidates” Serving in foreign mission fields were pastors and their for six to twelve months. They would receive free room, board, wives, trained missionary couples, and single women who and instruction. Then, if they and the motherhouse were were either trained missionaries or deaconesses. Many of the agreeable, they would continue as “probationers.” Probationers deaconesses were nurses; others did evangelistic work or taught were called “Sister” and wore the deaconess dress and cap. in schools. Deaconesses served in greatest numbers in China, They received a small monthly allowance and annual vacation. Madagascar, and the United States Territory of Alaska. The length of time as probationer varied by motherhouse As scholar DeAne Lagerquist points out, deaconesses and by year. In 1920 in Chicago, there was “no set time for were often limited to working with women and children consecration.” It was done when the sister wished it and because it was considered appropriate from both the American Sister Superior approved it. Twenty years later in Brooklyn, and native cultural perspectives.4 Sister Christine Johnson deaconesses trained for four years. accepted this limitation, and found evangelistic work in China The deaconess program included classes in religion with widows, who had lost their social and economic status (Bible, church history, comparative religions, history of with the deaths of their husbands, particularly rewarding. the diaconate), religious education (teaching methods, Gender was less of an issue for Sister Anna Huseth in Igloo, mission work, instructing children), parish work, sociology, Alaska. The Inuit people had a strong distrust of Anglo men psychology, English, economics, and business. The classes were from years of trading. They had had no previous contact with tailored to the tasks of future deaconesses. For example, in Anglo women, so Sister Anna was able to quickly start work in the first year of studying the Bible, there was special emphasis the community as a nurse and missionary in 1920. on the practical application of the New China was an active foreign Testament to Christian life, useful when mission field for Norwegianteaching children and adults. Shorthand, American Lutherans. The Hauge typing, and filing would help parish Synod, the United Church, sisters and deaconesses who worked with and the Norwegian Synod sent institutions and social services. missionaries to Honan and Hupeh After formal classes and, often, nurses’ (now Henan and Hubei) Provinces training, the probationers were consecrated in central China beginning in and became deaconesses. The rector 1890. Sister Ingeborg Pederson conducted the consecration ceremony at was the first deaconess sent to the chapel of the motherhouse. The symbol China. She was consecrated in of the deaconess was a cross pendant or Norway, but was associated with pin. The deaconess motto, Matthew 25:40: the Chicago motherhouse. She “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one served for 27 years in Juning, of the least of these, my brethren, ye have Honan Province. done it unto me,” was engraved on the Sister Pernille Pederson from the Chicago deaconesses’ pins. Minneapolis home was the first “When a deaconess is consecrated, it Norwegian Lutheran deaconess is taken for granted that unless God calls sent to Madagascar, but she served her to another sphere of labor she gives only two years. Sister Pernille’s herself to the diaconate as a life work. death in 1898 and the deaths of However, she is under no vows…”3 If several other early nursing sisters a deaconess wanted to leave, she could from tropical diseases did not Chicago deaconesses wore cross pins submit her resignation to the rector and close Madagascar as a field of engraved with their name and the deaconess sister superior. Some, including Sister service. A total of nine deaconesses motto. Sister Bertha Sime received this pin at Elizabeth Fedde, left and married. Others from the home in Minneapolis her consecration in 1921. Vesterheim 1991.066.002—Gift of Sister Olive continued outside the sisterhood to work and eleven from Chicago worked Hanson. as nurses or missionaries. Anna Stenseth, with the Malagasy people from 44

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United Church missionaries and a local congregation in Hankow, Hupeh Province, China. The photo was taken when Sister Ingeborg Peterson (seated center right) arrived in 1898. At that time, Rev. Daniel and Anna Nelson (seated left and center) had already been in China for eight years. Vesterheim Archives.

