On October 31, 1867, in the town of Berlin Illinois, (now Swedona), the doors of a new orphanage opened to receive its first child, young Edward from Galesburg. When Edward crossed the threshold, that small step marked the beginning of a long history of service to people and communities across Illinois.
In 1871, the children moved to nearby Andover Children’s home, in Andover, the first Lutheran charitable institution in the state and one of the largest in the country. Dorothy Norberg, 83, a lifelong resident of Andover, remembered her arrival there. “I got to the home, ad they were very good to me, very compassionate and caring,” she recalled. “I had a roof over my head. I had food on the table, and I had clothes.” Norberg was later adopted into a loving home.
Homes for children orphaned by a cholera epidemic expanded throughout Illinois to help dependent, abused and/or neglected children. Nachusa Children’s Home still stands, and LSSI serves clients on its campus. Lutherans continued to respond to the needs of broader communities. The services branched out from children’s welfare into care for older adults, when, in 1906, the Illinois Conference of the Augustana Synod established the Salem Home for the Aged in Joliet.
Over the years, strength came in numbers by combining efforts of the many church-based programs that were serving Illinois communities The mergers eventually led to the formal formation of the Illinois Lutheran Welfare Association, which was changed to the current name, Lutheran Social Services of Illinois (LSSI), in 1979. LSSI, now on of the largest statewide providers of social services in Illinois, serves more than 50,000 annually across the state.
“LSSI has a history that sets it apart from other organizations,” wrote the Rev. John P. Peterson in LSSI’s A History of Service. “At the same time, the history binds the current participants in a bond of gratitude and with a challenge to pass on to others that which has been received from the past. There is an understanding that what has been received has been given to be nurtured and enhanced and shaped to fit the needs of the present day.”
Photo caption: Children in 1936 at the Augustana Nursery in Chicago, a former LSSI children’s home.
