Deaconesses in Europe and their Lessons for America

by Jane M. Bancroft

When he heard of Fliedner’s new undertaking below him on the Rhine he remembered the difficulty in finding Protestant nurses for the hospital, and declared that Strasburg must have a similar institution. He won the support of a number of Christian men and women, and the house was opened in October, 1842. From its beginning many branches of charitable and religious work were undertaken. Especial attention was at first given to preparing Christian teachers, and the schools in connection with the deaconess house were filled with pupils. The099/95 success in this particular aroused apprehension lest the deaconesses should be diverted from their legitimate duties in caring for outside interests, so for a time the schools were discontinued. They have been resumed, however, and are to-day prosperous as of old.^[1] There are also a hospital, a home for aged women, a servants’ training-school and a foundling asylum under the charge of the deaconesses. They are, as a class, of higher social rank than these of Kaiserswerth, the preponderating number of whom are from the lower grade of social life. They are also better educated. This is partly a necessity, from the fact that the city is on the border-land between two great nations and if the deaconesses are to be effective they must be familiar with the spoken and written speech of both peoples. Strasburg continues to be a great and powerful center of deaconess activities, having a number of branch houses and various fields of work.

The affiliated house at Mülhausen has obtained an especially good report for its successful use of parish deaconesses. No other house has so systematized their labors or developed their possibilities as has the deaconess house at Mülhausen. All the authorities on deaconess work agree that the100/96 office of the parish deaconess is the crown and glory of the diaconate, and approaches most nearly the type of the deaconesses of the early Church.

The parish deaconess has occasion to use every gift which she can possibly acquire in the varied training of the deaconess school. She must know how to care for the poor, the weak, the sick, and those needing help for either body or soul, as she finds them in her visits from house to house. She must be able to pray at the bedside of the rich man, and to serve in the kitchen of the poor man; to be motherly to children, sympathetic with the sorrowing, and silent with the complaining. She must be an intelligent nurse, having some knowledge of medicine, able to faithfully carry out the instructions of the physician. She must be keen in detecting imposition, and wise in the administration of charity, knowing that “to deny is often to help, and to give is often to corrupt.” Truly, there is no gift of Christian womanhood which has not here its use.

For many reasons Mülhausen was well adapted for a field of labor for parish deaconesses. It is an old city, dating back to mediæval times, having a population of about sixty thousand inhabitants, half of whom are workmen. It has long been known for its noble and successful endeavors to promote101/97 the well-being of the working class. One of the first building and loan associations was started here to enable the operatives to earn their homes by gradual payments. Other organizations whose object is the moral elevation of the employees have united the different social circles by strong ties of sympathy. It was an easy matter, therefore, to raise a subscription of two hundred thousand francs to provide a home for the deaconesses who were invited here from Strasburg in 1861. There are now fourteen sisters in the deaconess house. Half of the number remain at the home to nurse the sick, and perform house duties. The remainder are parish deaconesses, who go forth early in the morning, each to her own quarter of the city, where she is busy at her labors during the day. In the evening she returns to the central home. In each of the seven districts into which the city is divided is located a district house; a pleasant, well-kept place. This contains a waiting-room for the deaconess and a consultation-room for the district physician, who comes at stated hours during the week. The poor who are recommended by the sister he treats gratuitously, and, so far as the physician directs, she furnishes food gratuitously. She keeps on hand a good stock of lint, bandages, and instruments. Each house has a kitchen and cellar. Every morning102/98 a woman comes in and prepares a large kettle of nourishing soup, and at 11 A. M. this is given out to the sick and poor.

