Elisabeth Fedde

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Elisabeth Fedde around 1880

Elisabeth Fedde (born December 25, 1850 in Feda , Kvinesdal municipality , near Flekkefjord in Vest-Agder , southern Norway ; † February 25, 1921 in Slettebø , Eigersund , Rogaland , southern Norway), actually Norwegian Tonette Elisebet Fedde , was one Norwegian Lutheran deaconess who founded the Norwegian Relief Society in the USA for better diaconal support for the Norwegian-American immigrant community. In the English-speaking area, it is also written Elizabeth Fedde .

Life

Elisabeth Fedde was born on Christmas Day in 1850. Her father Andreas Willumsen Fedde (1814–1873) was a captain who gave up his job when his wife fell ill and instead became a farmer. Elisabeth Fedde had six siblings, her mother's maiden name was Anne Marie Olsdatter Lindland (1818–1864). After her father died in 1873, Elisabeth Fedde was trained as a deaconess at the Lovisenberg Diakonissenhaus ( Diakonissehuset Christiania ) in Kristiania under the supervision of her mother Cathinka Guldberg (1840-1919). Cathinka Guldberg, for her part, had received her training at the Kaiserswerther Diakonieschule and hospital in Kaiserswerth , Germany , founded by Theodor Fliedner .

Elisabeth Fedde spent much of her early career in the Diocese of Hålogaland , Norway's newest and northernmost diocese . She and another young deaconess set up a hospital in Tromsø , the largest city in Troms , in 1878 , where they had to work under harsh and primitive conditions. On Christmas 1882, her 23rd birthday, Sister Elisabeth received a letter from her brother Gabriel Fedde (1843–1917), which inspired her to set up an aid facility for Norwegian seafarers in New York City . She left for the United States three months later and arrived there on April 9, 1883.

Nine days later, Sister Elizabeth helped found the Norwegian Relief Society , which began her service in America. Pastor Andreas Mortensen, whom Gabriel Fedde had served as secretary (after marrying the sister of the Swedish-Norwegian consul in New York), led the Society's founding service. Sister Elisabeth set up a hostel at 109 Williams Street, near the Norwegian Seafarer's Church , where Pastor Mortensen served, and rented three small rooms for $ 9 a month. Furthermore, Sister Elisabeth often visited the sick and needy; her diary of these experiences was later published.

In 1885, Fedde opened a deaconess house to train other women, as did a nine-bed hospital that was later expanded to 30 beds and eventually became the Lutheran Medical Center of Brooklyn . After several years in New York, during which she corresponded with William Alfred Passavant (1821-1894), who urged her to take responsibility for his new hospital in Pittsburgh , Fedde accepted the invitation of Lutheran Christians of the Midwest and moved to Minnesota . Shortly after she arrived in Minneapolis in 1888 , Fedde set up the Lutheran Deaconess Home . The next year she helped establish the Lutheran Free Church Hospital . Fedde also helped Mortensen plan a third hospital in Chicago , which opened in 1897, and another in Grand Forks .

Exhausted from the 13 years she had worked in America, Sister Elisabeth finally returned to Norway in November 1895. Shortly after her return she married the patient Ole Andreas Pedersen Slettebø (1843–1924), a devotee whom she had left to pursue her missionary work. After nearly a decade on his farm near the southern port city of Egersund in Rogaland , Fedde traveled back to Brooklyn in 1904 to celebrate an anniversary.

Sister Elisabeth Fedde died on February 25, 1921, her husband Ole Slettebø three years later.

Commemoration

The saint calendars of both the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada commemorate Elisabeth Fedde on the day of her death, February 25th.

Lutheran HealthCare , as the Norwegian Relief Society is called today, dedicated a memorial gallery to Elisabeth Fedde on February 25, 2014 in the Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn to mark the 131th anniversary of the society .

literature

  • Erling Nicolai Rolfsrud: The Borrowed Sister. The Story of Elisabeth Fedde. Augsburg Publishing House, Minneapolis MN 1953.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Odd Lovoll: Elisabeth Fedde in: Norsk biografisk leksikon
  2. ↑ Vår historie . Lovisenberg diaconal høgskole. Retrieved July 15, 2016.
  3. ↑ 180 years of eventful history . Kaiserswerther Diakonie. Retrieved July 15, 2016.
  4. ↑ Gabriel Aanonsen Fedde on FindAGrave.com
  5. ↑ Deaconness Elizabeth Fedde on Christianity.com
  6. ↑ Memoirs of Sister Elizabeth (translated into English by PJ Hertsgaard. Norwegian-American Studies and Records, Volume 20)
  7. ↑ Elizabeth Fedde's Diary, 1888 (translated into English and published by Beulah Folkedahl. Norwegian-American Historical Association. Volume 20, page 170)
  8. ^ Lutheran Medical Center and School of Nursing, Brooklyn, New York (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America)
  9. ↑ Elisabeth Fedde (Store norske leksikon)
  10. ^ Sister Elizabeth Fedde of Norway (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) ( Memento from July 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ↑ February 25 - Commemoration: Elizabeth Fedde, deaconness, 1921 on the website of the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Fresno, California ( Memento from February 25, 2015 on the Internet Archive )
  12. ↑ 131-year celebration on the website of Lutheran HealthCare ( Memento from February 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Fedde, Elisabeth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fedde, Tonette Elisebet; Fedde, Elizabeth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Norwegian Lutheran Deaconess, long time in the US
DATE OF BIRTH December 25, 1850
PLACE OF BIRTH Feda , Kvinesdal , Norway
DATE OF DEATH February 25, 1921
Place of death Slettebø , Eigersund , Norway