What a long, rich history Mount Pleasant Home has had!
To understand our history, imagine living in Boston in 1901. Now imagine you are in your late 80s, one of 20 people about to be sent to a poorhouse because your current elder home is closing. You don’t fit the religious, racial, ethnic, or gender requirements to be accepted in the other local homes, and you have no assets to pay for a more desirable home. At this stage of your life, all you want is to enjoy your remaining days. You never anticipated having to make yet another transition this late in life. Your sense of security has vanished.
Now imagine you are a neighbor witnessing this situation and the turmoil these residents experience. You have a circle of business and personal contacts with a wealth of knowledge about local resources. You have the ability to change the path for those 20 people.
That is the abbreviated story of Mount Pleasant Home. In 1901 a group of concerned citizens decided to open a new home for those elders:
- To be a haven for women and men regardless of ethnicity or religion or any other exclusionary criteria typical of other rest homes;
- To provide for the health and well-being of its residents through compassionate, professional care;
- In addition to compassion and care, Mount Pleasant Home has always provided a stable, safe, comfortable, and clean environment with regular meals, medication administration, and human contact.
With this humanitarian mission, the not-for-profit Mount Pleasant Home became a unique facility in Boston and began more than a century long history of quality care and service.
Why is it called Mount Pleasant Home?
It’s a funny story actually. In 1901, when the founders of Mount Pleasant Home were shopping for a property to locate this new home, they settled on a building located on Mount Pleasant Avenue in Dorchester, MA. However, the sale fell through after the organization’s name was already set in stone.
So interestingly, Mount Pleasant Home was never located on Mount Pleasant Avenue. Its first location was instead on Elm Hill Street in Dorchester.
In 1925, the current building was built in Jamaica Plain on South Huntington in a section that came to be known as “Boston’s Elder Care Block” after Goddard House (now closed) and Sherrill House were also built.
In 2001, talk of an expansion and renovation began.
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