Introduction

Biography

Nannie was the daugh­ter of El­dridge Her­shey Car­per and Cor­de­lia L. White­side, and wife of min­is­ter Mull­er O. J. Kreps (mar­ried 1883).

She moved with her fa­mi­ly to Sa­lem, Vir­gin­ia. After a short stay in Georg­ia, where her hus­band was pas­tor of Lu­ther­an church­es in Pros­per­i­ty and Au­gus­ta, the cou­ple moved to Co­lum­bia, South Ca­ro­li­na, in 1910.

He be­came pas­tor of St. Luke’s Lu­ther­an Church in the vil­lage Pa­ci­fic of Pa­ci­fic Mills and di­rect­ed mis­sion work there. Af­ter his death in 1929, Nan­nie took up that work where he left off.

She also ed­it­ed The Spin­ner, an in­dus­tri­al ma­ga­zine, and for 20 years ed­it­ed the mis­sion­ary sec­tion of The Lu­ther­an Church Vi­sit­or.

She wrote a large num­ber of Lu­ther­an tracts, and was in charge of re­li­gious work among wo­men at the state pe­ni­ten­ti­a­ry, where she oft­en con­duct­ed Christ­mas ser­vic­es.

Kreps served as pre­si­dent of the Wo­men’s Sy­no­di­al Mis­sion­ary So­cie­ty of the Lu­ther­an church in South Ca­ro­li­na, 1908–34.

She served for 12 years as state pre­si­dent of the King’s Daugh­ters, a non-de­no­mi­na­tion­al church or­ga­ni­za­tion, as pre­si­dent of the Wo­men’s In­ter­de­no­mi­na­tion­al Un­ion of Co­lum­bia for 15 years, and as ev­an­ge­li­cal sec­re­ta­ry for the Wo­men’s Chris­tian Tem­per­ance Un­ion of South Ca­ro­li­na.

Works

• Aunt Di­nah’s Star­ry Crown (Lu­ther­an Board of Pub­li­ca­tion, 1910)