St Margaret’s House (School for Christian Service and Deaconess Training School of the Pacific)

Anita Adela Hodgkin was received as a candidate for the office of deaconess by Bishop William F. Nichols of California on Apr. 3, 1907. May Bostick Mott was received as a prospective deaconess by Bishop Nichols on May 18, 1908. Both women were members of St. Mark's Church, Berkeley, where Edward Lambe Parsons was the rector. Since there was no school for deaconesses in the west, Parsons organized a school in his parish. It was named St. Mark's Deaconess School. Bishop Nichols wanted the school to be larger than St. Mark's parish. In 1908 the Deaconess Training School of the Pacific was established and officially recognized as an agency of the Diocese of California. The rented place in which the school began was called St. Ann's House. One of the members of the Board of Managers was Mary Robertson. When she died she left the school a bequest. The money was used to buy an estate. It was named St. Margaret's House. Miss Robertson's sister was named Margaret. On Oct. 10, 1909, Hodgkin and Mott were set apart by Bishop Nichols as deaconesses. St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland, was later adopted as the patron saint. From the beginning, St. Margaret's House was closely associated with the Church Divinity School of the Pacific. Gradually the faculty of the divinity school became the faculty of the Deaconess Training School. St. Margaret's closed in 1966.