Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1916-09-14
TINE GIRL VINO LACKED LOVE.

TINE GIRL WHO LACKED LOVE.
| A telephone girl suicided the other
evening in Des Moines leaving diary
behind which revealed the cause of her
act. The diary began when she was
is and ends with her determination TO
die in her twenty-third year. 1t re-
veals a really fine character. She was
anxious to be a good girl and do some
thing true and useful. II begins with
the confession that she was very
homely, melancholy and with no sense
of humor or what is called style" COM
pares herself with her sister who lis
ambitious and popular and says Il
felt somehow always in the way She
wanted to earn her own living. When
she left her home in the country town
of Mount Pleasant she wrote in the
diary her aspirations for higher and
nobler and greater life and expressed
her sorrow that she must leave her
little happy home and associates"
] Some day." she said. when l am old
and gray l will look over this little
book and think Of those dear school
days memories" She was reading
! Shakespeare. She liked it better than
Chambers and Locke and London who
she concluded were not writers from
the heart but for money" And 80 she
went out into the world seeking en-
| pioyment and love and friendship. She
found the employment, She seems to
have failed to find the others. And
so the homely. melancholy school girl
with no sense of humor and no style
turned on the gas in disappointment
and went on out of the world that
| had looked 10 her so gloomy.
Girls like that need friends woman
| friends. 1t is rather sharp criticism
on human charity and happy woman
hood that this girl had no such friend
to lean upon. She needed some woman
with heart and understanding, some
personal friend. To be sure the "Y. W.
was open to her but with all its splen-
did service no institution can NIL the
place of personal friendship. And this
girl was worthy the notice and the time
and the real friendship and help of
good woman. She needed friend to
whom she might go and say the things
she wrote in her diary and who might
give her a new viewpoint wherefrom
70 see the world 20, il was pitiful. in
whole cityful, friend she had none.
There is more TO this than appears
on the surface. There are hundreds vi
girls who lack what the girl with tho
diary lacked, whose true womanliness
and fine character keep them home OF
nights and refuse the ordinary loves
ard friendships created and acquired
by the frivolous and careless, good
girls. who crave friends and seek love
unavailingly. And every one OF tnese
should have a good woman 10 whom
she may go in her depression and dis
appointments and thus gain new
strength and stimulated purpose. And
il is one of the duties of good women
to their sex. TO themselves and to So
cjety to see that such girls have such
friends.
II is a pitiful story. 1t hasn't faint
upon it of wrongdoing or wicked I'M
pulse She was homely. melancholy
seemed to be in the way. and lonely.
That seems 10 have been all. That sne
was morbid is not unnatural Men anu
women grow morbid when thrust back
uDon themselves. There is no loneh-
ness like that Of big town, not even
the loneliness of the sheep herders VINO
90 crazy in the vast silences of the
plains.
1t isn't enough to subscribe to fund'
II will not suffice TO assist IN paying
rent for working girls dormitorS.
remains still a duty and privilege
The good woman is still her sister
resner. This girl starved to death tor
friendship.