1896 to 1967. Sister Mette Hagen from the Chicago manual training and Bible classes for boys and a day nursery. motherhouse served the longest in Madagascar, 39 years. Larger quarters were needed again in 1917, and in 1924 the Because of their special training and skills, deaconesses Lutheran Deaconess Day Nursery was in its final location were often called to manage and staff hospitals, orphanages, at 1802 North Fairfield Avenue in the Humboldt Park and elder-care facilities in the United States, well beyond the neighborhood. Sisters Caroline Williams and May Gullickson boundaries of the cities where the motherhouses were located. served as superintendents. There were deaconess-run hospitals in Grand Forks, Grafton, The Day Nursery’s mission was to preserve homes and Northwood, North Dakota. The Children’s Home in and families by supporting working parents. Programming Poulsbo, Washington, and the Aase Haugen Home for senior helped mothers and children improve physically, mentally, citizens in Decorah, Iowa, were once managed by sisters from and spiritually. There was a small fee for those who could the Minneapolis and Chicago motherhouses respectively. pay. The Baby Group included infants from eight months In the early twentieth century the church was more likely than the state to offer social services. In 1916, for example, churches supported 42 percent of benevolent institutions in the United States versus 27 percent supported by the State and 28 percent by private organizations.5 Deaconesses responded as needs arose for new social services. Sister Malinda Munson explained the reason behind a new service in Chicago: “Because so many people in the large cities are in poor circumstances, both father and mother must go to work; but what are they to do with the children? They are too small to go to public school. They must therefore either play on the streets or be left alone at home. That the children might be cared for properly, your deaconess home has trained two deaconesses as kindergarten sisters…”6 The Day Nursery Project began in 1911 with a kindergarten in Hope Mission, a former temperance hall. The deaconesses also offered Sunday school, Lutheran Deaconess Day Nursery and Kindergarten, Chicago, Illinois, late 1920s sewing classes for girls, and mothers’ meetings with or early 1930s. health and educational talks. Three years later, the Vesterheim Archives. kindergarten moved to larger quarters and added Vol. 5, No. 1 2007

to three years. The sisters taught morning kindergarten for children three to six years of age. There was also after-school care available for six- to fourteen-year-olds. In 1928 the Day Nursery served 178 families. For 47 percent of the families, the mothers needed to work outside the home because their husbands received insufficient wages. Twelve percent of the mothers had to work because their husbands were ill. More than a third of those helped were single or widowed mothers, and in two cases, single fathers used the Day Nursery services while they worked.7 Hospitals by Norwegians and for Norwegians? The Norwegian Lutheran Deaconesses’ Home and Hospital in Brooklyn was founded explicitly to serve “newcomers.” As late as 1916, the home placed a sister at Ellis Island to meet and assist immigrants arriving from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. But public opinion and settlement patterns were changing. Two of the hospitals dropped “Norwegian” from their names after World War I. The neighborhoods surrounding the hospitals were increasingly less Norwegian. Sister Ingeborg Sponland acknowledged criticisms by people in Chicago who thought the deaconess hospital should serve only Norwegians or, at least, only Lutherans. “But their arguments were not worthy of consideration,” she said. “Our hospital was located in a cosmopolitan city. Had we listened and given in to all these criticisms we would have defeated the purpose of our work.”8 The purpose of their work was to help anyone in need. The deaconess hospitals never limited their service to a particular nationality or religion and they tried to offer free services when possible. In Minneapolis in the “early years,” as much as half the work done in the hospital was free. In

Bertha Sime was an immigrant from Vik in Sogn, Norway. In 1916 she left Moody County, South Dakota, to enter deaconess and nurses’ training at the Norwegian Lutheran Deaconess Home and Hospital in Chicago. In an interview conducted before her 100th birthday, Sister Bertha reflected on being a “newcomer” in South Dakota and on her education at the Deaconess Hospital. “We have people of different nationalities in Chicago, so we had to learn what they meant. That was good for us. Wonderful training.” She remained at the hospital working primarily with surgical patients before and after treatment. Photographer: Holgerson, Chicago. Photo and video interview: Vesterheim Archives, Sister Bertha Sime Collection.

