 That still quite small building became the starting point for the work on behalf of the mentally handicapped of today's (subsequently renamed) , a privately funded charitable operation which has become one of the largest institutions for the handicapped in Germany.Over the years the original buildings of the Elisabethstift were extensively rebuilt and extended, so that very little of the original half-timbered structure is recognisable today.Although Johanne's brothers, , a landowner in , and Philipp, who was already head of the Lindenhof at Neinstedt, were formally identified as the directors of the "Elisabethstift", it was Johanne who through the simple force of her personality controlled and ran it.