Alice Robbins Celebrates 100 Years with Friends, Family at Linda Valley Villa

Surrounded by friends, family and local dignitaries, Linda Valley Villa resident Alice Robbins celebrated her 100th birthday. The life of the Cincinnati-born senior, born Jan. 25, 1914, was celebrated with a party fit for a queen, hosted by Linda Valley Villa, which drew family members and event leaders such as Loma Linda Mayor Rhodes Rigsby and California Assemblyman Mike Morrell, who all listened as Robbins's daughter, Joann, gave a history of her mother's life. Alice Sophia Hodde was born to William and Minnie Hodde in the suburb of Winton Place, Cincinnati, the second of four children - older brother William and younger siblings Alberta and Erwin. She attended Winton Place Grammar School for all eight grades, having some of the same teachers who had taught her father. She then attended and graduated from Mount Vernon Academy and went on to what was then known as Washington Missionary College (now known as Washington Adventist University). Robbins met her future husband, Leon Robbins, at college, after the two were introduced by Alice's friend, Marian Osborne (née Booth). Alice agreed to market the singing band Leon at that time was forming. "And so began the courtship of my parents, which culminated in marriage several years later when he graduated from the ministerial course in May of 1934," Alice's daughter Joann told the crowd. The family traveled throughout the country as Leon was called to minister in various locations. In 1946, the family relocated from the midwest to Spokane, Wash., where the family lived until 1948. During that year, Leon accepted a call to be on loan from Upper Columbia Conference to Kobe, Japan for evangelism. With a ship workers' strike going on at this time, Leon eventually made the journey by air to Japan in the fall of 1948, with his family following behind on a freighter loaded with lumber that sailed from Tacoma, Wash. that November. The family lived in a Japanese mansion on the side of a mountain overlooking the Kobe Bay. "I have that experience to thank for always wanting a home with a view, and several times I have been able to achieve that dream," Joann said during her presentation. While in Kobe, Leon held evangelistic meetings, started a new church and helped build the original church there. The family's live-in maid, then 18-year-old Kuniko-San, was later baptized and both Alice and Leon left money for her to attend Japan Missionary College, which she did. Years later, the family was able to once again establish contact with her, after Kuniko-San found the family via contacting the General Conference. Leon would go on to travel the world, through the Middle East to New York City, while his family returned to the United States by ship. On their trip home, the Alice and her children stopped in Los Angles to visit some of her old college friends, Joanne said. "I can still remember the impression that L.A.'s Union Station made on me, as this was 1950, and it was still relatively new," said Joann. "After visiting our friends who lived in Alhambra and driving on the newly completed San Bernardino freeway, we boarded the train to Phoenix, coming past Loma Linda, right by here, about a block away. I remember Mom pointing out to me that The College of Medical Evangelists, as Loma Linda University was then known, was right over there. Of course, this was long before the current Medical Center was built, but there were still enough buildings to be able to recognize the campus." Leon eventually became the pastor of Village Church in Walla Walla, Wash., and in the summer of 1953, Leon accepted a call to the New York Conference, pastoring the Syracuse and Albany churches there. In early 1957, Joann recalled, her parents traveled to South America, living in Montevideo, Uruguay before returning back to New York City in the 1960s. Eventually, Leon and Alice moved to Southern California. "[They were] serving pastorates in El Cajon, Escondido and Yucaipa among other places. They retired in Yucaipa, where my father taught a Sabbath School class, assisted by my mother, for 17 years," Joann said. In early 2006, the couple moved to Linda Valley Villa. Joann told the crowd, "My father loved it here, especially customizing his fruit drinks by punching the various levers. I think that there was a bit of the little boy in him! He left us that summer, early in June, and it has been almost eight years since then, and I know that my mother misses him, but she is comforted by the knowledge of that Great Reunion to come someday in heaven. I admire her positive attitude. She is not a complainer, and she is most appreciative of all the helpful people here on the staff, and she enjoys all of the good friends that she has made here, as well as friends from past times together." The celebration continued with entertainment and many happy and well wishes to Alice, who now joins several of her fellow seniors at Linda Valley Villa with the distinction of being 100 or older.