Cathinka Guldberg

Cathinka Guldberg (1840-1919) was a Norwegian deaconess who founded and for 51 years directed the Deaconess Institution in Christiania, now Oslo. Born in Christiania as the eldest daughter in a literary family, she spent her youth caring for her siblings and doing voluntary relief work among the poor and sick in the parishes where her father served. In 1866 she travelled to the deaconess institution at Kaiserswerth in Germany to train, and while she was there she accepted the invitation to lead a new institution at home. On 20 November 1868 she and the first pupil moved into a former municipal building at Grønland. The work outgrew two buildings, and in 1887 the sisters settled at Lovisenberg, where an old people's home, a hospital, a children's home and a church were later built. Under her leadership the community grew from one sister to about 550. Her house simplified the Kaiserswerth rules and treated the sisters like daughters, and she was known as Mother Guldberg. The Store norske leksikon biography credits her with introducing modern nursing to Norway, and in 1915 she became the first woman to receive the Order of St. Olav.