One Hundred Years of Service Through Community

This reader consists of diverse writings about Gould Farm, considered the nation’s oldest residential rehabilitation community. The Farm now assists those with persistent mental illness. Informed by a Christianity that was neither sectarian nor doctrinaire, yet steeped in the Sermon on the Mount, Will Gould and his wife, Agnes, founded the Farm in 1913. In addition to serving those who arrive at Gould Farm as “guests,” the Farm has assisted refugees during World War II, hosted civil rights activists in the 1950s and 1960s, and sponsored three Vietnamese brothers who fled their country in the 1970s. More recently, the Farm hosted a family navigating the loss of a loved one in Iraq.

One Hundred Years of Service Through Community includes essays, letters, and book excerpts about Gould Farm written over the last 100 years including pieces by theologian James Luther Adams, author Rosemary Antin, sociologist Henrik F. Infield, Haverford College’s Douglas V. Steere, and Appalachian Trail founder Benton MacKaye. The book also includes a story of a brief encounter in 1961 between a Gould Farm executive director, a guest, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.