The story of the Philadelphia Motherhouse begins with Mr. John D. Lankenau, a Lutheran layman considered the wealthiest German living in Philadelphia. He served on the board of The German Hospital of the City of Philadelphia and was a man who placed great emphasis on Christian charity. He eventually oversaw the move of the hospital to a new location, financed a wing of the hospital in 1884 in memory of his wife, daughter, and son, and facilitated cooperation between the hospital and the Lutheran Church.

In the 1880s, the hospital’s most pressing problem was a nursing shortage. Lankenau sought assistance from the church which led him to an independent group of deaconesses in Iserlohn, Germany. Lankenau persuaded their directing sister that the work of the hospital would be pleasing to God, and in time a diaconate to which they could belong would be formed in America. The first sisters arrived in 1884 and by 1886 construction began on a facility, financed entirely by John D. Lankenau. The dedication for the Mary J. Drexel Home for the Aged and Philadelphia Motherhouse of Deaconesses (MJDH/PMD) took place on December 6, 1888. The first deaconess was consecrated on January 4, 1887.

The motherhouse was patterned on those in Germany, serving many of the same types of fields that German sisters served, wearing the same uniform, or garb, usually speaking only German, and with rules and procedures similar to those in Germany. The relationship to the church also mirrored motherhouses in Germany, but the church had no control over the motherhouse or its affiliated institutions.

By the mid 1930s, deaconesses from the PMD were serving in several locations including the Mary J. Drexel Home for the Aged; the Children’s Hospital; Lankenau Hospital; Lankenau School for Girls; a children’s home and a home for the aged in Erie, Pennsylvania; a dispensary and preventorium; inner mission work near Reading, Pennsylvania; the Virgin Islands, and parishes in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and New York.

In 1953 the partnership between the MJDH/PMD and Lankenau Hospital came to an end and the two entities ended up in separate locations. The motherhouse took over a spacious home in the Tudor-Gothic style situated on six acres in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania. The Mary J. Drexel Home for the Aged relocated to Bala-Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.

In 1962 the United Lutheran Church in America, the Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church, and the American Evangelical Lutheran Church, merged to create the Lutheran Church in America. It was seen as the appropriate time to merge the work of the Baltimore and Philadelphia motherhouses. The merger took effect January 1, 1963, and created the Lutheran Deaconess House and School, Inc.

Adapted in 2007 from the Administrative History compiled by Catherine Lundeen, Project Archivist, July 2004.