Evangelical School for the Deaf

The founding missionaries                      Former students playing in the dining room.

Photos available for download or purchase.

A more complete history may be found at the ESD History Blog

The Evangelical School for the Deaf has been in existence since 1959. Since it’s inception, it has changed it’s name from Evangelical Mission for the Deaf to United Mission Fellowship to Evangelical School for the Deaf. It has been independent, has joined with United Missionary Fellowship in California, and eventually moved under the World Mission to the Deaf umbrella. It is obvious, however, that this school has been blessed from its founding. With all the difficulties it has faced, it is still what it started out to be, a place for deaf children to learn.

The founding missionaries of the ministry we know today as the Evangelical School for the Deaf came to P.R. from Jamaica in 1959. The Ruckers, Muriel Hersom, Orcutts were working in Jamaica with the CCCD (Caribbean Christian Center for the Deaf).  

The missionary team made contact with Max and Elaine Brennemann who were then living in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The Brennemans said there was not much going on in Puerto Rico for the deaf & suggested that Gene Orcutt and Clay Rucker go to P.R.to check things out. They were put in touch with Frank Hooper soon after arriving. They determined that there was a need and so the women, who had stayed behind in Jamaica, packed up their things and children and flew to San Juan.

The team stayed with the Hoopers in Ceiba, Puerto Rico until the farmhouse on the present ESD grounds was vacated. It was being rented by a couple who attended Grace Bible Church. That is how the new missionaries found out about the property which continues to house the ESD ministry today. The Mullens were Navy people, stationed at Roosevelt Roads. They had a lot to do with helping get things in shape for school and entertained the missionary team in their home.

Records from the early days indicate that on October16,1959, the founding five sat down in Puerto Rico for their first "official" meeting to pray for the almost 4000 deaf people living here. They met in the bunkhouse of Grace Bible Church, Ceiba PR. The men went out into the country looking for possible deaf students to come to the school. The first classes were begin in Sept. 1960 with 5 students.

The founding missionaries knew then as we know today that the deaf could not call on the One in whom they have believed, nor believe in the One of whom they had not heard, nor could they hear without someone preaching to them. The problem was that these deaf people could not hear at all. They had never heard a human voice. They had no formal language with which to speak or listen. How could they know God?

By November 1959, they had rented a large house on a farm near Yuquiyu (the town’s name modernized today as Luquillo) which the owner, Francisco Zalduondo, was willing to lease for five years. The upstairs contained the living quarters and downstairs was a storage area. The men laid cement blocks to make walls in the downstairs area, installed doors and windows, divided some of the space into two classrooms, and made a small apartment for Muriel Hersom. The rest of the downstairs space became a kitchen, dining room and dormitory for boys. The plan was to have a residential place for boys, but an early contact with a deaf boy for the mission changed everything. The boy had a deaf sister and the parents insisted the girl come as well. They built a dorm room for the sister also and turned into co-ed school.

Now they had to find equipment: a freezer, a refrigerator, a washing machine, desks or tables and chairs for classrooms, blackboards and chalk, kitchen utensils, dishes and silverware, cots, sheets and pillowcases. In fact they had to find everything a school would use for teaching, feeding, and bedding down students.

Each day these five people prayed, knowing that if this was God’s Will, He would provide. And provide, He did. From June 1960 they were searching for teachers and by September 1960 a school blossomed in that old farmhouse in Yuquiyu with five deaf students, three boys and two girls.

Muriel Hersom and Gene Orcott were the first teachers. Clay Rucker became the General Director and Lillian Orcutt was made secretary-treasurer. June and Clay Rucker and Lillian Orcutt also helped with the chapel each day.

By this time they had a school, a staff, a Constitution and By-Laws in progress, and a seven person list of advisors who would keep them accountable: three men from the State of Washington: Dr. Dorr Demarcy, Mr. Fred Krueger, and Mr. L. D. Nutting; two men and one woman from the Illinois area: Rev. A. M. Veltman, Mrs. C. Erickson, and Mr. Fred Ninnemann; and one from the island of Jamaica: Rev. John C Depew. In January of 1960 the first issue of the school’s newsletter, With These Hands was published.