In the store-room are rice, sugar, coffee, meal, and similar articles of food. From here she sends out at noon such portions as are needed for the most destitute of the district. In winter she also sells from her stores to the poor. Then there is a closet amply provided with sewing materials, and when the deaconess obtains work for seamstresses she furnishes them at a small price the necessary outfit to begin sewing. At two o’clock the deaconess ends her duties at the district house, and spends the remainder of the day in making visits in her quarter. To provide means to support the constant expenditure, there is in each quarter of the city a committee of fifteen ladies and three gentlemen, being in all more than one hundred ladies and twenty gentlemen, who are responsible for the administration of the charity. Each committee has a yearly collection in its district, and in this way about forty thousand francs are gathered annually. In each quarter nine hundred francs (one hundred and eighty dollars) is set apart for the maintenance of the sister and the rent of the district house. The remaining sum is expended by the deaconesses in their several districts in caring for the sick and103/99 destitute. Every month each one receives the sum allotted her from the treasurer, and in return reports her expenditure. The ladies on the committee often give personal assistance to the deaconess, and sometimes assume responsibility for individual cases, or for an entire street. The arrangements are constantly being improved upon as knowledge is gained by practice. The experience that has been gathered at Mülhausen is very practical, and therefore very valuable. Similar work could be undertaken in any of our large American cities, with the anticipation of like beneficent results. For that reason the above detailed description has been ventured upon, with the hope that the Old World example will find imitators in the New.^[2] Similar institutions, although not so carefully perfected, are found in Gorlitz and Magdeburg.

In Berlin are a good many deaconess institutions. Among them is the Marthashof, a training-school for servants, and a home for those out of employment.

The first impulse to care for the girls who come to large cities to obtain work, and to provide them a home where they can have respectable surroundings,104/100 came from Pastor Vermeil, the founder of the deaconess house at Paris. When Fliedner visited the Paris house his heart was touched by what he saw. He thought of the thousands of girls coming annually to Berlin from the provinces, and of the exposures and temptations to which they were subjected. He knew that many of them in their ignorance and inexperience were ruined body and soul in the lodging-houses to which they resorted, and drifted away on the streets of the city, only to find a place eventually in the hopeless wards of the great hospital, La Charité.

He determined to do what he could to provide a remedy, and, as was his wont, “without money and without noise” he set to work. In the north of Berlin, at quite a distance from the railroad stations, he hired a small house on a street then called “The Lost Way”—a street well named, as it was unlighted and unpaved, and so poorly kept that when the queen came to visit the home, shortly after it was opened, her carriage, in spite of the strong horses, got stuck in the mud.

By the aid of some ladies in the city the home was furnished with twelve beds; three deaconesses were put in charge, and after perplexing difficulties the authorization to open a registry for servants was obtained. The idea at first met with105/101 derision. It was said that such an institution was rightly located on “The Lost Way,” for no one would ever come to it. But they came. In two years the number of beds increased to twenty, and the same year Fliedner purchased the entire court in which the house stood, containing five houses and a fine garden. Queen Elizabeth of Prussia became the patroness of the institution, and it grew in favor with the people. A training-school was added in which the girls were taught to wash, iron, cook, and sew, and also to work in the garden and to care for cows, the last two branches of domestic service being required of servant-girls in Germany. Later an infant school was added in which nursery girls were practiced in taking charge of children, a pleasant, helpful demeanor being made one of the requisites. Over two hundred children, mostly coming from the poorest and gloomiest homes, are in daily attendance. About three hundred and fifty more attend the girls’ school for children of the working classes. In the home and training-school for servants about eight hundred girls are received annually, and sixteen thousand have been sheltered and taught during the years it has been open. They readily secure situations, over two thousand applications being annually received for the servants of the Marthashof. They remain in106/102 friendly relation to the home, receive good counsel and advice, and are encouraged to spend their free Sundays there.

The Marthashof has had a beneficent influence over the moral and spiritual welfare of servants throughout Germany. In nearly all the cities similar homes are now established, while in the larger cities Sunday associations are formed to provide suitable places of meeting for the entertainment and instruction of those who are free Sunday afternoons and evenings. So far as I am aware, no similar work has been attempted for servant-girls in the United States. It is true that training-schools exist, but not with religious supervision, and with the moral and religious instruction of the inmates made a prominent feature. The Marthashof offers us a lesson well worth our learning.