Ethnicity and Religion of Patients and Children Served by Deaconess Institutions Percentage by County of Birth Institution

Year

Cases

Norway

Scandinavia* United States

Germany

Ireland

Italy

Poland

England

Brooklyn Hospital

1899

1,595

Chicago Hospital

1899

162

Minneapolis Hospital

1908

358

Chicago Hospital

1915

2,275

Minneapolis Hospital

1916

1,830

Brooklyn Hospital

1922

3,110

Chicago Day Nursery

1928

258

Brooklyn Hospital

1932

4,047

*Scandinavia includes Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland

Percentage by Religion Institution

Year

Cases

Lutheran

Catholic

Methodist

Jewish

Presbyterian

Episcopal

Baptist

Brooklyn Hospital

1899

1,595

Chicago Hospital Minneapolis Hospital

1899 1908

162 358

9 84

1 4

4 3

1 1

0 2

0 1

Chicago Hospital

1915

2,275

Minneapolis Hospital

1916

1,830

Brooklyn Hospital

1922

3,110

Chicago Day Nursery

1928

258

Brooklyn Hospital

1932

4,047

1 Vesterheim

1924 the charity figures dropped, but were still impressive at 29 percent.9 Funding for charity work, as well as the hospital and deaconess work came from church congregations and individuals throughout the United States. An important part of the operations at all deaconess homes and hospitals was the support provided by auxiliary organizations, which were usually run by women. A Sewing Society made bedding and garments for patients at the hospital in Brooklyn. In Minneapolis, the Bethesda Sick Benefit Society organized in 1912 to raise funds to provide free services for needy patients. The Brooklyn hospital had a Men’s Aid Society, which held a variety of events to raise money to support the hospital and its work. In 1913 they presented the hospital with its first motorized ambulance. Ethnicity issues and funding were not the only challenges facing the deaconesses. There was the ongoing challenge of being understood and appreciated for their dedication, training, and skills. Church mergers, which affected the Chicago and Brooklyn homes in particular, meant the deaconesses were introduced to Lutherans unfamiliar with their historical and valuable service. In her autobiography, Sister Ingeborg Sponland expressed her disappointment. “The church merger in 1917 did not add to the interest in deaconess work as we had expected, chiefly because of misunderstanding of the basic principles of the diaconate. It became necessary to begin anew to explain the need for this work in the church.”10 From the tone of annual reports, the number of sisters who left training or deaconess service was not a great concern. The concern was how to attract new candidates and enough candidates to meet the increasing demand from church parishes, social services, and benevolent institutions. And increasingly, careers opened for women in social work and nursing outside the sisterhood. There was also the challenge of keeping the hospital staffed, accredited or licensed, and up to date. All three Norwegian deaconess homes and hospitals added nurses’ training programs to help staff the growing hospitals and meet the demands from women who did not wish to become deaconesses. Schools of nursing were added in 1909 in Brooklyn, 1916 in Minneapolis, and 1926 in Chicago. The Lutheran Deaconess Schools of Nursing aimed “to combine professional technique with development of Christian character.”11 Nurses were trained to treat patients as whole people and to consider their physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. The nursing programs were very popular with students and with the institutions that sought to hire deaconess-trained nurses. The End of an Era Despite the success of the deaconess hospitals and nurses’ training programs, all three of the originally Norwegian hospitals (and nursing programs) merged to provide better services. Brooklyn’s Lutheran Deaconesses’ Home and Hospital merged with Lutheran Hospital in Manhattan to become Lutheran Medical Center in 1955. The Lutheran Deaconess Hospital of Chicago merged with Lutheran General Hospital in 1968. In 1973 the Minneapolis Lutheran Deaconess Hospital merged with two other Twin Cities hospitals becoming Fairview Community Hospitals. Vol. 5, No. 1 2007

Though the styles changed over time, Lutheran deaconesses in America wore plain white, blue, or black dresses with white collars. The simple clothes were designed to be serviceable, economical, and identify the wearer as someone the public could turn to for help. Dresses worn by Sister Bertha Sime and Sister Mette Hagen. Chicago, Illinois, 1970s. Vesterheim 1991.006.003 and 1992.073.001— Gift of Sister Olive Hanson.