J.P. and Leona Thompson arrived in 1960 and were named co-founders of the Mission in 1961. At their arrival Mrs. Thompson took over as teacher and Mr. Orcutt took on other duties. He taught crafts for several years which the school sold to supplement the school’s income. Parents were asked to pay $10 a month if they were able. Few were able.

Because three of the founding fathers were married and had children, a teacher for missionary children was needed. For a time the Rucker, the Orcutt, and the Thompson children went to Grace Bible Church for school along with the children of Frank and Eloise Hooper.  They had Dick Thompson as their teacher for just a year, and then Dean Ensor Hall for about three years.   In August 1962, Miss Carla M. Smith came to ESD to teach the hearing missionary children.

In August 1962, plans were shared with the committee for another building. They decided a two story building for classrooms should be erected a short distance from the main building. The first floor had three classrooms and a chapel. The second floor contained a dorm for the boys and rooms for a staff family.

More changes were made in September 1962. Two of the people from Chicago were replaced on the Advisory Committee, Rev. A. M. Veltman and Mrs. C. Erickson, went off and four were added: Dr. Willard M. Aldrich, Rev. Lowell Powers, Dr. Myron F. Boyd, and Rev. Richard Cooke, making the total nine. The Home Office was changed from Chicago, Illinois to Portland Oregon, but Headquarters remained in Puerto Rico. This same month the Constitution was amended again at a General Council Meeting.

The school was growing. More teachers were needed. Edna Zimmer came as a teacher in1962; Fred Boldt and his wife, Bettye, came as dorm parents. After the General Meeting in May 1963, the Executive Committee Meeting voted to accept another family, Mr. and Mrs. Mullens, who arrived to be support staff for one year. One of the founding families, Mr. and Mrs. Orcutt, was approved for a furlough and would raise $350 per month for their support. Single teachers would be given a three month summer furlough every other year if approved by the Executive Committee. Carla M. Smith, tentatively accepted in August 1962, came in June 1963 as a probationary teacher to teach the missionary children.

By 1964 the school had grown to 16 deaf students, twelve boys and four girls. The missionary families in attendance were The Ruckers, the Orcotts, the Thompsons, and the Boldts. Carla Smith was teaching the twelve missionary children; Edna Zimmer was a teacher as well as a nurse and typist; Joan Anglin came as a teacher that year, and Mrs. Romero was cook.

Mr. Rucker resigned as General Director of the Evangelical Deaf Mission on October 25, 1967. The resignation was accepted by Mr. Orcutt and the other people still on the Committee on November 10: the new Field Director, Mr.  Peter Anderson, his wife, the Supervising Teacher, Miss Anglin, and the Rawlings family who had come from Canada to help for one year. There was a discussion of putting the Mission under an established Mission Board.

Mr. Anderson dutifully took over the school of 21 deaf students in the fall of 1967. In April of 1968 a Mr. Brenneman, a pastor, who was keeping close tabs on the school, wrote to Mr. Orcutt in the States that it would be a good idea if he returned to PR. There were some management problems that needed attention. Mr. Anderson was greatly concerned. Mr. Brenneman told Mr. Orcutt that the situation was urgent. He said, "The future of EDM rests in your action at this time."

Mr. Orcutt had been corresponding with the United  Missionary Fellowship in California since early in 1968, explaining the situation of EDM in Puerto Rico. The expressed problems at EDM came from the lack of experience of the former Director. Mr. Orcutt also accepted responsibility for their difficulties. At the moment there were only four people left in PR running the school. Two of those were planning on leaving soon after the school closed for the summer.

Without the intervention of the United Missionary Fellowship, Mr. Orcutt thought the school would have to close. By July negotiations had progressed to the point that Mr. Orcutt planned to be in California to meet with the Board of the Mission in the middle of August. By October Mrs. Orcutt, Secretary-Treasurer of EDM wrote to the authorities in PR that the name of the school should be changed from Evangelical Mission for the Deaf to United Missionary Fellowship. The school terminated at the end of the year .

The minutes and correspondence from the years 1959 to 1968 reflect the spiritual warfare surrounding the school and its staff.  Through it all, their vision remained strong. The desires of those five people came to fruition. Teachers taught and children learned. The teachers brought the children to an awareness of God, and many of them accepted the gift of Salvation.