..........Helen Mandelbaum
The New Lady at Wesley House
Ever since I was a child, I knew that I wanted to work with people through a settlement house. I began as a volunteer at one of the largest settlement houses in the south, Kingsley House in New Orleans, and at a Methodist settlement, St. Marks in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Then I was appointed by the old Missionary Council of the Methodist Church South to Wesley Community House in Louisville, Kentucky. I arrived at Wesley House on Labor Day to be met by a group of five young girls sitting on the steps waiting for the “new worker”. These girls seemed to be 12 to 15 years of age, all dressed in shorts, a bit embarrassed to talk to the new person that they did not even know. Frances, who seemed to be the leader, asked whether or not they could come the next day to have a club. We talked together for a few minutes as I juggled my suitcase, and we decided that they would come to the House the next day after school. They seemed to be satisfied with the answer and moved aside so that I could actually enter the House for the first time. The first Sunday in Louisville I was met by another group of girls who asked if I would take a walk with them in the afternoon after church. They met me promptly at the agreed time to walk to the Cave Hills Cemetery, which was about twenty blocks away. During the week I had been there I had learned that transportation meant walking. Even the agency did not own a car. On the way back from the cemetery, I heard two or three girls back of me discussing who would ask their important question. I turned around to find out what they wanted to know. They had been discussing whether or not we could stop for an ice cream cone at the drug store. I realized that one of the youngsters, Sue, was the preacher’s daughter; so I inquired whether or not she was allowed to buy things on Sunday. Sue told me that she was not allowed to spend her money on Sunday, but that Mary Katherine would treat her today and she would treat Mary Katherine in turn tomorrow. Apparently, this system had worked before.
Years later, it is interesting to
get letters from people who were a part of the services of Wesley
House as members as well as the students from the University and
two seminaries who did internships. One of the letters in 2001
was from a former student who had been appointed to the agency to
work with small children, who soon learned that she preferred to
work with older youngsters. In so doing, she found her own
ministry with the Baptist Church in Brazil. Another letter came
from a former member who had spent a week at the agency camp
before she entered the monastery to become a Catholic nun.
Dorothy’s letter stated that she was retired but still
working to change some of the laws of Kentucky to assure quality
teaching was done in home school.
Every year the memories come back of time at Wesley House when a
group of 16 to 20 friends come to see me at Brooks Howell. The
women in the group were members of a supper club when they were
teen-agers They were married; they brought their children; they
have become a three-generational club. When I went up the steps
that day with my suitcase, not knowing anyone in Louisville,
Kentucky, how could I have known that the years would bring so
many happy days?