This Week in Texas Methodist History February 12
February 11, 1909, Seaman's Home Opens in Galveston
After the devastation of the storm of 1900, Galveston slowly rebuilt and assumed its former place as a major Gulf port. The Woman's Home Mission Board of the MECS found ample opportunity for service and witness in that bustling Texas city. While the US Army Corps of Engineers was building the sea wall and raising the island's grade, Deaconesses Elizabeth Taylor and Jeanette Haskin were organizing Wesley House, one they later claimed was the first settlement house to be named "Wesley House." They provided vocational training, music, and basic academic instruction to Galveston children in Sunday School classrooms. That modest program expanded in 1908 as the Woman's Home Mission Board created the Immigrant Home. That facility specialized in serving immigrants who had been denied entry by the government and were were awaiting repatriation. The deaconesses also served unaccompanied child immigrants and young women who had arrived alone in Galveston expecting to find their fiances waiting for them. The Immigrant Home was doing so well that after only six months in operation it expanded its programs by opening the Seaman's Home on February 11, 1909. Methodists wished to provide the sailors in Galveston with a Christian alternative to the saloons and brothels which flourished there. The Seaman's Home boasted a hiring hall, chapel services every Sunday night, and a reading room with Christian literature in German, Spanish, Swedish, Italian, and French. The Seaman's Home also provided stationery and postage stamps so that seamen could stay in touch with their families.
The Seaman's Home was in operation only four years. It closed February 1, 1913. In those four years 30,000 seamen registered at the Home.
After the devastation of the storm of 1900, Galveston slowly rebuilt and assumed its former place as a major Gulf port. The Woman's Home Mission Board of the MECS found ample opportunity for service and witness in that bustling Texas city. While the US Army Corps of Engineers was building the sea wall and raising the island's grade, Deaconesses Elizabeth Taylor and Jeanette Haskin were organizing Wesley House, one they later claimed was the first settlement house to be named "Wesley House." They provided vocational training, music, and basic academic instruction to Galveston children in Sunday School classrooms. That modest program expanded in 1908 as the Woman's Home Mission Board created the Immigrant Home. That facility specialized in serving immigrants who had been denied entry by the government and were were awaiting repatriation. The deaconesses also served unaccompanied child immigrants and young women who had arrived alone in Galveston expecting to find their fiances waiting for them. The Immigrant Home was doing so well that after only six months in operation it expanded its programs by opening the Seaman's Home on February 11, 1909. Methodists wished to provide the sailors in Galveston with a Christian alternative to the saloons and brothels which flourished there. The Seaman's Home boasted a hiring hall, chapel services every Sunday night, and a reading room with Christian literature in German, Spanish, Swedish, Italian, and French. The Seaman's Home also provided stationery and postage stamps so that seamen could stay in touch with their families.
The Seaman's Home was in operation only four years. It closed February 1, 1913. In those four years 30,000 seamen registered at the Home.
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