Attic Angel Community | 7
cusing on newborn care and wellness. Attic
Angel even offered free babysitting services
as parents attended the workshops to learn
about proper nutrition, hygiene and caring
for newborns. In a short time, infant mor-
tality rates dramatically declined. Yet, Attic
Angel didn’t solely focus on causes involv-
ing children. The group quickly realized
that there were a number of needy seniors
not only lacking in the necessities of life, but
they had little or no support from their own
families. By partnering again with a medical
team, Attic Angel created Dane County’s
first visiting nurse association, allowing chil-
dren, families and elderly to be screened for
health services in the comfort of their own
homes. In the course of this work, Drescher
says Attic Angel realized the community had
need of facilities to specifically cater to the
health and service needs of the communi-
ty’s senior segment. “There were senior care
centers that could be afforded by those who
were very wealthy and there was what people
called ‘poor farms’ that served the most im-
poverished, but there really wasn’t much else
between those extremes,” explains Drescher.
So in 1953, Attic Angel moved to estab-
lish a skilled nursing facility which offered
21 beds; needed operating services were
given by a large composite of volunteers who
mowed the yards, cleaned the rooms, pre-
pared the dinners and basically helped in
every way possible. While the world, much
as Madison, Wisconsin, has undergone a lot
of changes since 1953, Attic Angel has never
wavered from their mission to provide care
and support. Today, the mission of Attic An-
