Guide to the Eugene R. Kellersberger Papers

Eugene R. Kellersberger, 1888-1966
Eugene Roland Kellersberger was born in Cypress Mill, Texas on August 6, 1888, the son of Helene Matern and Julius Rudolph Kellersberger. He attended Whitis Academy in Austin, Texas, graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1911 with a B.A. degree, and earned his M.D. in 1915 at Washington University Medical School in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1912, Kellersberger married Edna Helena Bosché of Austin, Texas.

In 1916, the Kellersbergers sailed for the Belgian Congo in Africa as a missionary couple under the auspices of the Presbyterian Church in the United States' Executive Committee of Foreign Missions. Their two daughters, Winifred and Cornelia, were born in 1917 and 1921, respectively. Mrs. Kellersberger spent one full term, from 1916 to 1919, on the mission field. In June 1921, shortly after returning to the Congo from their first furlough, Edna Kellersberger contracted African sleeping sickness. Following successful medical treatment in London, she and her husband returned to the United States in 1922 and were reunited with their two daughters. In 1923, Dr. Kellersberger returned to the Congo mission field alone. In November of the same year, he received word that his wife had been killed at her father's Texas ranch. Following Mrs. Kellersberger's death, the hospital at Bibanga, Belgian Congo, was named the Edna Kellersberger Memorial Hospital.

During Dr. Kellersberger's medical missionary service to the American Presbyterian Congo Mission (APCM), he founded the Bibanga Medical School and Hospital and the Bibanga Agricultural Colony (leprosarium). He also served as Medical Secretary for the Congo Protestant Council (1936-1940), and was a member of the Royal Commission for the Protection of Natives. His work in the Congo included pioneering research in the treatment of African sleeping sickness.

Dr. Kellersberger received a Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from the London School of Tropical Medicine in 1922. He also became an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church in the United States in 1924. He married Julia Lake Skinner in 1930 and together they served as PCUS missionaries to the APCM until 1940, when Dr. Kellersberger was elected General Secretary of the American Mission to Lepers (in 1950 name changed to American Leprosy Missions). With headquarters in New York City, this interdenominational agency provided assistance to various Protestant mission boards in their medical and spiritual ministries to leprosy patients. His official service of induction as General Secretary took place in March 1941 in New York City. Often accompanied by his wife, who served as promotional secretary for the agency, Dr. Kellersberger visited leprosy colonies and hospitals throughout the world, raising funds and awareness about the disease. He attended several World Leprosy Congresses as the official representative of the United States government. After his retirement from the American Leprosy Missions in 1953, Dr. Kellersberger continued to lecture and write about leprosy from his home in Melbourne, Florida until his death on January 28, 1966.

Dr. Kellersberger received many honors for his missionary and medical work. From the Belgian government he was awarded all three of its highest decorations: Chevalier Royal Order of the Lion in 1936, Chevalier Royal Order of the Crown in 1940, and Officer of the Royal Order of the Crown in 1957. He was also appointed the first Protestant member of the Father Damien Leprosy Foundation. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine of England, and a member of the American Medical Association and the New York Academy of Sciences. He also held memberships in the New York and the American Societies of Tropical Medicine, the International Leprosy Association, and the Advisory Committee on Leprosy of the United States Public Health Service. Dr. Kellersberger authored many articles on leprosy, sleeping sickness, and other subjects, and co-authored Doctor of Happy Landings with his wife Julia in 1949.

Julia Lake Skinner Kellersberger, 1897-1986
Julia Lake Skinner was born in Linden, Alabama in 1897, the daughter of Julia Lake Woolf and James Lister Skinner. She graduated from Tubman High School in Augusta, Georgia in 1915. After earning a B.A. at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia in 1919, she taught English at Tubman High School for one year. In the 1920s, Skinner received a Diploma in Religious Education from the Biblical Seminary in New York, was Director of Religious Education at churches in Knoxville, Tennessee, Wilmington, North Carolina, and Clearwater, Florida; and served as the official traveling spokeswoman and representative of the Presbyterian Church in the United States' Executive Committee of Christian Education and Ministerial Relief. She married Dr. Eugene R. Kellersberger on February 3, 1930.

From 1930 until 1940, Julia Kellersberger served as a PCUS missionary to the American Presbyterian Congo Mission with her husband. She published several books and many articles about various subjects, including her work in the Congo. After the couple left the Congo mission field in 1940, she began work as the Promotional Secretary for the American Mission to Lepers (later known as the American Leprosy Missions), a position she held until 1953. Mrs. Kellersberger continued to lecture and write after her official retirement and after the death of Dr. Kellersberger in 1966. Some of her published works include: Congo Crosses: A Study of Congo Womanhood (1936); God's Ravens (1941); Betty: A Life of Wrought Gold (1943); The Salt Baby (1945); A Life for the Congo: the Story of Althea Brown Edmiston (1947); and Doctor of the Happy Landings (1949), co-authored with her husband.

Julia Lake Skinner Kellersberger died in 1986.