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Photo postcard of the Eben Ezer Sanatorium, Brush, CO, ca. 1918.

The founder of the Eben Ezer Sanatorium was the Reverend Jens Madsen, who was born in Denmark in 1869.  In 1893, Madsen emigrated to the United States and entered the Danish Lutheran Trinity Seminary in Blair, Nebraska.    He was ordained on October 19, 1902, by the Reverend G. B. Christiansen, President of the United Evangelical Danish Lutheran Church in Hampton, Nebraska.   Madsen went on to design a church in Potter, Nebraska, and in September of 1903 he and his fiancé, Ane Neilsen, also from Denmark, were married there.

Moving to Brush in 1904, the Reverend Madsen’s goal was to create “a Christian home in the west for consumptives.”  (The term “consumptive” refers to a wasting disease, especially pulmonary tuberculosis.)  He worked in concert with a group of eleven men, who served as trustees and wrote the constitution and by-laws for the “Lutheran Deaconess Institute and Sanatorium Auxiliary” that would be named “Eben Ezer,” a Hebrew term meaning “stone of help.” They purchased thirty-fives acres for this establishment located in, or just outside of, Brush. 

The Reverend and Mrs. Madsen first lived in a small house in Brush, but that didn’t stop them from taking in Eben Ezer’s first patient, a person from Oconto, Wisconsin.  In the fall of 1905, the Madsen’s moved to a larger house in Brush.  Because the quality of water at that site was better, the Madsen’s built a windmill to pump water and erected the first of a number of tent houses at that location.  The reverend and others also built a 12 X 12 foot bathhouse, installing a shower, sink and toilet, thereby creating what was reportedly the first bathroom in Brush.    The rate for Eben Ezer’s patients at that time was $5.00 a week, which included a room, three meals a day, nursing care, use of the bathhouse, and a weekly visit from the doctor.

The first house built on Eben Ezer land was completed in March of 1906 and named “Nazareth.”  It could accommodate eight people.  In November of 1906, the cornerstone was laid for a building that would be named “Bethesda.”  That structure appears in this photo – it sits to the left of center and has somewhat darker-colored stone.  As you can see, by the time this photo was taken, significant additions had been made to “Bethesda.”  Eben Ezer appears to have thrived.  A 1915 article in the “Morgan County Republican” newspaper in Brush reported that the beautiful grounds at Eben Ezer gave “employment and needed exercise to the poor consumptive inmates…and also to the aged who are there.” 

Eben Ezer is now the Eben Ezer Lutheran Care Center in Brush, which is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (see https://www.ebenezer-cares.org/index.php?lang=en ). I was unable to find any information to indicate that the original Eben Ezer structures are still standing.  An exception is the Eben Ezer cemetery, and it is there that Jens and Ane Madsen are buried.  Jens died in 1946, and Ane died in 1948.

An interesting note:  “Magnus,” the sender of this postcard postmarked February 4, 1918, writing to a family member in Ruskin, Nebraska, expresses relief at what was probably his failure to pass his World War I draft physical.   He writes:  “How are you.  I have been quiet (sic) happy today.  I was in Ft. Morgan last night and got my examination, but did not pass.  My feet are too flat, and left eye has a cataract.  Loving greeting to you all at home.”   

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