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The Woman’s Home Association of San Diego
The Marstons: A California Family - Part 22
By Robin Lakin
January/February 2026
 The San Diego Children’s Home was built in 1889 by local bankers and businessmen Bryant Howard, Ephraim W. Morse, and Oliver S. Witherby on the grounds of what is now known as the Balboa Naval Hospital in Balboa Park. Courtesy San Diego Center for Children |
 A photographer captured the San Diego Children’s Home ablaze after a kitchen fire on May 9, 1897. The lack of fire hydrants nearby and low water pressure contributed to the building’s complete destruction. Local fire safety measures were reevaluated after this event. Courtesy San Diego History Center (SDHC) |
 In 1908, Holly Sefton Children’s Hospital and a boys dormitory, both designed by early Modernist architect Irving J. Gill, joined the original surviving Children’s Home, providing a stark visual contrast between the late Victorian era and the Modern 20th- century buildings. Courtesy SDHC |
 Hand tinted glass slide image of Holly Sefton Hospital, by Irving J.and Louis Gill’s firm, Gill & Gill. Courtesy Coons collection |
 Designed by Hazel Wood Waterman, a new girls dormitory was built in 1925 to house 45 girls. It was considered state-of-the-art, having an assembly room with a stage, a sun-filled playroom, and a large study with a view of San Diego Bay. Courtesy San Diego Evening Tribune |
 A group of happy children gathered on the steps of the last remaining wood structure at the San Diego Children’s Home, ca. 1920. Courtesy San Diego Center for Children |
In March 1897, 15-year-old Mattie Grinder’s newly widowed stepfather tried to commit her to the Whittier Reform School in Los Angeles for being incorrigible, meanwhile courting a new widow with ten children whom he married a few months later. The reform school, frequently utilized by adults wishing to shed unwanted dependents, housed many such children.
A local judge assessed Mattie not to be incorrigible and assigned her to the care of the Children’s Home Association, founded in 1887 by the San Diego chapter of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.). Members included Anna Lee Marston; architect Hazel Wood Waterman; nurserywoman Kate Sessions; San Diego’s first woman doctor, Charlotte LeBreton Baker; and philanthropist Medora Howard. From its earliest days, the organization understood that care, dignity, and environment were inseparable.
Acutely aware of the poverty and homelessness resulting from the economic bust that followed San Diego’s 1880s building boom, this group of dedicated women sought to create a home for abandoned, indigent, aged, helpless women, including working mothers who needed assistance with child care. The creation of safe, purpose-built spaces was central to their mission. Anna Lee served as the acting secretary and eventual president of the Woman’s Home Association and she hosted all their meetings at the Marston home at Third and Ash Street until 1915.
The W.C.T.U. donated funds for a building at the corner of Seventh and F Streets to provide daycare services and shelter for homeless women and children 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This early facility demonstrated the group’s belief that architecture could directly support social reform. The group added job training and employment placement services to the growing list of benefits it offered there.
An 1889 merger with the Children’s Industrial Home, established by local bank president Bryant Howard, created an orphanage accepting children up through age six and in good health. Renamed the San Diego Children’s Home, it qualified for state aid. Granted five acres within City Park (now Balboa Park), the new facility built by Howard, Ephraim W. Morse, a businessman and banker, and Oliver S. Witherby, a judge, businessman, and legislator, stood on Sixteenth Street, east of San Diego High School. The campus initially reflected the wood-frame construction typical of the late nineteenth century.
At the Children’s Home, which was never intended to be a disciplinary institution, young Mattie Grinder eventually found care, a warm bed, hot meals, sympathy, and support before her eventual placement with a private family. By providing stability, education, activities, and outings, the facility became the only home that many of the children knew.
On May 9, 1897, a kitchen fire destroyed one of the buildings. Fortunately, there were no human casualties, and a boys cadet band coincidentally marching on the grounds at the time rushed into action, saving most of the furnishings. The destruction would ultimately prompt a reimagining of the campus rather than its decline.
Renamed the San Diego Children’s Home Association in 1904, the facilities expanded with the addition of the Holly Sefton Children’s Hospital and a new dormitory for boys, both designed in 1908 by San Diego Modernist architect Irving J. Gill. Constructed of concrete and filled with light, Gill’s buildings marked a decisive architectural shift, introducing modern materials and health-centered design principles to the campus. A new Spanish Revival–style building designed by Hazel Wood Waterman replaced the singular remaining wood-frame building in 1925, completing the site’s transformation into a thoughtfully designed environment.
At that time, the home sheltered over 100 children, from birth to their teens. Operations in Balboa Park continued until 1959, when the institution moved to the Linda Vista neighborhood.
Currently known as the San Diego Center for Children, San Diego’s oldest children’s non-profit continues the work of Anna Lee Marston and her peers to create a safe haven for our community’s most vulnerable: babies, toddlers, and youth. A nationally accredited organization in operation for 138 years, the center has given tens of thousands of children a stable start in life, thanks to the compassion of a group of San Diego pioneer women.
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