Women's History Month: Hortense Kahn Eliasberg

Mrs. Louis Eliasberg was born as Hortense Miller Kahn, the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Moses S. Kahn of Baltimore. She grew up in the Reservoir Hill section of Baltimore City, and attended the Girls’ Latin School in Roland Park.

She graduated from Goucher College and then received her Masters Degree from the Graduate School of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University.

She became interested in how children who had been hospitalized convalesced at home. It was frequently a case where the child recovered from their illness or injury at the hospital and when returned home, they took a turn for the worse, due to lack of heat, hot water or adequate nutrition or their families’ poverty.

Miss Kahn began to investigate the “Campbell Cottages” in New York, where children could go after they left the hospital and spend weeks or months recovering and regaining their strength. She communicated regularly with the head of the Burke Foundation which ran the Campbell Cottages, and decided to create a similar program in Baltimore and found a property in Baltimore's Poplar Hill neighborhood.

Gathering a group of influential physicians from Baltimore, she began organizing meetings to see if her idea was feasible. All of this was occurring when she was only 22 years old. Among the men whom Miss Kahn was working, was Dr. William H. Welch, one of the “big four” at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Having his support from the beginning gave her the leverage she needed to attract other heavy hitters.

While Miss Kahn was setting up the convalescent home, now named Happy Hills, she was marrying Louis Eliasberg, joining the board of the newly-formed Community Fund, where for months at time she was one of the top ten fundraisers, and serving as the board secretary of Happy Hills. She never held a paid position at Happy Hills, preferring to do her work there as a volunteer.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Mrs. Eliasberg was also an active volunteer in numerous other organizations, including chairing the Wednesday Morning Lecture Group; joining a committee at the Baltimore Museum of Art to be a guide at an exhibition of Maryland artists; participating in the Dahlia & Fall Flower Show as the representative of the Baltimore Guild Garden Club and received national recognition; serving on the Executive Committee of the Maryland Committee for Representative Government; representing Baltimore at the Maryland League of Women Voters’ conference on internationalism in Washington, DC; acting as President of the Goucher College Infirmary Auxiliary; chairing the Women’s Committee of the Baltimore Roundtable of the National Conference on Christians and Jews; and serving on the Executive Committee of the Baltimore Community Chest, having been on their board for more than 20 years.

Mrs. Eliasberg died after a long illness on December 27, 1949. She is buried at the Baltimore Hebrew Cemetery.

From its early beginnings, Happy Hills has flourished for 100 years, and is now known as Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital, located in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Baltimore. Click the image below to learn about MWPH's Centennial celebrations.