FROM A BARLEY FIELD TO A VILLAGE

One of the houses we lived in with a view of Forest Lawn

FROM A BARLEY FIELD TO A VILLAGE FOR VISITING MISSIONARIES. 

 My parents were constantly blessed with the most interesting houses to temporarily make our home.

The family in front of one those homes

We lived in this enclave of 1920's homes near the intersection of Glendale Ave. and Mission Road in Glendale, California in a former barley field.

Our neighborhood featured cute little Craftsman bungalows, Mission Revival and English Tudor Styles houses.   It was known as the Mission Colony.  At one time it included around 29 homes for  missionaries on furlough or retiring and slowly expanded to around 40 with a chapel and a 46-bed convalescent hospital and a retirement home for ill, elderly missionaries.

My initial training as a nurses aide began in that health care center (summer of 1970).  While various other family members worked in and around the colony I was initiated into the horrors of behind the scenes hospital care, and later to take on another job at the Manor in Portland.

  (My mother worked in the kitchen and my dad did much of the gardening and helped with the upkeep of the grounds, a brother and my sister also had jobs there.)

From Alliance Convalescent Hospital to Leisure Glen

Mrs. Suppes was a very unusual , visionary woman who built this "Village" as she saw a need for missionaries.  It is said of her that:

"She often told of how she decided to build a whole village for visiting missionaries and then prayed that she could raise the $50,000 she needed."

BY FAITH     

Suppes Home-assisted living has not changed

"Glancing through the evening paper, Jennie Suppes noticed that the government had purchased the Arrowhead Hotel as a rehabilitation home for wounded and dispirited soldiers. A vision suddenly swept over her! If the government could afford $100,000 for its own, her God, greater than any government, could surely provide a haven of rest for “His soldiers of the Cross,” weary and worn from worldwide spiritual conflict! Suppes threw the paper down and dropped to her knees, asking God for $50,000."
A BACKGROUND TO THE ALLIANCE "COLONY" IN GLENDALE where our family lived for a time.

The house is behind the trees.  This was our front yard view.