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Original February–March 1960 donor cards from Angel View Crippled Children’s Foundation, Inc., Desert Hot Springs, California. Same hospital, same building campaign, eleven days apart. Sold as one pair.
The two cards
• No. 1693 — February 18, 1960
Donor: Bonnie Wardman
$16,584.26 for the Wardman Wing building fund
Address: Box 939, Whittier, Calif.
• No. 1707 — March 1, 1960
Donors: Mr. and Mrs. Aubrey Wardman
$4,100.00 for the Donation building fund
Address: Whittier, Calif.
Together: $20,684.26 in 1960, including a gift that put the family name on a hospital wing.
The hospital
Angel View started in 1954 on a natural hot mineral spring in Desert Hot Springs. Parents of children with polio wanted a place where the desert water — already used to ease arthritis and other pain — could help their kids recover. They named the charity after a pale rock formation on Mount San Jacinto that looked like an angel with outstretched wings. From the site you could see that “angel on the mountain.”
In 1955 they incorporated as a California nonprofit. Early help was local and practical: a donated well, money for casing, a new station wagon, a therapeutic pool, penny carnivals, charity balls, and a women’s auxiliary. A temporary clinic opened on Pierson Boulevard and used Miracle Hot Springs. Then a 52-bed rehabilitation hospital went up on Miracle Hill Road. The clinic was in use by February 1957; dedication followed that June.
The Wardmans were in that founding layer. They had helped subdivide Desert Hot Springs and donated about 26½ acres of hot-water land so the hospital had ground and springs to begin. These 1960 cards are the next chapter: cash for construction, and a Wardman Wing.
When the polio vaccine ended the emergency, Angel View did not close. It shifted to children and adults with orthopedic, neuromuscular, and intellectual disabilities. The organization still operates in the Coachella Valley.
Condition
Original printed acknowledgments, measuring 7.25” x 3.5”, each with the period photo of a child on a walker and the foundation’s appeal text. Numbered forms, typed donor and amount lines. Age toning, corner and edge wear, light staining, the Bonnie Wardman card has a crease and paper clip rust stain. These are receipts, not checks or deeds.
Ships sleeved and boarded as a pair.
