While Tressler Lutheran Services and The Lutheran Home at Topton may have had similar origins as
orphanages (see TimeLine 1867), they expanded to offer retirement
services in quite different fashion.
And while the Tressler Orphans Home began several decades before the Topton facility, Topton
entered the senior-housing market earlier. In fact, Tressler became involved in retirement services
only through an organizational affiliation.
Services to older persons began on the Topton campus in 1940, when The Lutheran Home at Topton’s
trustees authorized the use of the Annie Lowry Memorial Hospital (see
TimeLine 1910) to house 10 “aged guests.”
The actual planning for senior services at Topton, however, began in 1907!
It was then that the Rev. Dr. John H. Raker,
who had resigned as superintendent, announced that $5,500 had been
raised for an “old folks’ home” at Topton.
Although this funding excited the trustees, the home’s primary emphasis was children and so no
action was taken until 1940. The Lowry facility’s first senior “guest,” 79-year-old Fyanna Flicker
of Dryville, arrived in May 1941.
Additional facilities for older persons were added in 1950, following the purchase of a nearby
building for conversion into the Heilman Cottage for Old Folks, which housed 17 guests, and the
purchase of Caum Memorial Home in Reading in 1955. “Infirmary”—that is, nursing care—facilities were
added on the Topton campus in 1962. Additional retirement communities, such as Luther Crest,
followed.
Tressler’s entry into retirement services occurred through the organization’s association in 1970
with Lutheran Social Services-Central Penn Region. One of LSS-Central Penn Region’s founding
organizations was the Lutheran Service Society of Greater Harrisburg.
A fund-raising drive in the early 1950s netted $100,000 to purchase and remodel a home for the
aging. The Lutheran Home at Harrisburg was dedicated in April of 1952, serving 27
residents. Additional facilities were established on the West Shore in 1957 and in upper Dauphin
County in 1961.
While Tressler had earlier been focused only on children and families, its association with LSS set
the stage for rapid expansion. The Tressler Lutheran Fund, an endowment now part of the Diakon
Lutheran Fund, was used as a guarantee for funding to begin a number of new nursing homes and
retirement communities, many in rural areas in partnership with county governments.
|
|