The “modern” diaconate began to change as the opportunities for women in nursing and social services increased and as more hospitals and benevolences left the realm of the church. There was still a need for deaconesses, said Lutheran Free Church president Rev. T. O. Burntvedt, even in the face of what he described as the socialization of the state and secularization of the field of social service.12 But fewer women were interested in the sisterhood, so deaconess training was centralized in Minneapolis for the two Midwestern motherhouses. In 1948 the Commission on the Diaconate, which was made up of representatives from church departments, women’s auxiliaries, and deaconess motherhouses, proposed a new program for deaconesses. Applicants now needed Bachelor 47

of Arts degrees in Christianity and minors in appropriate topics such as parish work, social service, missions, music, education, or nursing. They were to complete an eight-week graduate-level course before being accepted, invested, and consecrated. The first and last students completed the program and were consecrated in the 1950s. Brooklyn’s program ended in a similar way, marking the close of an era of Norwegian Lutheran deaconesses.13 Typical of their strength and vision, the Deaconess sisters, from whom so much has been received by so many, have expressed their faith, not just in the halls and rooms of an institution, but rather in the concept of care and dedication to all men everywhere.14 —William R. Sittler The tradition continues. Women called to lives of service can still pursue the diaconate, now through the Deaconess Community of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Although the number of Norwegian Lutheran deaconesses was always relatively small, the impact of their lives of service is significant. Their contributions to the fields of health care, social services, and mission work equaled their contributions to the lives of individuals: Norwegians, immigrants, Americans.

Endnotes Sr. Lena Nilson [Nelson], “The Woman Deaconate,” in Souvenir Norse-American Women 1825-1925, ed. Alma A. Guttersen and Regina Hilleboe Christiansen (St. Paul, Minnesota: Mrs. Gilbert Guttersen, 1926), 302. 2 The United Church merged to become the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America, then Evangelical Lutheran Church, then American Lutheran Church (ALC), and is now part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The Lutheran Free Church joined the ALC in 1963. 3 Fifty-first and Fifty-second Annual Report of the Norwegian Lutheran Deaconesses’ Home and Hospital, 1934-1935 (Brooklyn, New York: Arneson Press, 1935), 8. 4 DeAne Lagerquist, From Our Mothers’ Arms: A History of Women in the American Lutheran Church (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Augsburg Publishing House, 1987), 37. 5 Rev. H. L. Fritschel, “Institutional and Non-Institutional Works of Mercy: Their Relative Value,” Proceedings and Papers of Twelfth Conference of Evangelical Lutheran Motherhouses in the United States (Brooklyn, New York: np, [1916]), 24. 6 Malinda Munson, “Our Deaconess Home,” Diakonissen 6 (December 1914), 18. 7 Annual Report, Lutheran Deaconess Day Nursery ([Chicago, Illinois]: np, 1928), 21-22. 8 Ingeborg Sponland, My Reasonable Service (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Augsburg Publishing House, 1938), 69. 9 Clarence J. Carlsen, The Years of Our Church (Minneapolis, Minnesota: The Lutheran Free Church Publishing Company, 1942), 12. 10 Sponland, 75-76. 11 N. N. Rønning and W. H. Lien, They Followed Him: The Lutheran Deaconess Hospital, Fiftieth Anniversary, 1889-1939 (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Lutheran Deaconess Home and Hospital, 1939), 7. 12 T. O. Burntvedt, A Flower of Apostolic Christianity (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Lutheran Deaconess Home and Hospital, [1939]), 112. 13 Beulah Folkedahl, “Sister Marie Rorem: A Ministry of Serving” (unpublished, 1958), 12, Lutheran Deaconess Home and Hospital, Chicago, Papers, Norwegian-American Historical Association (NAHA), Northfield, Minnesota. Also “The Norwegian Lutheran Deaconesses’ Home and Hospital Annual Report for the Year 1953,” (unpublished, 1953), 3, Lutheran Deaconess Home and Hospital, Brooklyn, Papers, NAHA. 14 William R. Sittler, “Reflections of the Administrator,” Deaconess News 6 (June 1968), 1. 1

Sister Superior Ingeborg Sponland, Chicago, Illinois, 1930s. King Haakon VII awarded Sister Ingeborg the gold Medal of Honor in 1928 for her service to Norwegians in America.   Vesterheim Archives.

About the Author

Laurann Gilbertson holds a B. A. in anthropology and a M. S. in textiles and clothing from Iowa State University. She has been textile curator at Vesterheim since 1991. She thanks Elaine Ask Fox, Rev. Arndt Braaten, and Betty Rikansrud Nelson for their personal experiences and insightful comments. 48

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