Katherine Gilmore

11 June

Katherine Gilmore, deaconess in New York City and New England, died 11 June 1942.

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, living in reduced means. Like so many deaconesses before and after her, Gilmore had been reduced to genteel poverty in her old age. She died on 11 June 1942. [research of Deacon Geri Swanson]