Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital

Dr. Hortense Eliasberg, the founder of Happy Hills Convalescent Home for Children

In 1921, a young woman, Hortense Miller Kahn (Eliasberg), realized that children in Baltimore who had been hospitalized often returned home to conditions that were less than ideal and they never fully recovered from their illness or injury. Their home environment was not conducive to continued healing due to lack of fresh air and sunlight, heat, hot water, food and basic sanitation. She began discussions with leaders at Johns Hopkins Hospital’s School of Health and Mental Hygiene and wrote her master’s thesis on the subject. The idea became Happy Hills Convalescent Home for Children and was located on donated property, which included a house, in north Baltimore City. The first patient arrived on July 10, 1922 and so began the more than 100 years of Happy Hills, now Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital.