Hearthstone Alzheimer Care was founded in 1992 by Joan Hyde and John Zeisel. Our mission from the very beginning was "To Create Residential Treatment Environments Where People with Alzheimer's and Related Disorders Can Flourish."

Many wonderful people helped and inspired us along the way: First of all, our families, especially Jacqueline and Derwin, who supported us through the intense start-up period, brought their perspectives to the enterprise, and were patient during our many long work weeks over the years.
We owe a great debt of thanks to Nancy Mace, who created our unique training program, helped define our humanistic method of interacting with people with dementia when that was a novel approach, to the first group of staff (including Nancy Reed,

Carleen Brown and Kathy Monte), to our first attorney Joe Schmidt, to Bruce Tiedemann, who served as our accountant and advisor from day one, to David MacFadyen, who insisted on both sound business principles and a team approach, to Janet Pozen, who developed our family program, to Bill Keane, who continuously reinvigorated our sense of mission, and most of all to Melvin Shapiro, the angel who loaned us the start-up capital for what, back in 1992, was a very radical idea: Assisted Living for people with dementia.

Throughout our history we have been fortunate to have had hundreds of people who have shared the Hearthstone vision and helped it grow organically. Some of them are featured in the Hearthstone Team section.

In 1999 we gathered together staff from throughout the company and hosted our first corporate retreat. The goal of this meeting was to articulate our core values and chart our vision for the future. From that retreat we developed two manuals: "The Hearthstone Way" and "Managing the Hearthstone Way." Under the constant guidance of Sue Blackler, these documents continue today to set forth the unique Hearthstone approach. These two volumes function as both training manuals and "policies and procedures" while embodying the spirit of continuous growth and improvement that exemplifies the Hearthstone spirit of improving the quality of life for all who are a part of our extended family.