The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-01-20
EVENING CHAT
BY RUTH CAMERON.

With every new year, the woman who
had to earn all or part of her livelihood,
is finding new ways to do so and new
inches to fill.
Below are some of the latest and most
interesting ways to make herself useful
which she has discovered To the woman
who already found her niche in some bus
mess or professional work, or in home
making, hope these will be interesting
as showing what the other woman is do
ing. To the woman who is still without
her niche, perhaps some word may be
directly or even indirectly suggestive. 1
sincerely hope So for if there is any per-
son for whom 1 have a deep and never
decreasing well of sympathy, it is the
woman who has not yet found her niche
in the worlds work
A girl who was studying to be a teacher
had to give up her course because her
eyes gave out, and further study was a
definite impossibility. She is now earning
twice as much as most of her classmates
who completed the course and became
teachers. And her occupation is playmate
to invalid children. Through a series Of
happenings she found out that she seemed
to have a talent for playing with children,
and especially with lame and Slckly chill
dren. She was successful in getting such
unfortunates to try to use their limbs
when everyone else failed to persuade
them. Upon this talent she built UP her
profession After demonstrating her abil-
ity by her success in getting one child
who had been crippled by infantile para
lysis to use his limbs, she was widely
recommended by the boys physician. and
soon had every hour taken during six
days a week playmate to invalid chill
dren In some cases she encouraged and
helped the children in the use of their
limbs, so that they were eventually cured
In others where she could not cure, she
helped, and in still others simply man
aged to brighten an invalid's existence
and teach him to be more cheerful.
The talents required for such a profess
sion are unusual, but doubtless there are
a good many women who possess them,
and since the terrible scourge of infantile
-e,Ixr eli has xVOr Ia
probably be sadly many opportunities
for such work.
Many specialists in scientific and other
lines do not like to do all their reference
and routine work themselves. and clever,
we'll educated women are constantly find
ing opportunities in the line of looking up
references and arranging manuscripts
Somewhat similar to this is the work
which a woman I know is doing in collect
ing family records for national and his
torical societies and sometimes for family
use.
A letter friend sends in his description of
a decidedly unusual way in which one
woman earned some money:
Mrs S. is making a fair income by
travelling in towns where summer tourists
are wont to go and making it her bust
ness to find out what cottages are for
rent She then takes down a complete
description of them and of their surround
ings, number of rooms. size, color, etc,
and notes IL there are any repairs needed.
She then does a real estate agents busi-
ness, but being interested in her clients
and having more details at her finger
tips does the work in a much more In
dividual and careful way than ordi-
nary real estate agent.
A woman whose husband was a butch
er has conceived the idea OF using the
bones to make soup stock She puts il up
in neat glass jars and sells large quaint
ties. She says that being a butcher
wife is not necessary requirement for
such work but that any woman could
butchers in her vicinity for the use of
their waste and would, undoubtedly, make
good pin money this way.
Who knows but that 'Pin-money Soup
Stock may some day be a by-word tool