Georgia Episcopal church founded by Deaconess Alexander receives grant to support historic designation
[Episcopal News Service] The National Park Service has awarded a $20,250 grant to support adding a historic designation to a Diocese of Georgia church that was founded by Deaconess Anna Alexander, The Episcopal Church’s only Black deaconess.
Good Shepherd Episcopal School and Church in Glynn County was one of 20 sites nationwide that received the grants as part of a federal effort to add more properties associated with unrepresented groups to the National Register of Historic Places. The grants will support the survey and nomination of those sites.
Deaconess Anna Ellison Butler Alexander was born in 18655 to recently freed slaves and died in 1947. She ministered in rural Georgia, focusing on the education of poor black children. Photo: Diocese of Georgia
Alexander is celebrated every year on her feast day, Sept. 24, which was added to The Episcopal Church’s calendar in 2018.
She was born in 1865 and spent much of her adult life ministering to poor Black residents of Glynn and McIntosh counties in rural Georgia, particularly through education. She became a deaconess in 1907 in an era before the church allowed women as priests or deacons.
Alexander helped establish Good Shepherd Episcopal Church and its parochial school in Pennick, about 15 miles inland from the Atlantic coast and north of Brunswick. She also established and helped run the St. Cyprian’s School at St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church in Darien, Georgia.
Alexander died in 1947 and is buried at Good Shepherd.
The Episcopal Church recognized deaconesses from 1889 until 1970, when General Convention eliminated the order and included women in its canons governing deacons.
