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Deaconesses: G-L

Originally from New Hampshire, Bertha Garvin served at Grace Church, Manhattan, where she was the rector’s secretary and the vestry secretary for forty years. She first served under the Rev. William Huntington who had pioneered the deaconess cause at General Convention. During World War I, Garvin helped in organizing and serving Sunday dinners to sailors and soldiers who passed through the busy port of New York on their way to or from the European war. At the 125th anniversary of Grace Parish, Garvin was honored at a luncheon at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The guest speakers included Bishop William T. Manning of New York. More than 300 people attended this event. Garvin also served the greater community of deaconesses in New York City. She was president of the Alumnae Association of the New York Training School for Deaconesses in 1914, 1928, 1929, and 1930. She sat on the Executive Committee of the Association in 1923 and 1924. In 1940 Garvin retired to her home in Sanbornville, New Hampshire, where she died on 23 March 1945.
[from Deacon Geri Swanson MA Thesis]

Katherine Gilmore was educated at the Geneseo Seminary in Illinois and was set apart as a deaconess by Bishop David Greer of New York in 1905 at the Chapel of the Church Missionary House located at Fourth Avenue (Lexington Ave.) and 22nd Street in New York City, where she served for three years. She later served the congregation of St. John’s in the Rosebank/Clifton section of Staten Island. In 1910 she was employed as the housemother and superintendent of “The Shelter for Respectable Girls” in New York City, a temporary home for young women looking for work in the city. In the twenties, Gilmore moved to Rhode Island, and by 1932 she was in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Like many deaconesses before and after her, Gilmore was reduced to genteel poverty in her old age. She died on June 11, 1942. [research of Deacon Geri Swanson]

Born in Philadelphia in 1850, Jane Harriss Hall attended the Deaconess School there. She arrived in New York at the age of 45 and remained in the metropolitan area until her death. In New York she served as deaconess at St. Mark’s Church and the Church of the Transfiguration, commonly known as “The Little Church Around the Corner,” where she developed her love of theater, which molded her life’s ministry.
In New York she made her greatest contribution to the women working in the theatrical fields when she established the Three Arts Club, a place for struggling actresses to live while seeking work in the theater. Additionally she started the Professional Children’s School for child actors, established the Roosevelt Memorial House, and was a founding member of the Episcopal Actors Guild. In her later years she lived in Montclair, New Jersey. Two funeral services were held for Hall, one at St. Luke’s in Montclair, the other at Transfiguration in Manhattan. She was buried in North Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.
From the 1924 annual report of the Philadelphia Deaconess House where she got her training: HALL, DEACONESS JANE H., 'og . 1 East 29th St., New York City. Those in the know, also know that this is the address of the Church of the Transfiguration aka "The Little Church Around the Corner".
[research of Deacon Geri Swanson]

Mary Sandys Hutton suffered from polio as a child and was unable to walk from the age of three. She ministered to folks in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Her ministry is chronicled in Ormonde Plater's book, "Many Servants". You can also read an interview with Deaconess Hutton here.

Susan Trevor Knapp, Diocese of NY, Head of New York Training School for Deaconesses and missionary to Japan. Susan Trevor Knapp was born in 1862. She graduated from the New York Training School for Deaconesses in 1894 and was consecrated deaconess at Grace Church, New York, in 1899 by Bishop Henry Potter. In 1903 she was made dean of the school commonly called St. Faith’s. She was a leader in both the American and worldwide deaconess movement. Because of a power struggle with the board of directors, Knapp was removed as dean in 1916 and offered the position of house mother. She declined and spent the next twenty-two years as a missionary in Japan, teaching English and Bible studies to Japanese and Korean college students. She returned to the United States in 1939 when Japan began to expel foreign missioners. She died in Los Angeles about 20 November 1941, shortly before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. [research of Deacon Geri Swanson]

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