In 1914, Hannah Atherton Baldwin, an 82-year-old resident of Los Angeles, requested an audience with Baptist leaders from nearly 100 churches to present a plan based upon a lifelong dream. As a young woman, Hannah had overheard a poor missionary couple pray aloud out of a desperate need to find an affordable place where they could retire. Once she was able to act on it, Hannah purposed to turn those prayers into a reality. Atherton has been realizing those prayers for over 100 years. Hannah’s vision, initially launched in Burbank, has remained clear and focused across the years, through wars, economic strife and one national crisis after another. Hannah’s dream lives on; and it has grown beyond anything she could have imagined.
