Paradise Valley Sanitarium School of Nursing Collection

The items in this collection were rescued from destruction by Dr. Thomas Brassington, DDS. He digitized the photographs and shared scans with the Adventist Digital Library in March 2023. Brassington retains the originals. For more information about the Paradise Valley Sanitarium, please contact one of ADL's contributing partners, such as the Loma Linda University Library.

The Paradise Valley Sanitarium School of Nursing Collection contains photographs of sanitarium nursing alumni from 1912 to 1965. The school operated from 1909 to 1966 in National City, California, in conjunction with the Paradise Valley Sanitarium and Hospital. The sanitarium was not designed for people with serious illnesses but instead attracted well-to-do guests who came there for rest and relaxation. It offered natural remedies, a healthy diet and clean living. A training school for nurses was organized in 1909 at the Paradise Valley Sanitarium. A few years later there were three graduates of the school. From the time of its inception the school featured a three year training program for nurses. Shortly after the registration of nurses became effective in California in 1914 the school was approved by the state and continued as such until 1967. During the fifty-eight years the program was in existence, 729 nurses were graduated. (Description taken from https://sandiegohistory.org/journal/1989/april/hospital/)