During WWII, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established plans for the rehabilitation of men disabled in combat. President Roosevelt emphasized a proactive approach, suggesting that the federal government, rather than private philanthropy, should assume primary responsibility for disabled veterans.

Specifically, for the blinded veterans, there were two hospitals in the country set up to provide medical services: Valley Forge General Hospital in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, and Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco. What was innovative was a plan to create a temporary rehabilitation center to train blinded veterans for jobs and help them return to their home communities after they were released from hospitals.

The location of the rehabilitation center was initially undecided. Mrs. Theodate Pope Riddle, the first woman architect in the US who lived in Farmington, made the U.S. Government an offer it couldn’t refuse.

In 1944, Mrs. Riddle, a close friend of President Franklin Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor, learned that the federal government was looking for a place to establish a rehabilitation center and training school for all veterans blinded during World War II. In 1926, Mrs. Riddle established a boarding school for boys called “Avon Old Farms School for Boys (AOF).” Following her decision to close the AOF for the remaining duration of the war, Mrs. Riddle offered the school and its campus to the U.S. Army for the rent of $1 per year.

Mrs. Riddle’s generosity provided the Army with a beautiful setting in which to fulfill its hope of serving blind veterans. On the AOF campus, the Old Farms Rehabilitation Hospital, SP, was established. Between July 1944 and December 1947, blind veterans returning home from the battlefront and subsequent hospital care in PA or CA were sent to Old Farms to prepare for jobs and civilian life. Each veteran who got off the bus and onto the campus was trained so that he could have confidence in moving about without sight and care for himself. Each veteran was tested for his strengths, aptitudes, and interests.

Regardless of the cost, veterans were trained for jobs that they had an interest in and were talented at pursuing. Some became psychologists, teachers, engineers, and mechanics. Some became state representatives, lawyers, and judges. Many were trained to work in local Hartford factories on assembly lines where they could use their hands and their mind's even if they had no vision.

The most important thing was that the staff encouraged the men to focus on their talents and abilities rather than their disability. The message from the hospital staff to the men was that most opportunities in life were still available to them; they only had to change the method they used to pursue them. Over 800 veterans lived on Avon Old Farms School’s campus and experienced the beautiful architecture and natural surroundings.