Engelsk & Tysk & Russisk

It was the Salvation Army, with its slum sisters, who came to operate the new retirement home when it came into operation in 1920. The retirement home was named «Kveldsol». It had eight rooms and space for 18 elderly people. From its inauguration on 29 October that year, it was managed by the Salvation Army.

It was the old people’s home association that got the old people’s home built. The association was founded in 1912 with the aim of building a home for the elderly.

They lasted until 1920, for eight years, and managed to collect NOK 65,000, including through raffle sales, and then they reached their goal.

What was it that made the new retirement home to be operated by the Salvation Army?
Retirement home something new in Norway, it started when the Salvation Army’s Anna Othilie Tonning saw a small house in Oslo with the sign «Fattighuset». She was so upset that someone could bring herself to write something like that in a place where some of the many poor people in Kristiania lived. Not long after, she came, in consultation with the Salvation Army’s top management, to start working to establish a home for the elderly. In 1909, Kristiania municipality handed over a house in Verksgata to the Salvation Army, and the first retirement home «Kveldsol» started.

Retirement homes in Vardø and Honningsvåg
Before the year 1910 was over, slum sisters arrived and took over the operation of the retirement home in Vardø, retirement home number two in the series. The name became «Kveldsol» also in Vardø.

In 1920, slum sisters came to Honningsvåg, because then the Salvation Army had taken over the running of the old people’s home here. The new retirement home was named «Kveldsol», and was the third in a row run by the Salvation Army in Norway.

Anna Othilie Tonning (b. 1865) had been an active participant in the women’s movement as a young woman. She had freed herself from Christianity, but when the Salvation Army came to her hometown of Stavanger, it still meant «a new and welcome source of entertainment». She was also attracted by the movement, a movement that gave women the same rights and opportunities as men.

In 1889, Anna Othilie Tonning was appointed head of the Salvation Army’s social activities. She was the one who had gone ahead and championed the idea that the Salvation Army should start work also among those who really needed their services, the elderly, all in the spirit of Catherine and William Booth.

When Anna Othilie Tonning received the king’s merit medal in gold in 1910, she specified that she was not alone, but had a flock of 126 faithful and willing slum sisters with her.

By clicking on the link below, we come to the website «New forum for local history» and the articles in chapter 5. There is the story of the first retirement home in Honningsvåg.

There we can also see the springs and Salvation Army soldiers in their uniforms, as they were back then.

Published on Wednesday, April 17, 2024

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