Chasing The Cure

Children on the swings at National Jewish Home

In 1907, Russian-born Fannie Eller Lorber and her close friend, fellow immigrant Bessie Willens, along with a small group of East European women in the West Colfax area, spearheaded the founding of the Sheltering Home in to provide a Jewish environment for these children. It opened in an eleven-room rented house the following year, with eight children and a matron. Following a fire in 1914, a larger facility was erected with separate dormitory facilities for boys and girls. Eventually the Sheltering Home would grow to a bustling campus which occupied a city block located at Julian and 19th streets.