Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 December 1907 — THE DEACONESS HOME FOR GIRLS [ARTICLE]

THE DEACONESS HOME FOR GIRLS

Wkat It Will Accomplish and What Conditions Brought it to Rensselaer, Since the first article es Miss Monnett’s gift to the Chicago Train- - ing School for Dftarnnwww Qf the M. E. church, was published, we have been enabled to learn a great deal about the work of this estimable branch of the church. It was to the Chicago Training School that Miss Monnett made the deed to her property, both the residence and 10 acres just across the river and the 1,003 acres in Newton oonnty. The dee'! was made in consideration of the payment of [sl and for other good and valuable considerations, which we learn from a reliable source to be as follows: Miss Monnett is given a room in the Training School in Chicago, her board, the services of a trained nurse and $1,200 a year during the remainder of her life. To secure the fulfillment of the contract she is given a mortgage on two of the large bnildings in'Chicago that are part of tjie Training School. . It is proposed to sell the Newton township property and with the procet ds to erect a fine new memorial bnilding in honor of Miss Monnett’s mother, and the building is to bear her name, “Mary Delmar Einnear Monnett.” The bniidiugs of the institution are located on Indiana avenne and Fiftieth street, where the memorial building will be situated. Some years ago Miss Monnett deeded to the Chicago Training School trustees a residence property in Hammond to be used as a rest for the deaconesses. It was used for that pnrposeior some time but was finally displaced by a much better located building at Lake Bluff, 111., and with Miss Monnett’s consent was sold and the money so invested as to support a perpetual scholarship to be known as the Cordelia Monnett scholarship. Several young ladies have already graduated from the Training School and one of them is now a foreign missionary. _________ Miss Monnett’s charity work has included within recent years some very substantial aid to the Salvation Army and to New York bowery slum workers.

It is the intention of the Chicago Training School to deed the Monnett home in Rensselaer to the trustees of the Deaconess Home for Girls, and they are greatly in hope that the ten acres there will be included in the deed, but this is by no means certain.

It if» the plan of the managers of the head institution to bnild up that and to place the branches in charge of noble and resourceful women and then let them plan and scratch out their success as best they can. The institution has a baby fold and kinder gaiten branch at Normal, 111., where about 26 little ones are now being cared for. The yonng ladies seminary is located at Aurora, 111., where there are about 110 pupils now. It is intended to make the Monnett Deaconess Home in Rensselaer an intermediate branch where girls from 6to 12 years of age can be cared for. As stated in the preliminary article the home here has at present no provision for support, and it will not be an orphanage but will be for girls who have either parent »r guardian who will pay a modertte amount for their care and trainng. This sum will probably be 1100 a year. There are now some five or six little girls on the waiting list, and they will be brought here so soon as the necessary improvements now />eing made'at the home are commie ted. With the building as it is low it is thought 24 or 26 little ones yn be cared for and it is hoped te

enlarge the home and provide for the admission of many more as the work grows. Should the trustees be favored with an endowment they will employ it to the care of free students. It is quite probable that some •ftort will be made to secure local assistance, and that later when the revivial meetings are concluded Miss Crouch, who will be in charge of the home, will speak from the -MHl.luwliHt eh n rnh—o£_the subject and that a general invition to heaF her will be given. The possibities of the home are unlimited and by the generous charity of Miss Monnett Rensselaer is greatly favored and the institution that will bear her name and the memorial in Chicago that will boar the name of her mother will be lasting monuments to her memory.